A bailiff talks to activists as they work to remove them from their protest camp against the HS2 hi-speed rail line, near Euston train station in central London on Wednesday. Designed to run to the former industrial powerhouse Birmingham and then Manchester and Leeds, HS2 was supposed to follow on from London’s southern Eurostar connection with Paris. But it has done little but accrue costs since first being formally proposed more than a decade ago. — AFP