12.09.12
Gillan vows ‘total opposition’ to HS2
Buckinghamshire MP Cheryl Gillan, who was sacked as a Cabinet minister in last week’s reshuffle, is planning to take ‘every opportunity’ to attack HS2 now that she has the freedom to do so.
She told her local paper, the Buckinghamshire Advertiser: "I wasn't able to speak out against HS2 effectively when I was in the cabinet, and I have never shown disloyalty to my party.
“But just because I did not speak out publicly against HS2…it does not mean that I was not working against it. Justine Greening will attest to that.”
She went back on an earlier threat to resign as Welsh Secretary if HS2 got permission to go ahead in January, saying she could fight the plans more effectively by being in the Cabinet, rather than just MP for Chesham and Amersham.
But now she is just a backbench MP again, she said: “I do not have to toe the party line any more, and I want my constituents to know I am totally opposed to the project and will be fighting it.”
She says her preference is scrapping HS2 completely, but if that is impossible, she wants longer sections of it built in tunnels.
The full interview is at http://gerrardscross.buckinghamshireadvertiser.co.uk/2012/09/cheryl-gillan-vows-to-fight-hs
(Image of Cheryl Gillan with David Cameron at Cardiff station in May 2010: courtesy The Prime Minister’s Office, Crown Copyright. Used here under a Creative Commons licence.)
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