THIS IS A PASSENGER ANNOUNCEMENT : FEARS are rising in the Westminster Village tonight that Dominic Raab was involved in the planning of the HS2 rail infrastructure after a deep misunderstanding of geography was revealed in the heart of government.
A Tory MP no one had ever seen before spoke to the press earlier today to reassure everyone that the North was still getting the much promised “levelling up” that PM Johnson used to win over Red Wall seats.
“The HS2 train line goes to Watford,” Meat Puppet Lobby Fodder Surprised To Get A Call For Telebobs MP told a breathless country. “And even a few miles beyond. That’s well north that is.”
While it’s often said that Southerners believe the North begins at the Watford Gap there was an expectation that the cabinet knew different.
“It’s not a problem,” a 10 Downing Street source told LCD Views. “We’re going to have Sajid Javid use the same magic he has on hospitals to declare any existing rail station from the Midlands up a brand new HS2 station. Then he’ll take a walk along the Victorian rail lines and declare them new too. It couldn’t be simpler. Just think of the savings to the public purse? Money that can then be spent on unusable PPE. It’s a win-win.”
Whether or not the sleight of hand will work remains to be seen, although Downing Street appear confident that the lack of actual high speed rail will mean it will take ages for anyone to get down to London to complain.
“By the time they fork out hundreds to crawl to the capital the news cycle will have moved on,” the source explains. “There’s bound to be another political catastrophe for Johnson pulling into Westminster any moment.”
The PM is to intervene too to calm things down by using a historical reference.
“Boris will say the modified HS2 plans are a renewed harrying of the North! And everyone should be very pleased about it. If that doesn’t work it’s bad luck, as by the time he’s finished speaking he will have lost interest.”