HS2 pushed ahead - cui bono?

I last blogged about HS2 in November.

On the 5th, the FT quoted Westminster's most promising MP:

The maths doesn’t add up; this is just sinking capital into a lossmaking project. If you’re going to use the power of the state to do that, then you shouldn’t be surprised that this country is getting poorer.

On the 7th, James Delingpole blogged:

I don't think anyone would dispute that our infrastructure is woeful. But I also think you'd be hard-pushed to argue that Britain's most pressing infrastructure problem right now is the inability of rich commuters to get from Birmingham to London half an hour earlier than they would otherwise have done.

On the 10th, Jonathan Isaby had his say in The Telegraph

So, the worst-kept secret in Westminster is finally out: after days of leaks and briefing to the press, the Government has announced that it intends to spend £32 billion of our money (that’s their estimate at this stage, at any rate) on the High Speed Rail link between London and the North of England. And it won’t be completed for – wait for it – more than twenty years (again, that’s the timescale they’re estimating. For now).

By anyone’s standards, £32 billion is an eye-watering amount of cash – and all the more so at a time when families and government alike are having to look for savings. It works out at well over £1,000 for every single family up and down the United Kingdom, and large numbers of us remain unconvinced that this will be money well spent.

The project doesn't make sense. Taxpayers don't want it. For whose sake is it being built?