Chris Mason: Big decisions await as HS2 row simmers on

The government is in an almighty bind.

It is now nearly a fortnight since the legendary political photographer Steve Back managed to get a picture of a government document held under the arm of a government official in public.

Pounced upon by The Independent, it revealed that the prime minister and the chancellor had met and the costs of HS2 were on the agenda.

Ever since, ministers have not been able to answer a straight question: will the line ever run its full intended length, between Manchester and London, or not?

All a little awkward when the Conservative Party Conference, yes, in Manchester, is getting under way this coming weekend.

Awkward if much of the line to and from Manchester is ditched or delayed before the conference.

• What is HS2 and why could part of it be cancelled?

• Backlash against scrapping HS2 rail link grows

• Government refuses to commit to Manchester HS2 leg

But awkward too if there is no answer and it follows ministers around all week before they go, and then follows them around all week in Manchester.

Is it really sustainable for them to fob off questions about it with non-answers for weeks on end?

I am told the conversation between Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt that the photographed document referred to was in the context of the Autumn Statement, the budget in all but name, that is a couple of months away.

Political photographer Steve Back snapped this shot of the document held under the arm of a government official: Copyright PoliticalPics

In other words, they hadn't intended to make an announcement yet.

But governing is rarely as smooth as that, particularly with pesky photographers about.

I hear further meetings about a decision are happening as soon as today, as the carriage-load of critics get noisier.

The latest to board: two senior Conservatives seen as champions of the north of England - George Osborne and Lord Heseltine.

The former chancellor and deputy prime minister respectively write in The Times that scrapping the leg between the West Midlands and Manchester would be a huge mistake.

"The remaining stump, little more than a shuttle service from Birmingham to a London suburb, would become an international symbol of our decline," they argue.

Among those close to HS2 there is a weary, irritated anger.

When do they expect to hear anything from the government? "Wednesday, Friday or Not-a-Day," one figure tells me.

It is five-and-a-half years since diggers and demolishers started doing their thing to build HS2. And yet the arguments about whether to build it and where to build it between have never gone away.

So, what are the options?

Well, one would be to press on with things as planned. But all the mood music from government suggests that's not going to happen because of the ballooning cost.

Another would be to scrap the leg from the West Midlands to Manchester entirely.

I hear - as I wrote over the weekend - that might mean HS2 runs to around 20 miles north of Birmingham and then joins the West Coast Mainline.

Critics will say this amounts to its scrapping, and will make congestion worse - as HS2 trains will also be squeezed onto already busy track.

But could there be an attempt to dampen the anger of some critics, by committing to prioritising the chunk of new track where HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail overlap?

Northern Powerhouse Rail aims to revolutionise train travel across the north of England, between Liverpool and Leeds.

But the plan is it would share some track between Manchester Piccadilly and Manchester Airport.

Could they commit to keeping that and scrap the rest?

The thing is, folk who follow all this closely, tell me this is the most expensive part of the northern leg of HS2, because it involves building a new station in Manchester city centre and tunnelling between there and the airport.

And what do Labour then do, when the government has made a decision?

They are desperate to avoid being accused of turning on the spending taps given how shaky the public finances are.

And they are desperate for there not to be big gaps between their spending promises and those of the Conservatives.

The shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has sounded almost as cagey as government ministers when asked what she would do.

But the party has big northern voices like the Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham demanding that the original plan is stuck to.

Big decisions await. And a big row too, that has already begun.