THEY cost the taxpayer a cool £180m and were bought directly to link cities such as Durham and Newcastle to Paris and Brussels by rail. Without their purchase, and a promise to run so-called Regional Eurostar services, the Channel Tunnel would never have been built.

Yet, this fleet of high-speed trains spent years mothballed in West London sidings - and have now been flogged off to the French to use.

What hope that this scandal will be put right when the Government's latest strategy for the railways is published later this month?

Back in 1987, when the Channel Tunnel Act was passed, Northern MPs feared the boost to the South-East's economy would leave their constituents lagging further behind.

Therefore, they extracted a promise from the then-Tory government that Eurostar services would not stop at London, but continue north to Birmingham, Manchester and Newcastle.

In total, the taxpayer invested £320m in trains and clearing routes but still the trains stopped at Waterloo station. Even a scathing report by a Commons committee in 1999 - concluding the North had been "cheated" - failed to budge Eurostar, or ministers.

But a fresh opportunity now offers itself with the opening, in November, of High Speed One, the fast line linking the Channel Tunnel, not to Waterloo, but to St Pancras station, in north London. Next door to St Pancras is King's Cross station - the destination for trains from the North-East, allowing them to bypass central London en route to the continent.

Services from Birmingham to Paris would take only three hours and North-Easterners could be sipping lattes by the Seine in about four-and-a-half. Fantastic!

Ah, I've just remembered. Those seven British Rail-bought trains, each with 14 carriages and a top speed of 186mph, are now, unfortunately, zipping between Paris and Lille.

In the past, the Government has insisted there is not enough demand for direct trains from Britain's regional cities to Paris. Yet, there are 20 flights a day from Birmingham and Manchester. If only half those passengers switched to rail, they would fill two trains a day in each direction.

And the experts say a Eurostar train between London and Paris emits a tenth of the carbon dioxide per passenger that an aircraft would on the same route.

Apparently, French rail operator SNCF will be using the trains until the end of 2011, with an option to keep them for a further two years if it wishes.

But, all is not lost. A Eurostar spokesman said: "I'm sure we can get them back if we want them." Furthermore, new Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly is a Northern MP, representing Bolton. She'll do the right thing - won't she?

There are so many memorable episodes in the Alastair Campbell diaries, it is difficult to pick a favourite.

Is it Tony Blair reading the Daily Mail stark naked in front of his spin doctor, or Mo Mowlam cavorting naked in the bath as he brushes his teeth?

Or maybe it's Alan Milburn - one of the most affable people I've met at Westminster - variously described as "livid", "incandescent", "hitting the roof", "really fed up" and "in a rage"?

No, it must be the elegant Peter Mandelson throwing a punch at big, bad bruiser Campbell in a row over Tony's choice of shirt.

What image better illustrates the dysfunction at the heart of New Labour?