The short answer is No.
We need broadband infrastructure and regional rail upgrades.
Building a new line into Euston helps nobody. And HS2 advocates know this. Their argument about capacity falls apart, because WCML has no capacity problems. Their speed argument falls apart because it will cost £40bn to cut just 10 minutes from the Euston commute.
Real investment in the future would mean internet, broadband and WiFi. Not giving Euston another thing on the fingerclick say-so of a London based establishment.
HS2 ain't just a white elephant. It's an entirr enclosure of white elephants.
The 1990s called... they want their argument back
Seriously though, I'd have agreed with your argument
if you'd made it in 1999. Broadband, video conferencing, remote working... painted a picture of thousands of people "working from home" due to technological advances.
But, we had all of those advances and rail passengers are still going up - call it three percent a year, call it five percent a year, but there comes a time when extra capacity is needed. All of our connectivity has still created a world where we are meeting up more.
Okay, there are some villages in the Highlands that don't have broadband - I'm sure Wifi isn't great in mid-Wales - but these aren't the people filling the WCML/ MML/ ECML. Any roll out of technology to rural areas is a separate argument.
We already have eleven/ twelve coach trains on the WCML (every four minutes?). We'll soon have 10x26m long IEP on the ECML. There's no capacity alongside the current route for a pair of extra tracks (other than a few isolated sections). Pinch points like Welwyn aren't getting better.
When do you accept that we'll need a new line from "the north" to London?
And,
if you're going to build a new line, you might as well make it straight and fast. You might as well allow longer trains (like 400m ones). You might as well design something that has learnt lessons from Victorian routes (to avoid the problems they have had).
You might as well try to take traffic off the WCML (by serving Manchester/ Birmingham), MML (by serving the East Midlands/ Sheffield)
and ECML (by serving Leeds, Newcastle) - otherwise you'll need to build three new lines (one to relieve each of the existing busy routes).
What's the alternative? Hope that passenger numbers go down, some "chip on the shoulder" stuff about hoping that London flounders (so that fewer people will want to go there), move a handful of Civil Servants out of the Capital, some idea about re-opening a scenic branchline that Beeching closed fifty years ago?
HS2 is like IEP - an imperfect answer to a genuine problem which appears to be the least bad option - both get my vote. We should have a rule that anyone moaning against them has to at least suggest
some form of alternative - because it's easy to sneer and a lot harder to come up with some realistic alternative.
You want "regional rail upgrades"? Well, what is the Manchester Hub/ Northern Hub about? EGIP? TPE electrification? The GWML? East-West? All the new units on order (that won't go anywhere near London) - the 331s, 195s etc. We've never had a period of as many "regional rail upgrades", certainly not in my lifetime. What else is on your wishlist?
As for "WCML has no capacity problems" and a conspiratorial mention of the "London based establishment"... I don't know where to start!