"Déjà moo - same bull different day!" Mancs have their say on the HS2 fiasco

Ever since Rishi Sunak got to his feet at the Tory party conference on Wednesday and told us what we already knew - that the Manchester leg of HS2 was cancelled - it was the signal for an unstoppable runaway train of strong opinions.

Of fury, world-weary cynicism and, yes, some very pithy Manc humour.

On successive stories and opinion pieces published by the M.E.N. - from the original decision to the political fall-out to the questions about the prime minister's promise to use £36 billion of savings from scrapping sections of HS2 to fund a raft of other transport schemes - our readers weren't slow to post messages and tell us precisely what they thought of it all.

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There was plenty of anger aimed at the Tories, but the gamut of opinion was broad, including scepticism that HS2 was a worthwhile way to spend public money and cynicism that Labour - leader Sir Kier Starmer has refused to commit building the northern leg of HS2 - would do any better.

"Déjà moo... same bull different day," wrote Oxblood 67, summing up a cynicism about British politics which was expressed in different ways by many of our readers.

Greenbus wrote: "No HS2 but lots of cheaper, quicker transport projects for the North? Like a tram for Leeds? That has been promised several times over the past 40 years and repeatedly scrapped. Better round up a fleet of flying pigs over Westminster and use them instead!"

BlueMan said: "Hands up anyone that would have used the faster route to London had it been built? (What's that you say, you can't afford it now, let