I think
@td97 was implying that the political will is present within the Commons (and maybe the Lords), but not necessarily within the current Gov't, and almost certainly not the DfT.
Then it's not political will - the idea is the government as an entity need to be behind it, which as far as I can tell, they're not.
Electrification has been difficult to justify given how wrong it has gone, but the same is true of basically everything else in the industry, from timetables, to new rolling stock, to refurbishing rolling stock, to franchising, to changes in working practices (and the ensuing industrial action), electrification or grand new infrastructure projects like Crossrail. Everything in the rail industry is a calamity, so we may as well choose the calamities that, when "uncalamitated" will give us the biggest gain - in my mind, that is not Bimode trains, or 50-year old Sprinters still working in the 2030s when 323s and 365s have long been laid up, it's electrification, on a reasonably grand scale, and Crossrails 1 & 2, and HS2. Accept whatever you do will be overbudget and late, but get on with it regardless and we might start actually making some progress. Electric cars aren't really the long-term answer to climate change caused by transport, effective and clean public transport is. Driving an electric car to the station to board a 156 would leave you wondering...
That is, however, rather off-topic. In the context of the government's austerital attitude towards rail (and public transport in general) the 769 seemed like a fair compromise. I was all for it to begin with, but one does wonder, even though rail enthusiasts like to pry and ask questions when we don't hear of any progress for a couple of weeks on new projects, 9 months of radio silence is a bit much. Someone really ought to fess up and say what's going on by now - presumably the TOCs affected are doing, because if the 769s aren't coming, some alternative choices really need to be considered.
