The problem with trying to defend the indefensible is that, eventually, you tie yourself into so many knots you have nowhere else to go.

From the moment it was announced, HS2 has been an ill-conceived mess with relentlessly changing routes, costs and excuses. The only thing that has been consistent from the moment it was proposed until now is that Wales is being screwed.

Ten years ago, David Cameron’s government applied a 0% comparability factor for Wales to HS2. At a stroke Wales, by many measures one of the poorest parts of the UK, was shafted out of billions of pounds.

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Now “comparability factors” might sound confusing but it is just a bit of technical jargon from the Treasury. In terms of the impact on Wales it is very simple:

1. Rail is not devolved.

2. This means Wales doesn’t automatically get any cash (NI and Scotland will get billions of pounds).

3. But Wales could still have got some cash.

4. When projects just affect England, they can be defined as an “England only” project.

5. This happened with CrossRail.

6. But the UK Government instead defined HS2 as an England and Wales project.

7. This meant that Wales ended up with nothing.

So how could the UK Government possibly justify this? How can it argue that a railway line where every centimetre of track is in England is actually also a Wales project?

That answer depends on who you ask and when. The biggest farce from a Welsh perspective is that the same UK Government politicians have given different answers to the same question for years as their positions have become increasingly unjustifiable.

Take the current secretary of state for Wales David TC Davies. Back in July 2021 he said that it made sense to treat HS2 as a Welsh project because of the amazing benefits we were apparently going to get from it.

He said: "Wales is going to benefit from it, firstly because the whole of the UK will get a benefit if we get our carbon emissions down and, secondly, it is a misnomer that the only people travelling on HS2 between the Midlands and London will be people from the Midlands and London.”

Putting aside the nonsense about it helping Wales by getting emissions down (a wind farm off the coast of Kent would also do that and can hardly be considered a Wales project), this “Wales will benefit” argument used to be the main justification for screwing Cymru over.

This was reiterated by the Department for Transport spokesman who gave a two sentence response when asked how Wales would benefit. He said: "HS2 will provide faster and more frequent train services to north Wales. The HS2 interchange at Crewe will bring many parts of north Wales within two and a quarter hours of London, faster than the current West Coast Main Line services to Holyhead.”

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But now it looks like HS2 is only going to go as far as Birmingham. This means the key rationale for defining the project as “England and Wales”, weak as it was, has gone.

However you shouldn’t let yourself be deluded into thinking that a reclassification of HS2 could happen on the back of this. Secretary of State David Davies has already masterfully shifted the goal posts to make sure that this won’t happen.

He has recently argued that because rail is not devolved it was never entitled to any money. This ignores both that a precedent was set by classing CrossRail as “England only” and the fact that he just spent years justifying that the reason for Wales not getting a share was because it would actually benefit from it. If it was automatic that Wales wouldn’t be getting money, why spend all that time trying to justify a decision because there will “be an interchange at Crewe”.

Let’s face it, we all know that the real reason this decision was made was because it was a massive cost saving measure. If Wales did get its fair share of HS2 funding it could have over £5bn (depending on how much of the project is actually being built). At a stroke the accountancy magicians in the Treasury had made a once in a century investment in Welsh infrastructure disappear.

There is no escaping the fact the Welsh railways are in a terrible state. Over the eight years from 2011-12 to 2019-20, Wales received a total of £514m less than it would have if it received it under a population-based share of the UK's rail infrastructure spending. That's according to calculations by the Wales Governance Centre. About 2% of Wales’ railways are electrified compared to 41% in England and 25% in Scotland. This map shows the amount of electrification in Wales compared to other parts of Britain.

It is abundantly clear that at no point over the entire HS2 saga has the UK Government really looked at what Wales needs in terms of a rail infrastructure and what it actually has. The fact that someone in Aberystwyth needs to travel to England to get a train to Cardiff is clearly insane.

No one in their right mind could have argued 10 years ago that HS2 should be classed as an England and Wales project. Roll forward to now, when the project is clearly not even going to come close to Wales, it is an unforgivable omission.

There are strong arguments for it to be an England and Scotland project as the line runs north to south if you really want to be picky. The reason that the Treasury didn’t take this opportunity to save money is twofold and should be a lesson to people in Wales.

The first, is that rail is devolved. By having control over as many areas of policy making as possible, Scotland has limited the ability of central government to shaft it on these issues. If Wales wants to avoid this happening again it needs to have more control over these vital policy areas.

Secondly, the reason why this would never happen to Scotland is because of the almighty uproar that it would cause. If Scotland was being shafted to the extent that Wales was it would be a national scandal which would be talked about relentlessly. Here in Wales we are timid when it comes to asserting ourselves and fighting our corner. The threat of independence in Scotland also limits the willingness of the UK Gov to take the mick.

In Wales we need to, for want of a better phrase, develop more of a backbone. We need to both be more aware of who is making the decisions that affect us and what those decisions mean. We need to stop allowing ourselves to be walked over. Or we will be forever stuck in second class.