Disbelief at plan to fix London potholes as part of Network North project

£235m funding for capital’s roads is possible only because of investment that comes from scrapping northern leg of HS2

“It’s like a bad Christmas cracker joke,” said one northern leader in England as the government announced its latest Network North transport project: fixing potholes in London.

The punchline, said Kim McGuinness, Labour’s candidate to be the mayor of north-east England, isn’t even funny. It’s “Tories celebrating widening the widening north/south divide”.