What this article left unsaid was that the project was started before the time of Margaret Thatcher but ended in production during Margaret Thatcher&#x27;s premiership. Margaret Thatcher is well known to oppose the public rails and all other kinds of public works. It would have been very easy and popular then to vilify any large public project as a boondoggle.<p>The result is that the English still use trains (because their large population requires them) but get to import their trains from France, Italy and Japan.