Britain is a small country and even smaller without Scotland. To travel from one end to the other doesn’t take very long, and whatever the leader of Manchester City Council says, shaving an hour off the journey from London, Euston to  Manchester, Piccadilly won’t address the imbalance in the nation’s economy, as he claimed in today’s Times.

Despite an attempt by the transport sectary to stress that the first phase of the high-speed line – from London Euston to Birmingham – will benefit other destinations, today’s announcement is not about linking up Britain but a misguided attempt to make trains imitate planes.

But the advantage of trains- which HS2 seems to have missed - is that they go over land and therefore can stop in lots of different places. If the government really is committed to localism this is exactly what investment in a new train service should deliver,

As a swift look at areas of deep poverty and high unemployment show only too well, it’s places that are not on the straight line from London to Birmingham or Manchester that need help. Cities like Hull, for example, which despite the millions of pounds of regeneration money pumped into it over the years, remains Britain’s least prosperous and second most socially deprived city.

This is because -like many others- Hull’s chief problem is that it is rather remote, with poor transport links. Meanwhile, towns like Folkestone are among the seaside towns whose fortunes are being reversed by a new train service which is seeing property prices rise and business flourish.

If we’re to spend £33 billion on infrastructure we need a system that’s not simply judged on speed but one that will be as pioneering as the building of the railway network was in the Victorian period. This means putting the needs of passengers first, not those of politicians or their vanity projects.

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