Oakervee report reveals a lack of detail and strategy

摘要

ONE day, there will be a superb book to be written about the shenanigans over the decision whether to build HS2 or not. Every weekend, there were predictions that this would at last be the week when puffs of white smoke would emerge from the roof of Downing Street to announce the fate of the controversial project. But instead we had endless partial leaks of what was in the Oakervee report, or rather what it was going to say until the civil servants got their mucky paws all over it. Now, finally, we have a result... sort of. I say that because there are clearly a lot of known unknowns. Moreover, there was no written statement, only the usual flim-flammery from Boris Johnson, containing a few nuggets of information. No one can accuse him of being a details man, so a lot has been left unclear.