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Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots, The Spectators Daily and sometimes more than daily politics

podcast. I'm Katie Balls and I'm joined by James Forsyfe and Isabel Hardman. So there are many

government decisions looming and one of the biggest is the future of HS2, the high-speed rail link.

There's a report today in their financial times that the government commission review,

that report is currently unpublished, is going to suggest that on balance, HS2 should go ahead.

However, it is heavily caveated. There is a point in it that the cost could sort of

$106 billion, and there are other issues in terms of further concerns.

James, is this a sign that it is going to happen?

Or what is the process from this report?

I think this review leaves the decision very much up to Boris Johnson.

It doesn't come back saying it should definitely go ahead.

It's going to provide great economic benefit to the West Midlands, nor does it come back saying you must scrap

this now because the cost are totally, in the cost they're going to just spiral even further

than the extra 20 billion. I think there is a real question here about HST2, which is how did the cost end up

tripling? You know, what was going on? And someone I know who is very supportive of Hs 2 as a project

has been saying for a while, but there is an Hs2 management problem here, which is going to end up

sucking public support for the project. I think the political difficulty for Boris Johnson is obvious,

which is however tempting it is to scrap this because of the amount of money, it would

free up to spend on other projects. And you've already had Tory MPs in northern seats saying,

...