Hs2

George Osborne is not relinquishing his love for High Speed 2 anytime soon. On his welcome return to television this morning, Andrew Marr gave the Chancellor a grilling over the new line. Osborne in return defended the government's position both on monetary and ideological grounds. With the most recent costings of £50 - 80 billion thrown around, the Chancellor added some clarity on how much he will authorise for construction of the new line: ‘We have set the budget for £42bn for the construction costs. That includes, by the way, a big contingency. As we demonstrated with the Olympic Games, we can deliver these big projects actually sometimes under budget. I think we have got a good budget, which has got a very big contingency in it, we've set a budget.

As if many true blue parts of England didn't dislike the Chancellor enough, today's Financial Times adds to his misdemeanours renewed support for High Speed 2. Their splash (£) reports that despite fresh concerns from Treasury officials over the sums, George Osborne is still pushing ahead with the new line. According to the pink 'un, Osborne sees the project as 'an emblem of the coalition's commitment to spread growth more evenly across the country'. I'm sure many of his fellow Tories will be disappointed that he isn't backtracking instead. Osborne's rallying cry doesn't drown out the scary new figure that the FT has for the cost of HS2.

Why is David Cameron still backing High Speed 2? It’s controversial inside his party and divisive in the Tory heartlands. Despite a government task force set up to promote the business case for the new railway, the anti-HS2 brigade are winning the war of the words, as evidenced by Fleet Street's recent attacks on the project. The Mail on Sunday splashed yesterday with leaked analysis on how HS2 is going to result in vast amounts of disruption in beautiful parts of the country. Not exactly a new revelation but the full impact of the construction is only being realised now. With this knowledge, Melissa Kite argues in the Guardian today that Cameron is only pushing ahead with the railway to engage in some good old class warfare.

The business case for HS2 is falling apart, and with it the political consensus. Vince Cable has today become the latest one to say that the case is not made. Wednesday's Newsnight put together transport experts who suggested that the taxpayer would get 50p or 60p of benefit for every £1 spent. (HS2 started by claiming a £2.60/£1 ratio). The ex-Transport Secretary, Philip Hammond, said that £1.50 would be his breaking point). Inside government, jokes are made about how David Cameron and (to a greater extent than you'd think) George Osborne are in denial about the implosion of this grand project. Labour had been supportive (thanks to the continuing evangelism of Andrew Adonis) but today's FT has Ed Balls saying there will be "no blank cheque" for HS2.

‘Does anyone seriously doubt that this amazing scheme is actually going to go ahead?’ boomed Boris Johnson last week. ‘No is the answer!’ He was waxing rhetorical about the redevelopment of Battersea Power Station, the fourth such scheme since the landmark hulk’s turbines were switched off in 1975. The Malaysian consortium behind this £8 million gamble are ignoring both the site’s troubled history and my own advice — which was to lose the shopping mall plans and start digging for minerals — by going for a full-blown residential-retail-office complex that’s a sure sign of economic optimism, underpinned by mayoral enthusiasm.

It is interesting enough that Boris Johnson has attacked high-speed rail in today's Telegraph: the Mayor is undermining the priorities of the current government (while attacking Labour a little too), and reminding them that they are dithering on aviation policy. He warns that the project's costs will balloon to well over £70 billion. But the Mayor makes one very important comment about the government machine that should not go unnoticed. He writes: Talk to the big construction firms, and they will tell you the problem is not the cost of actually digging and tunnelling and putting in cables and tracks. Those are apparently roughly the same wherever you are in the world.

The National Audit Office has slammed High Speed 2 today, citing a £3.3 billion ‘black hole’ in the funding plans while suggesting the construction timetable is ‘over-ambitious.’ Not exactly an overwhelming vote of confidence, but does this mean the project is dead in the water? Far from it — it’s more likely to happen than even an EU referendum. The hybrid HS2 bill (to ensure the project is speedily moved along) was prominent in the Queen’s Speech for this parliamentary session. When I was travelling along the proposed route, even the most ardent fighters have conceded the line will be built. As one remarked to me: 'all we can do now is maximise our compensation'.

The useful thing about most court rulings in judicial review cases is that both sides can take from it whatever they want and make it into a victory. We had that last month with the work experience judgement, which was apparently both a victory for those who thought the government's scheme was 'slave labour' and for those ministers who thought it was brilliant. And today's HS2 ruling in the High Court had the same effect. The government actually won nine out of the 10 points challenged by campaigners, so Transport Minister Simon Burns could call this a 'green light' to getting high speed rail underway. But according to former Cabinet minister Cheryl Gillan, that 10th point was in fact 'the most serious of all', and shows ministers have been 'cocky'. So what has happened?