Drone footage taken from points on Britain’s faltering High Speed Rail 2 project has revealed the enormous scars ripped into the countryside across the route with as ministers due to make a decision on the northern leg this week.

If all had gone to plan, Britain would be just two and a half years away from high-speed trains whizzing between London and Birmingham, cutting travel times by around 30 minutes.

Construction workers should now be putting the finishing touches to the network but instead, completion has been pushed from 2026 to 2029-33 and the budget has risen from £37.5billion to £98billion. 

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is reportedly so spooked by an £8billion jump in costs to complete the line to Birmingham that he is set to axe the Manchester leg which has been labelled a ‘gross act of vandalism’ and an ‘act of economic self-harm’ by former chancellor George Osborne. 

In an article for the Times newspaper with Tory grandee Lord Heseltine, the former Chancellor warned the Prime Minister about damaging Britain’s reputation and protecting his own legacy.

He wrote: ‘Governments are remembered for what they build and create. Make this mistake, and yours may only be known for what it cancelled and curtailed.’

Citing Boris Johnson‘s winning message in the 2019 election, they added: ‘How could ever again claim to be levelling up when you cancel the biggest levelling-up project in the country?’

Last week, the Mail sent a drone along the entire length of HS2. Photographs show many major points are still construction sites in their early stages.

Phil Marsh, who has worked in railway administration for 50 years, said: ‘These pictures show what a massive infrastructure project HS2 is and how dreadful it looks at the moment. There are earthworks, concrete mixers and haul roads on a vast magnitude, which creates a huge environmental and societal impact on our densely compacted country.’

Costs have spiralled, Mr Marsh said, due to the number of changes made. ‘Every time specifications are slightly altered, insiders tell me that contractors are basically sticking another million pounds in their back pockets.

‘If all this is for 30 minutes off the journey from London to Birmingham, it would be a complete waste of money.’

About one mile east of Lichfield and 15 miles north of Birmingham Curzon Street Station, HS2 veers northward.

Construction work is being carried out beneath the West Coast Main Line and amid Staffordshire farmland.

‘This is what is considered a ‘mission critical’ spot as any disruption to the West Coast Main Line might have cost millions,’ said Phil Marsh.

‘It looks fine, but the tracks still need to be laid.’

The Chiltern Tunnel ends to the west of Chesham and north of High Wycombe.

This is where the high-speed trains are due to travel above ground for a short distance before plunging into the 0.9-mile Wendover Tunnel.

‘This end of the tunnel through the Chilterns hasn’t been cut through yet so it’s just a wall of earth,’ said Christian Wolmar, who hosts the railway podcast Calling All Stations.

‘The twin tunnel-boring machines, Florence and Cecilia, still have about two miles to go.’

This one-mile tunnel travels beneath an ancient woodland and was completed in November last year – but at the cost of felling four ancient woods in nearby South Cubbington.

Work is still being carried out to handle 500,000 tons of mudstone at an on-site slurry treatment plant.

‘The hard work has been done with the major construction complete,’ said rail administrator Phil Marsh. ‘But there are the railway communications, drainage and signalling systems still to do.’

Covering ten miles, this will be the longest of the 500 tunnels dug for the HS2 line.

The underpass begins in the south near the M25 and then head north-west between the towns of Beaconsfield and Amersham. Railway podcast host Christian Wolmar said: ‘The tunnel is only about three-quarters finished.

‘Denham is a mess – an enormous building site with a car park for 1,000 cars and a concrete factory works for mixing concrete and making tunnel supports.’

Tory leadership rival Jeremy Hunt today refused to say whether Boris Johnson is ‘honest’ as he warned the Prime Minister has a ‘big mountain to climb’ in winning back Tory voters.

Mr Hunt, who ran against Mr Johnson for the Conservative leadership in 2019, once again refused to rule out another leadership challenge. 

But the former Cabinet minister insisted now was not the time for renewed efforts to topple Mr Johnson and said he ‘hoped’ the PM would lead the Tories into the next general election.

Mr Hunt’s comments will be seen as a warning shot to the PM – and a clear message to Tory MPs – that he is waiting in the wings should Mr Johnson continue to stumble.

The PM’s position in Number 10 has been put into serious peril by the Partygate scandal, which saw him fined for Covid rule-breaking in Downing Street.

This month’s local election results have also increased fears within Conservative ranks that the party could see its so-called ‘blue wall’ areas across southern England continue to fall to the Liberal Democrats and Labour.

Mr Johnson saw the Tories lose both the Chesham and Amersham and North Shropshire constituences to the Lib Dems in Westminster by-elections last year.

The Conservatives are now also facing a battle to keep hold of Tiverton and Honiton following the recent resignation of porn-watching Tory MP Neil Parish.

At the council elections on 5th May, the Tories lost control of 11 councils – with many of those being ceded to the Lib Dems and Labour – with the Conservatives also suffering the loss of close to 500 council seats.

Mr Hunt, a former foreign secretary and health secretary, today reiterated he could seek a return to the top-level of Government.

But he said the Ukraine war should provide ‘perspective’ on the feverish speculation about the PM’s leadership in the wake of Partygate.

‘I have said many times that I don’t rule out a return to frontline politics myself,’ he told the BBC’s Sunday Morning programme.

‘But I don’t think now is the right moment. Britain has been the most robust member of the Western alliance in the face of the first major war in Europe in our lifetimes.

‘I think the only person who would rejoice if we had a hiatus of several months in the leadership in Britain would be Vladimir Putin.

‘So I don’t think this is the moment for these discussions.’ 

The South West Surrey MP cast doubt on the PM’s ability to once again prove a Tory vote winner as he insisted it would be a ‘mistake’ to dismiss the party’s local election losses as ‘mid-term blues’.

He added: ‘The reason people vote Conservative is because they want economic growth, they want sound money, they want the prospect of lower taxes for their family.

‘None of those things are true at the moment. So the absolute priority for the Government must be to change from a high-inflation, low-growth economy to a low-inflation, high-growth economy.’

Asked if Mr Johnson was the best person to be Tory leader, Mr Hunt replied: ‘I hope he can turn things round because I don’t think this is the moment for a leadership contest.

‘But I would say this, I think the outcome of the next election will be decided not on personalities but on which party has the best long-term plans.

‘How do we defend democracy in a world where China is a bigger economy than the US? How do we spread wealth? How do we fix long-term problems in the NHS?’

Mr Hunt also dodged a question on whether Mr Johnson is ‘an honest man’.

He responded that ‘talking about personalities is not a helpful thing to do’, adding: ‘It’s a simple question but it’s not a helpful thing to do when I’ve just said we need to recognise the international situation is very serious and we need strong leadership from the PM we have.’

Mr Hunt called for fellow Tory MPs to ‘back the PM in the situation we’re in now’, as he described how the Ukraine was made it ‘impossible not to put things into perspective’.

He expressed his hope the party ‘can turn things round under the PM’s leadership’.

Asked if this meant he backed Mr Johnson to lead the Tories into the next general election, scheduled for 2024, Mr Hunt replied: ‘I very much hope so.’

Pressed on whether he would rather be the Conservative leader as the party sought to keep hold of its House of Commons majority, he added: ‘I know you would like to create a suggestion I would want something different, but I really hope we can (turn things around).

‘But I do also hope we recognise that in order to do that we have a big mountain to climb in terms of winning back the support of many of our core voters – not just in the south of England, but particularly in the south of England – who are very concerned at the situation we’re in.’

Lib Dem MP Sarah Olney branded Mr Hunt ‘too cowardly to say what everyone else in Britain is thinking’ over the PM’s honesty.

‘Boris Johnson is a serial liar and not fit to govern this country,’ she added.

‘It is time Jeremy Hunt carried out his patriotic duty and called time on Boris Johnson as Prime Minister.

‘As a Surrey MP he should know the sheer anger felt in former Conservative heartlands at this Government.

‘From Chesham and Amersham to last week’s local election results, it is clear the public have had enough.’

MUST READS

By Jane Shilling for the Daily Mail

Published: 17:22 EDT, 20 April 2023 | Updated: 17:22 EDT, 20 April 2023

Most eight-year-old boys have to be reminded to wash their hands. But not Theo Panteli.

For the past three years, Theo has been hooked on a rigorous routine of scrubbing them at the sight of a tiny speck of dust, often several times an hour.

Each time it has to be exactly 20 seconds – as long as it takes to sing Happy Birthday twice, which he picked up from an announcement by Boris Johnson, the former Prime Minister, at the height of the pandemic.

And it’s not just his hands. Theo won’t drink out of cups at school, even if they are clean. He asks other children to keep at least 2ft away from him when they’re ill. He won’t even hold the hand of family members.

All of these behaviours are driven by a fear of catching a virus which could harm him or his family. They are also the classic symptoms of the mental health condition called obsessive compulsive disorder, or OCD.

Sufferers experience intrusive, unpleasant thoughts and attempt to tackle the anxieties with repetitive behaviours.

The type of behaviours are dependent on the nature of the fear. Studies show that in around 40 per cent of cases, the fear is contamination. Other common examples include worries about being burgled, resulting in obsessive checking of locks on windows and doors.

The condition can often be triggered by traumatic life events. In Theo’s case, this was the Covid pandemic, which began when he was just five.

‘As a baby, he didn’t have these problems,’ says his mother, Tas, a 31-year-old part-time medical secretary from Hertfordshire. ‘Then Covid turned Theo’s life upside down. He would follow everything that was happening in the news about the pandemic because he wanted to know when he could see his family and go back to school.

‘That’s when he started washing his hands obsessively – I think because he thought it would help get things back to normal.

‘He was really excited to go back to school and see his friends. However, his fear of germs hasn’t gone. He is still worried there will be another lockdown.’

Theo has been referred to see a local mental health specialist but the family has been told to expect a long wait before an appointment.

Alarmingly, Theo is not alone. Experts have told The Mail on Sunday of concerns about a recent rise in contamination-related obsessive compulsive disorder among school children. In many cases, they say, the problem was sparked by the events of 2020 and 2021. Some have warned that NHS mental health services could be dealing with this growing tide of OCD for years to come.

‘Public safety promoting social distancing and mask-wearing had a much more pronounced effect on children than most people expected,’ says Dr Zenobia Storah, a Manchester-based consultant child psychologist.

‘I still regularly see children with red-raw hands from the amount of handwashing they do and kids who refuse to go to school because they’re afraid of catching something. It’s worrying because OCD can stay with them for the rest of their lives.’

The Mail on Sunday has heard from parents with children as young as three who use antibacterial handwash compulsively and avoid other children for fear of catching a virus.

Around 750,000 people in the UK live with OCD. Of those, an estimated 35,000 are children.

The condition can strike at any age, but it typically develops in childhood. Some are able to manage their compulsions with treatment, which usually involves regular sessions of cognitive behavioural therapy with a psychologist and, sometimes, antidepressants.

But, in half of cases, treatment fails to keep the condition under control and patients remain unable to do everyday activities such as socialising and going to work. Some sufferers struggle to even leave the house.

It is not the first time that a global health crisis has triggered a rise in contamination-related OCD.

‘We’ve seen increases in contamination OCD at points where infectious diseases are in the national conversation,’ says Dr Emma Citron, a private clinical psychologist in London. ‘It was documented during the AIDS epidemic, along with the swine flu outbreak in 2009.

‘While the behaviour of someone with OCD may be irrational, the basis of their anxiety is often genuine. But this anxiety can lead to intrusive thoughts about the worst possible outcome.

‘Eventually sufferers reach a point where they believe if they touch something dirty or don’t wash their hands properly, something bad is going to happen.’

In the first six months of 2020, when Covid was rife, OCD referrals to mental health services rose significantly in several countries. And many of those who have already been diagnosed found that their symptoms either returned or got worse.

In the UK, there was a startling rise in the condition among children. One study, carried out at Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust, revealed that the number of children referred to mental health services for OCD rose by more than 30 per cent on the previous year. Meanwhile, nearly 70 per cent of children with OCD became more unwell. The researchers noted that many reported fears of infection and contamination by Covid.

Three years on, experts are still seeing children with these fears.

‘We’re still regularly treating children with contamination fears that originated in Covid,’ says India Haylor, head therapist at the London clinic OCD Excellence. ‘We’ve found that kids under ten were susceptible to the public safety messages used during the pandemic.

‘These are formative years. Now that they’ve grown up a bit, these patterns of behaviour have become set in stone.’

Ms Haylor adds that these children have been especially difficult to treat. ‘Usually we explain to children that their behaviour isn’t good for them,’ she says. ‘But I’ve had kids who say, “But the Government says I should be doing this.” ’

OCD commonly begins to develop around the age of five, with symptoms becoming pronounced by six or seven, according to studies. However, experts are concerned about an unusual focus on cleanliness in some of today’s three- and four-year-olds.

While it may not be full-blown OCD, these children are at higher risk of developing it in the future, they say.

Ms Haylor says: ‘You can’t treat a three-year-old for OCD because they’re too young to really understand what they’re doing, but you can treat the mum or dad who are the source of the anxiety.

‘Young children pick up the behaviour of their parents very quickly, so you’ve got to be super scrupulous to make sure nervous behaviour isn’t passed on.’

One child affected by the fallout from the pandemic is three-year-old Stella Jones, daughter of Sofia Jones, 30, a solicitor from London.

‘She was born during Covid and all she has known since then is a world which is hyper-focused on cleanliness,’ says Sofia.

‘I carried antibacterial handwash everywhere with me during the pandemic, and now Stella wants to use it too. She’ll point at the bottle and keep gesturing until I give it to her. It’s got to the point where I’ve had to buy Stella her own one to keep her calm.’

Sofia says that despite the fact her daughter is too young to understand what germs are, she is already showing signs of anxiety over hygiene. ‘When I’d come home from work during Covid, I’d always wash my hands thoroughly before I touched Stella because I’d been on the Tube.

‘Now she always wants her hands washed too. When she is eating and gets stuff on her hands, she’ll hold them out for me to clean them. She doesn’t know what Covid is but she sees crumbs and dirt and gets concerned. It feels like she associates dirt with bad things.’

Sofia adds: ‘She’s at an age where I’m beginning to worry if this is a permanent thing. I worry that she’ll miss out on fun childhood things like finger painting and playing in the playground. I don’t want her to become obsessive about cleaning, like me.’

There is also concern that schools are still encouraging an obsessive relationship with hygiene.

‘We’re still hearing about schools telling children they need to wash their hands before every class,’ says Arabella Skinner of the parent group Us For Them. ‘All this does is terrify children and make them believe that their bodies are dangerous and can kill others.’

The problem is compounded by the dearth in mental health services for young children, experts say.

Recent research, carried out by the political magazine The House, suggests that a quarter of a million mentally unwell children in the UK can’t access the services they need.

This is largely due to the unprecedented rise in referrals since March 2020.

NHS figures show that, prior to the pandemic, the number of children aged six to 16 with a mental health problem was one in nine – that figure is now one in six.

‘This rise in OCD cases has come at a time when it is more difficult than ever to get treatment on the NHS,’ says Dr Storah. ‘It’s really concerning, because most mental illnesses need to be tackled early.’

Dr Storah adds that half of all life-long mental health conditions develop by the age of 14.

But some children can overcome their contamination fears.

Six-year-old Vivaana Doodhmal became highly anxious about infection control during the pandemic. Her mum, Jeroo, 39, an author from London, says: ‘There was a lot of uncertainty about how you could be catch Covid at the beginning, and I think I passed on my anxieties and paranoia.

‘Eventually Vivaana became fearful of other people and would ask to cross the street if anyone was walking towards us. She wouldn’t want to play with other kids or touch mud and grass. And she would wash her hands all the time, while singing the Happy Birthday song twice, just like they were taught in nursery.’

Eager to calm her daughter’s anxieties, Jeroo wrote a book, called Pip & Henry’s Bug Hunt, which tries to explain the difference between ‘naughty bugs’ – such as Covid – and ‘good bugs’ that children come into contact with every day and are harmless.

‘It helped her realise that the world isn’t a scary place filled with evil creepy crawlies,’ says Jeroo. ‘That, combined with our more relaxed attitude after vaccination, meant that Vivaana got over the anxieties.

‘She’s quite a fearless kid now and loves playing with her friends.’