Monthly Archives: September 2015

Torquay here we come!

30 Wednesday Sep 2015

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I’m up at this ungodly hour as I’m heading down to Torquay for the ACoRP community rail awards which are being held in the resort tomorrow.

Right now Dawn, Hazel & I are heading across the damp and foggy Pennines to Manchester on the first leg of the trip. This time of morning it’s actually possible to get a seat on a Trans-Pennine train from Huddersfield, which is a rare luxury nowadays. For the next leg of the trip we’ll be in the hands of Cross-country. This time of day they run a train from Manchester direct to Torquay which will become our mobile office for the next few hours.

Tonight we’ve got a networking event to look forward which has been organised by GWR, so expect one or two pictures of the evening to appear later…

Tomorrow’s ACoRP awards will showcase some of the fantastic work community rail volunteers, organisations & TOCs are doing around the country. I’ll post links to the winners on Friday.

Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week: No 14

29 Tuesday Sep 2015

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week, Hs2aa

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Despite the fact it’s only Tuesday there seems little chance anyone will come out with anything as supremely idiotic as the Hs2 Action Alliance have managed to do with this tweet!

Hs2aa hypocrisy

Devoid of all fact & knowledge of the steel industry, it’s a superb example of the intellectual bankruptcy of the anti Hs2 campaign.

The Thai owned Redcar plant is our last steelworks? That will come as a shock to Indian owned Tata Steel and their workers who are busy making steel at Scunthorpe in North Lincolnshire and Port Talbot in South Wales. Not to mention their plants in Tostre, Llanwern, Shotton, Rotherham, Stocksbridge, Motherwell and Teeside…

Contrary to popular belief these new rails were NOT made by TATA Steel in Scunthorpe apparently, as according to Hs2aa the plant doesn't exist!

Contrary to popular belief these new rails were NOT made by TATA Steel in Scunthorpe apparently, as according to Hs2aa the plant doesn’t exist!

Then again, what do a few privileged Chiltern Nimbys (because that’s who Hs2aa are) know about the steel industry? Or anywhere outside their own little bubble in Bucks for that matter.

Roping in Redcar to their campaign to Stophs2 is breathtakingly hypocritical of them as one of the reasons the plant is being mothballed is a lack of orders for the steel it produces. A situation that would be vastly improved when the construction of Hs2 begins as the project will be using enormous quantities of steel products. If you really want to help UK steel producers, the last thing you want to do is cancel the largest construction project in the UK & Europe.

Their other claim that “Osborne offers £11bn to China” is equally idiotic & dishonest. China hasn’t been offered anything more than the opportunity to bid for Hs2 contracts – just like everyone else. There’s no guarantees the Chinese will even bid – never mind win. There’s also the inconvenient fact EU rules forbid what Hs2aa claim . But hey, why let the facts get in the way of a bit of good old fashioned scaremongering eh?

What this rubbish shows is how desperate anti Hs2 campaigners have become. All pretense of reasoned argument has been dropped in a last ditch attempt to lash out at a project they know they can’t stop. Still, they will provide one useful lesson for future campaigners. Don’t run a media campaign that’s based on bullshit.

Faking support was never going to Stop Hs2…

27 Sunday Sep 2015

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Peter Jones

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One of the lessons the anti Hs2 campaign is learning the hard way is that faking your levels of support won’t help you, but it will come back to bite you on the arse. Hs2 antis have lied to themselves (and the public) for years by fiddling clickbait newspaper polls to pretend there’s greater opposition to Hs2 than there is. Another favourite method is to pack your Twitter account with fake followers – either by buying followers or following dubious accounts.

Here’s a great example. The pious & libelous Peter Jones of the Pan Camden Alliance loves to lecture me about pictures of “the laydees” as he calls them because I made a fool of their campaign by taking this shot of an off-message anti Hs2 protester outside Parliament.

V sign

Of course, what Jones neglects to mention is some of the unsavoury & even downright pornographic accounts he has in his Twitter followers list! For example…

DD followers

Then there’s…

dd followers 2

Obviously, both these young ‘laydees’ are deeply concerned about Hs2 and are hanging on Jones’s every word. After all, why else would they follow him? Here’s some more of his followers.

DD followrs 3

Supposedly, opposition to Hs2 is so international even Brazilians want to stop it! You can find more of Jones’s imaginary friends and opposers of Hs2 by perusing his Twitter account.

If anyone could be bothered to analyse all of Jones’s followers I’d bet they’ll find there’s only a small percentage who could have any real influence on the Hs2 debate which is why he’s wasting his (& everyone else’s) time. It’s the same with most antis accounts. They’re very incestuous. They all follow each other in order to boost their follower count. Talking about preaching to the converted…

Of course this laughable hypocrisy and ridiculous attempt to pretend the anti Hs2 campaign’s bigger then it is has backfired on them. It’s allowed them to fool themselves into thinking they’re actually doing something meaningful when, in reality, all they’re doing is wasting their time ranting into space – or at each other. The lesson they’re teaching is too late to save their campaign, but it can serve as a valuable lesson to other campaigns in the future. Cheats never prosper.

Where’s the anti Hs2 mobs media bounce?

26 Saturday Sep 2015

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Hs2 has had a huge amount of media coverage in the past couple of days thanks to George Osborne’s trip to China and him firing the starting pistol on the bidding process for nearly £12bn’s worth of contracts.

Needless to say, anti Hs2 campaigners have had the chance to put their (skewed) side of the story too, especially on the BBC, which gives pressure groups undue prominence for the sake of ‘balance’ without ever explaining just what a minority view they are.

In light of all this publicity I thought is would be interesting to see if the anti Hs2 campaign had been revitalised on social media. The answer (surprise surprise) is – No.

Here’s a look at the ‘scores on the doors’ before the announcement with those for today. The first set is Twitter followers, the second Facebook followers

scores

Need I say more?

That said, when you look at the StopHs2 Facebook page you can see why people steer clear. David Icke would feel very at home here…

Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week: No 13

26 Saturday Sep 2015

Posted by in Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week, Hs2, StopHs2

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This weeks award goes to StopHs2 Chair Penny Gaines for an absolutely bonkers & delusional tweet she’s just posted from the Green party conference in Bournemouth!

elepahnt

If a disinterested passer-by is what Penny thinks is “attracting attention” it’s no wonder the anti Hs2 campaign’s in such dire straits. Notice the complete absence of any Stophs2 protesters. We’re assured (by them) that their campaign’s unstoppable & going from strength to strength – so where is everybody?

With support like this, is it any wonder politicians are ignoring them?

The Chinese are coming, the Chinese are coming! (with apologies to Norman Jewison)

24 Thursday Sep 2015

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, China, Hs2, Rail Investment

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Today’s news that Chancellor George Osborne is talking to the Chinese about investing in Hs2 has provoked the usual howls of outrage & borderline racism from those opposed to Hs2.

If you listened to them you’d think the Chinese were busy preparing an armada of ships loaded to the Gunwhales with coolies, bags of cement & rails – ready to set sail for the UK. On arrival they’d set up navvy camps like the Victorian railway builders of old, frightening the locals & laying waste to the countryside as they went.

Of course the truth is far more prosaic.

Osborne is after Chinese financial, not physical muscle (or bags of cement).

That said, the Chinese do have technical skills to offer too. After all, they’ve been building stuff around the world for quite some time now – including over 17,000km of high-speed railways in China itself. So, what could the Chinese offer? Well, they could become the financial backers of Joint Venture (JV) teams who are providing the skills to build Hs2, or Chinese firms could join some of those JVs. It’s also possible (but unlikely) that a purely Chinese JV could bid.

Many people don’t appreciate how international major civil engineering projects are nowadays – depending on the skills required. When High Speed 1 was being built some of the construction camps resembled the United Nations. One camp that was primarily involved in tunneling had a large contingent of Japanese. Why? because the Japanese had the best tunneling expertise! In contrast the UK has sent many skilled engineers abroad to build other people’s railways due to a lack of work in the UK. So, what comes around goes around.

You’ll find a more objective look at what bidding for contracts means from Construction Enquirer.

Still, why let the facts get in the way of hysteria & a bit of good old fashioned xenophobia eh?

For those confused by this blogs title, it refers to an excellent 1966 film about the hysteria caused in a small American town when a Russian submarine runs aground. It was directed by Norman Jewison. Anyone who has seen it will understand why it’s rather appropriate.

Latest look at the failing anti Hs2 campaign.

23 Wednesday Sep 2015

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, Scores on the doors

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It’s time to review the anti Hs2 campaign, both in the real world and on social media. Firstly, let’s have a look at the latest ‘scores on the doors’ when it comes to social media.

Scores. 23 sep 15

The usual caveat applies, not all followers are supporters, many are there just to keep an eye on them. Also, remember that some Twitter followers will be spam or fake accounts which add nothing.

There’s now 7 months of data which is building up an interesting picture. What it shows is that their social media campaign really is stuck despite it having run for years (since 2010 in fact). What’s especially interesting is to see the way their Facebook campaign is stagnant. Remember, Facebook has twice as many more users in the UK than Twitter, with over 31.2 million accounts.

It’s also worth remembering that there were 45,325,078 people registered to vote at the 2015 general election. Contrast this with the numbers the anti Hs2 campaign’s reaching…

Another way of putting these numbers into context is that Hs2aa are claiming around 500,000 people are ‘blighted’ by Hs2. So, where are they? Not campaigning against Hs2, that’s for sure!

There’s an irony in their latest Twitter statistics. The only people who have a respectable growth in followers (albeit from an appallingly low base) are the two least effective: Penny Gaines & Deanne Dukhan. Penny is the Chair of Stophs2 but has decamped to Dorset & no longer lives on the route. Deanne Dukhan is supposedly Campaign Director AGAHST (Action Groups Against HS2) but this organisation’s defunct. Even its website has disappeared.

Meanwhile, back in the real world…

-there’s bugger all happening. There have been no national meetings of the anti campaign since 2013 and there are none planned. Nor are there any rallies or demonstrations. The last event that was organised was in April 2014. This was a rally outside Parliament on April 28th – the day a stonking 452 MPs to 41 passed the Hs2 Hybrid Bill! How many antis turned up? Less than 100! Here they are…

DG177046. Anti Hs2 demo. Westminster. London. 28.4.14.

The local anti Hs2 ‘action’ network is equally moribund. I’ve already blogged about the Mid Cheshire group, who had to hide their AGM minutes as they showed that only 23 people attended. The situation is the same with lots of other groups (many of whom have folded).

To further add to the woes, cracks have appeared in their petitioning plans.

Now that it’s become clear that the antis ‘cunning plan’ to try and stop Hs2 in the petitioning process by drawing it out with thousands of petitions has failed. More and more petitioners are failing to turn up. I’ve been watching the Committee hearings this morning. 15 petitions were deemed to have been heard as the petitioners didn’t bother attending to present them. This is happening more and more. What was once a trickle…

I hope Joe Rukin is getting those job applications in!

Another day another venue.

19 Saturday Sep 2015

Posted by in Airshows, Festivals, I love my job, Travel, UK

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Now the National Rail Awards is over the tuxedo is heading to the dry cleaners. I’ve swapped it for outdoor gear and binoculars as we’re off to the Duxford to watch the battle of Britain anniversary airshow. The highlight of the event will be the recreation of a ‘big wing’ by a mass formation of Spitfires and Hurricanes. So, expect my website to contain a different form of transport picture after this weekend! Admittedly,  a few rail pictures will probably sneak their way through too…

The anti Hs2 mob: Caught fiddling polls (again).

15 Tuesday Sep 2015

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You have to laugh! The anti Hs2 campaign claims that it’s overwhelming public support, yet their dwindling band of followers have to gang together to fiddle a local newspaper poll to swing the result in their direction!

The poll is in the online edition of the Midlands based Express & Star. You can find it here.

Obviously upset that it wasn’t going in their favour antis started circulating the details on Twitter & urged each other to register a vote. Here’s some of the tweets.

barnes

Why two folks from the Chilterns & Camden think a clickbait poll in a local Midlands newspaper will Stop Hs2 is a mystery, but it does show they’re desperate to maintain the fiction that there’s active support for their cause. Of course, the irony is – they could get all their supporters to sign & it still wouldn’t amount to anything.

Here’s an example of why from another of their troll Twitter account ‘Hs2 Facts’ (an oxymoron if ever there was one!). This has been doing the rounds for around 18 months & garnered a humongous total of err – 203 votes!

http://hs2facts.co.uk/do-you-want-hs2-hs2yes-or-hs2no/

Far from doing anything to stop Hs2 all these futile attempts do is highlight how little support the anti Hs2 campaign has. Still they provide yet more material for anyone who wants to know how NOT to run a social media campaign!

Of course, all this is a silly sideshow. It might give the antis a warm glow but what really matters is what’s happening in Westminster today. Polls aren’t going to have any impact on the Hs2 Additional Provisions debates. Nor will they make any different to the Hybrid Bill Committee who continue to tick off the list of petitions. Still, it does show the gulf in ambitions & influence. Hs2 Ltd are having a day in Parliament whilst the anti Hs2 mob are doing nothing other than trying to fiddle a regional newspaper poll!

UPDATE:
Now StopHs2 have got in on the act, advertising the poll via their Facebook page.

stophs2 fiddle

What will be very interesting to see is how many of these 6649 supposed’activists’ actually bother.!

He’s not the Messiah (Pt 2).

15 Tuesday Sep 2015

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, StopHs2

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As expected, Jeremy Corbyn has been elected as new Labour party leader – with an unexpectedly huge majority. This has wrong-footed a number of people (including Corbyn himself it seems). Amongst those people are the opposition to Hs2 who’ve desperately been looking for a new messiah ever since UKIP left them in the lurch. I’ve blogged about this search before.

Now Corbyn is in the antis have been trying to read the runes and, as usual, they’ve made a complete horlicks of it. Take a look at this speculative nonsense from StopHs2.

To be fair to them, they’re not the only ones. In what appears to be a good example of cut and paste journalism, the BBC have cobbled together a factually incorrect version of Corbyn’s views which has been lifted from the Guardian. See point 2 in the link which claims;

BBC

The Guardian’s original story was based on a speech Corbyn was supposedly meant to make but never actually delivered and the BBC have never bothered checking what’s really been said or published since.

This is rather unfortunate as Corbyn gave an interview about Hs2 that completely contradicted this view to Meridian TV during a rally at Southampton recently.

If more evidence were needed, there’s also Corbyn’s policy paper on rail renationalisation where he mentions this:

corbyn

Does anyone seriously believe that a man who wants to “Stimulate the economy by increasing investment in new high speed rail, creating jobs and connecting more towns and cities” is then going to scrap Hs2 & set such plans back by a decade at least?

Stophs2 also grasp the forlorn hope that the newly appointed Shadow Chancellor will somehow stop Hs2. What they neglect to look at is that McDonnell voted against Hs2 on purely local issues which are now largely resolved. In his words “I cannot vote for the Bill tonight—I will be voting for the reasoned amendment—because I must be one of the few MPs who does not know what is going to happen in his constituency.” Now he’s Shadow Chancellor he has other issues to consider.

To add to the anti Hs2 mobs woes, Corbyn has appointed Nottingham South MP Lilian Greenwood as Shadow Transport Minister. Not only is Lilian an excellent & popular choice – she’s also a very strong supporter of Hs2. She made this clear again yesterday on the BBC (who appear not to have noticed). Of course, another bonus is she replaces the previous incumbent, the awful Michael Dugher…

All this means the anti Hs2 mobs search for the new Messiah is over. They’ve run out of candidates. I predict a wailing & gnashing of teeth of biblical proportions when the penny finally drops!