来源：《每日电讯报》
原文刊登日期：2023年2月12日
A prime example of the British establishment’s commitment to failure is HS2. Even when it was first approved by Parliament, the business and economic case for the new high-speed rail line was extraordinarily weak. Now, with its budget ballooning and rail travel potentially in structural decline because of post-lockdown shifts in working habits, the argument for this absurd white elephant has completely evaporated.
英国建制派注定失败的一个典型例子是高铁2号线。即使在议会首次批准这条新的高铁线路时，商业和经济方面的理由也非常薄弱。现在，其预算急剧膨胀，且由于疫情封锁后工作习惯的改变，铁路出行需求可能出现结构性下降，支持这一荒谬的昂贵而无用的工程的理由完全消失了。
Reports that ministers are planning to order yet another review into HS2 are therefore welcome. It would be a mistake, however, if this were limited merely to examining whether stretches of the line should be scrapped or whether the project’s completion date should be delayed even further. As with previous proposals to reduce runaway costs – for example, by cutting the speed at which the trains run – the result could be a project more deformed and useless than it already is.
因此，有报道称，部长们正计划下令再一次审查高铁2号线，这是受欢迎的。然而，如果这仅仅局限于审查是否应该取消部分线路，或者是否应该进一步推迟项目完工日期，那将是一个错误。与以往降低失控成本的提议一样(例如，通过降低列车运行速度)，其结果可能是一个比现在更畸形、更无用的项目。
This exercise would only be worthwhile if it amounts to a re-examination from first principles of the entire scheme. The options considered should include cancelling it entirely, writing off the vast sums of money that have already been spent, and apologising to the people who have been disrupted by its construction.
只有从整个计划的基本原则开始重新审查，重审工作才有价值。考虑的选项应该包括完全取消该项目，已经花费的巨额资金一笔勾销，并向因其建设而受到影响的人们道歉。
Such an outcome might well be embarrassing to the political class, which has been almost united in supporting the project. But it would surely be more embarrassing to press ahead with an exorbitantly expensive infrastructure scheme that few people want, nobody needs, and may well prove technologically redundant by the time it is finally finished.
这样的结果可能会让几乎一致支持该项目的政治阶层感到尴尬。但是，推进一个几乎没有人想要、没有人需要、而且在最终完工时很可能被证明在技术上是多余的昂贵基础设施计划，肯定会更令人尴尬。