Hopes for high-speed decision on vital lifeline fade again

Some Labour MPs had been crossing their fingers that this week's Labour Party conference would allow Gordon Brown to announce with a flourish the historic decision finally to approve the scheme. But as yet another "deadline" fades like a tideline in the sand, the caravan moving on to a possible announcement in the Comprehensive Spending Review next month, Londoners could be forgiven for thinking they had seen it all before. And this for a project that is supposed to be all about high-speed connections - slashing journey times from Heathrow and Essex into Oxford Street and the City.

The benefits of the project are not hard to see or sell, with billions of pounds of extra investment, thousands of jobs and a sense of pride in a world city with world-class travel links.

Yet the sheer cost of the line, together with the sacrifices needed by Whitehall, councils and business, have conspired to make its approval the transport equivalent of solving a Rubik's cube with a blindfold on.

Politically, the payback is not straightforward. The line will be built in 2015 at the earliest, perhaps long after Mr Brown has made way for a Prime Minister Cameron, Miliband or Balls.

However, for Mr Brown one of the big advantages would be to secure his very own "legacy" of his time in No 10. Tony Blair blathered for 10 years about how important Crossrail was, yet never committed a penny. Cynics may point out that it was one G Brown as Chancellor who held the purse strings, but the new Prime Minister can erase that memory if he funds a flagship scheme to boost the British economy. Blair gave you the Dome, Brown gave you Crossrail may have a nice ring to it.

On a more immediate level, Labour in London would be able to claim it has solved a problem that evaded the Tories throughout their reign. Ken Livingstone's re-election campaign would get a shot in the arm, but more importantly all those marginal seats in the capital and South-East could get a vital lifeline.