As the anti Hs2 mobs social media campaign descends into farce its getting harder to single out one Tweeter as their whole campaign is reliant on the mad, bad and er,’eccentric’ who think ranting on Twitter actually changes anything.

But one Peter Deeley has managed to impress with his splenetic ranting & ability to live on another planet to ordinary people. Here’s a selection of his tweets;

In three tweets he manages to use just about every anti Hs2 campaign cliche (cost, corruption the NHS & polls). But there’s more…

Like most of the dwindling band of anti Hs2 folks, he can’t get his head around the fact they’ve got nowhere, so he clings onto their cherished belief they’re somehow a ‘majority’ & wraps himself in their Linus blanket, the opinion poll. His problem is, opinion polls don’t elect Governments, voters do – and the majority of voters aren’t really bothered about Hs2.

So, let’s have a look at the facts which Mr Deeley doesn’t mention.

He’s the Chair of a defunct anti Hs2 ‘action’ group who called themselves SNAG (South Northants Against Hs2). His problem is, South Northants is anything but against Hs2 & his group has effectively ceased to exist! Here’s a link to their website.

A browse through it reveals that they’ve not published meetings of any minutes since the 3rd March 2011. Nor have they held any events (or have any planned). Their ‘latest news’ is over a year old. They haven’t exactly got their finger on the pulse of the political scene either..

Philip Hammond left Transport way back in October 2011 & Theresa Villiers became the Minister for Northern Ireland in September 2012!

SNAG as an ‘action’ group has sunk without trace leaving Mr Deeley clinging to the lifebelt that Twitter offers him as a way of keeping his moribund campaign afloat. He’s had his day in front of Hs2 Hybrid Bill Committee (for all the good he did – see here).

With this level of opposition to Hs2, is it any wonder the Transport Minister has been able to assert that the argument has been won? It’s more and more obvious that the campaign against Hs2 is all over – bar the tweeting..

2023 Update.

Poor Deeley has learned nothing in 8 years. He’s one of a tiny handful of Nimbys still tweeting about HS2 and still recycling the same straw-grasping he did in 2015 about opinion polls. But, since then there have been THREE general elections that have shown the futility of his claims as in each one voters have chosen to elect a party committed to building HS2 – and now it’s being built past Boddington. Construction of Phase 1 in Northants is in fill swing. Deeley never stopped a thing – and never will…

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