I have spent the better part of my life watching the political class engage in a perpetual, synchronized dance of failure, but rarely does the music stop long enough for one of them to say something so profoundly stupid that I actually spill my coffee. This week, however, the Labour government, channeled through the reporting of Faisal Islam, has managed this feat. The headline alone is a masterpiece of unintentional comedy: 'Why the Northern Powerhouse Rail plan will really go ahead this time.'

Note the phrasing. 'Really go ahead this time.' It is the desperate plea of a serial adulterer promising that, no, seriously, the fidelity starts now. It is the language of a gambling addict explaining why this specific horse, despite having three legs and a glitter addiction, is the sure thing. The premise of the report is that the Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR)—that mythical beast promised to the freezing commuters of Manchester, Leeds, and Liverpool—is finally moving from the realm of fantasy to reality. And why? What is the magical ingredient that Labour has introduced to the mix? What engineering marvel or economic miracle have they uncovered?

According to the summary, the difference is that 'the planning has come first.'

Let that sink in. Let it marinate in the cynical recesses of your brain. The revolutionary, game-changing strategy for a multi-billion-pound infrastructure project is that they decided to plan it before building it. This is being presented not as an admission of previous gross negligence, but as a shiny new selling point. It forces us to ask the terrifying question: What exactly was happening before? Were the Tories just wandering into the Pennines with shovels and a vague sense of direction? Were previous transport ministers simply throwing darts at a map of Yorkshire and hoping a high-speed line would spontaneously sprout from the moors like heather?

The arrogance of the Left here is matched only by the historical incompetence of the Right. Labour is preening about 'planning' as if they have invented the concept of foresight, while the Right spent the last decade treating the North of England like a discarded Sims City save file. We watched the slow, agonizing death of HS2, a project that was whittled down from a transformative network to a very expensive shuttle service between a suburb of Birmingham and a suburb of London. The Conservatives promised a 'Northern Powerhouse,' a phrase so hollow it echoed, and delivered absolutely nothing but cancelled meetings and PowerPoint presentations. They treated infrastructure investment like a game of three-card monte, shuffling funds around until the public forgot what they were originally promised.

Now, we have the new guard. They assure us that *this time* is different. Faisal Islam reports that the government argues this rigorous 'planning first' approach avoids the piecemeal disasters of the past. But I look at this and I see the same bureaucratic hydra, just wearing a red tie instead of a blue one. The assertion that 'planning' solves the issue ignores the fundamental reality of British politics: the plan is never the problem. The problem is the people. The problem is a political system so paralyzed by short-termism, NIMBYism, and Treasury penny-pinching that it costs more to build a mile of track in England than it does to colonize Mars.

To believe that NPR will 'really go ahead' because someone made a better spreadsheet is to ignore the last fifty years of British history. The 'planning' phase is simply the appetizer to the main course: the 'Public Inquiry' phase, followed by the 'Budget Blowout' phase, concluding with the 'Cancellation and Scapegoating' phase. Labour isn't offering a solution; they are offering a delay tactic dressed up as prudence. By focusing on the 'planning,' they buy themselves three or four years of quiet before they have to admit that they, too, cannot afford to tunnel through the Pennines because the economy has tanked again.

It is deeply insulting to the intelligence of the voter. The North doesn't need 'planning'; it needs concrete and steel. It needs a government that doesn't view infrastructure as a performative art piece. But that is not what we have. We have a political duopoly where one side is too incompetent to build and the other is too cautious to start. The Tories were the chaotic builders who started a kitchen renovation and left you with no sink and a hole in the wall; Labour are the architects who spend six years discussing the shade of white for the cupboards but never actually order the wood.

So, spare me the optimism. Spare me the analysis of why the legislative sequencing makes this attempt viable. Until I am physically sitting on a train moving at 125 miles per hour between Liverpool and Hull, eating a stale sandwich that costs twelve pounds, I will assume the Northern Powerhouse remains what it has always been: a ghost story told to voters to keep them docile in the dark.