The British prime minister said he would pull the plug on a costly but potentially transformative line to Manchester that was a cornerstone of his party’s pledge to “level up” the north of England.
Thanks in part to careful media handling, the British prime minister, who has been criticized for his wife’s wealth and his U.S. ties, survived a trip to California with barely a peep of reproach.
The country’s new prime minister must now persuade ordinary Britons that they should support his government through a painful ordeal of tax increases, spending cuts and a recession.