People of the North - your government takes you for fools!

Where to begin?

Clearly the Secretary of State for Transport takes the good burghers of the North for fools!

This tosh from the DfT…

Network Rail will receive up to £5 million to develop proposals for embedding digital technology between Manchester and York…

£5m? Five million quid! That's a rounding error in DfT's weekly budget

Does Marsham Street really believe that such largess for an important and complex study will have the flat cap wearing whippet owners dancing in the streets?

And then..

Developing proposals for digital-control on the TransPennine route is to be paid for from a £450 million digital railway fund announced by the Chancellor in the Autumn Statement last year.

So it's not even new money. It's another re-announce.

And it still doesn't properly confirm what is happening with the wires!

Of course to add insult to injury the release then bangs on about how much money has already been invested in the Capital's rail network.

On the London Underground 3 lines already have in-cab signalling, which has meant trains can safely run closer together.

Also in the capital, the Thameslink programme will use digital technologies so 24 trains per hour can run through the centre of the city from December 2018 on just 2 tracks with 2 platforms. Crossrail trains will also run with in-cab signalling.

'Tin eared' doesn't even begin to describe it.

Team May had better pull a better rabbit out of the hat at conference in Manchester next week, otherwise they can kiss goodbye to any hope of a Tory recovery in the North.