The chronic confusion over HS2 threatens to derail the Conservatives’ party conference

Editorial: A dismembered high-speed train line will rightly be remembered as a monument to national failure – one that deserves the disdain of the British electorate

(Dave Brown)

In the not-so-distant past, the annual pre-party conference interviews with regional radio stations were fairly routine, uneventful affairs.

They gave journalists from across the country a rare opportunity to ask a party leader, and especially the prime minister of the day, about issues that particularly affected their patch. The leaders, in turn, were able to increase their “reach” and maximise publicity. Win-win.

But then the Conservative Party seemed to forget how to do politics, and a session with a presenter from, say, a breakfast show in the South West took on the quality of an inquisition in a medieval star chamber equipped with a Judas Cradle.