The figures provided by the Yes Campaign to promote HS2 this weekend demonstrate a conveniently large gap between the rail capacity with and without high speed rail.

The fact that Manchester City and Manchester United played each other at Wembley on Saturday and that Bolton Wanderers played Stoke City at the same venue on Sunday provided an opportunity to highlight the need for greater capacity on the West Coast Main Line, which fans of all four clubs were likely to have used to get to London.

The Yes Campaign stated the proposed capacity of a single HS2 train will be 1,100 passengers in comparison to the paltry 439 of our current system, but is there a fudge at work here?

They fail to mention whether these numbers include standing passengers on both trains. The current capacity is given as ‘seating’ 439 on a Virgin Pendalino, whereas the HS2 is described as ‘carrying’ 1,100. The second term has the benefit of allowing extra passengers to sneak into the data.

Furthermore, Virgin has recently taken delivery of new, longer 11-car Pendolino trains and are therefore already helping to boost capacity. Not that this was mentioned.

There is clearly a case for higher capacity on the WCML, and the debate rages as to whether HS2 is the answer, but do we need to resort to the New Labour-esque tactics of massaging the figures as the Yes campaign may have done here?

The inflation was unnecessary and highlights the obsession of bending a truth to meet an agenda.