HS2 was an act of vandalism from the very beginning

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Ancient woodlands have fallen to this hideous scar – if that isn’t vandalism I don’t know what is (PA Archive)

George Osborne and Michael Heseltine recently described the cancelling of the Birmingham to Manchester stretch of HS2 as “a gross act of vandalism”.

I describe the entire project as a gross act of vandalism against our beautiful landscape and the precious wildlife within it. Ancient woodlands have fallen to this hideous scar – if that isn’t vandalism I don’t know what is.

If the north does see the cruel impact of the line on their beautiful environment, as we have done, they may not feel so sure its limited benefit is worth a yard of it.

As we sink ever further into the degradation of our natural world, HS2 is utter folly, and cripplingly expensive folly at that.

Penny Little

Oxfordshire

No HS2? You don’t know how lucky you are

For every one of the urban-centric objectors to Rishi Sunak’s decision to curtail HS2, there’s another out here in the UK’s rural areas who frankly couldn’t give a hoot whether the city’s travellers could shave 20 minutes off their trip to another city.

We’re still waiting for a reliable, cost-effective, and comprehensive public transport system that doesn’t involve standing in the rain on a grassy verge hoping a bus appears to take us to an increasingly sporadic and strike-bound rail “service”.

Sorry everyone, but you’re going to have to get over yourselves and accept that you’ll just have to spend another 20 minutes moaning on social media about our “medieval transport infrastructure”. Whether Sunak is going to spend the money he saves on us is a forlorn hope I suspect. I don’t think he knows we exist either!

Steve Mackinder

Denver

Working for who?

As sick days at work hit the highest level for 10 years, in my opinion, the origin of this crisis lies in the fact that people are sick of working tirelessly, only to see all their money disappear in bills every month. It’s both deflating and degrading that people now are simply working flat out just to exist.

That is not sustainable, so the result is more stress and more sickness. The scale of the problem is only going to grow as we drop further into the government’s economic abyss.

Dale Hughes

Address Supplied

What justice?

So our hard-pressed courts are going to be devoting weeks to a retrial of Lucy Letby over one count of attempted murder. Letby, as everyone knows, has already been sentenced to a whole life term for seven murders and seven attempted murders.

Meanwhile, hundreds of people are suffering and having to wait for up to five years before having a case brought to trial because the courts are too busy.

So much for justice.

D Maughan Brown

York

The drooping English flags are just the start

Having lived in Scotland most of my life, I keep being told by friends and family in England that the whole momentum for Scottish independence has fizzled since Nicola Sturgeon went.

In the area of Warwickshire where I was originally born, I find I’m scared to put my feet into the river in case of raw sewage, my elderly relatives seem to be at the mercy of a failed social care sector, prescriptions, and dentistry – even on the NHS – are prohibitively expensive, the Brexit cult is madder than ever, the attitude to asylum seekers and the desperate generally is cruel and inhumane.

The only noticeable thing about many of the obviously failing small towns is the drooping English flags.

Sunak and his ilk are either using the last days of this miserable government to enrich themselves (the inheritance tax proposal is one example) or getting themselves cushy jobs with the media moguls who enabled them.

I cannot think of one single reason why anyone living in Scotland would not want to cut from England and re-join the EU, given the chance.

Amanda Baker

Edinburgh