The former chancellor said the high-speed rail link would bring 20 million businesses within 90 minutes of a northern city DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS/AFP/Getty ImagesGeorge Osborne, the former chancellor, has urged Theresa May to invest in high-speed rail lines across the north of England to unlock its economy and attract voters. Mr Osborne said that his Northern Powerhouse initiative, launched while he was in government, had survived a “systematic attempt” to bury it by the prime minister’s aides, and that a new line from Liverpool to Hull could transform the northern economy. “Far be it from me to offer advice to the prime minister on how to relaunch her premiership this autumn, but making this big commitment to the north at the Conservative conference in Manchester would not be a bad place to start,” Mr Osborne wrote in the Financial Times. A high-speed line from Liverpool to Hull — billed…

Source: The Times August 22, 2017 07:52 UTC