I do understand that hs2 is about adding capacity, not speed. And I agree that we need more non-car and non-aviation capacity.
What i disagree with is provisioning that capacity in the form of a single railway line that goes nowhere near almost all of the country.
I described it as a vanity project because politicians (particularly the current pm) like being associated with big, impressive, expensive infrastructure developments. An alternative world in which we spent the hs2 budget on improving the capacity and throughput of existing rail lines and rolling stock could deliver similar objectives while benefitting more of the country. And by being more distributed, it would be more fault tolerant. But it probably wouldn't create photo ops for politicians in hiviz jackets, or translate into votes.
And i hate the landscape and habitat destruction inherent in building hs2. Too much damage has been done already.
My taxes help pay for this thing. I dont think my scepticism and disgust is uninformed.