This summer, we have been awash with investigations into HS2: Kate Lamble presented Derailed: The Story of HS2, a 10-part series on Radio 4; Sally Gimson published her book Off the Rails: The Inside Story of HS2; and James Stewart produced his government-commissioned report Major Transport Projects Governance and Assurance Review: The HS2 Experience. All have long lists of reasons why HS2 has faced so many challenges, why costs have escalated and why the programme has been delayed.

Of the issues, politics is always mentioned, but as something negative and needing to be managed: a distraction to the main activity of building a big and important thing. Stewart has referred to the project needing a “political buffer” from national politicians that would allow HS2 Ltd to get on with the job of building.

But, instead of expecting a political buffer or political air cover to come from the top, what if we look at the question of politics in an entirely different way? What if we remember that improving people’s lives is the reason that we are building? Not just to build a grand projet for a politician’s ego, but building something that solves people’s problems.