In the long list of failure of the anti Hs2 campaign, doomed petitions come close to the top. Time and time again they’ve started ones on the Governments petitions website, only too see it fall far short of the total needed. They’re a complete waste of time anyway as – in the unlikely event they reached the magic 100,001- all they’d do is secure a debate on Hs2 in the House of Commons. Note I said a debate, there’s no vote. Quite what antis hope to achieve is a mystery, but a new one’s been launched. Well, when I say a ‘new’ one, it’s actually been running for several months! To say it’s been under everyone’s radar is an understatement, but all of a sudden a few antis have decided it’s worth pushing via Twitter! Here’s a link to it. Poor John Duggan is one of the people desperately trying to puff it.
“Really rolling”? To date, it has a grand total of 1,604 signatures after 129 days.
Problem is, to be anywhere near in with a chance it needed to average 555 signatures a day! It closes on the 24th April, in 50 days time. Sooo, that’s needing an average of 1968 signatures a day. Far, far more than it’s had in the last 130 days and every day it falls sort of that, the average goes up. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see the problem here. I can’t even be bothered to crunch any other numbers on this as it’s so hopeless. I’ll wait until it reaches the end next month.
Why Hs2 antis persist with these polls is a mystery. The only thing I can think of is that some of them have fallen for their own spin and bluster and genuinely believe there’s mass opposition to Hs2. They’ve never twigged that when people answer (often loaded) questions in opinion polls it’s pretty meaningless. It doesn’t mean they’ll actually act on anything, and it certainly won’t mean they’ll change their voting intentions for an issue that never comes anywhere near the rankings of things people consider important in elections.
Still, it keeps them happy, and gives me more ammunition to show what a hopeless campaign the anti Hs2 effort is!
I’ve a favour to ask.
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Paul Bigland 
Has anyone notice an uptick in the number of local councillors public stamping their feet of late…? Could it be that the upcoming local council elections in May 2019 are influencing their behavior…? Surely not.
Why would they bother? 1. HS2 antis are very small in number, they’ve never managed to make any impact in local council elections, even in the Chilterns. 2. Who would people vote for to register a protest? UKIP? They’ll be lucky to put up more than a handful of candidates this time around, and the way the party has drifted to the far right, you’d really have to hold your nose to vote for them! The Greens? They’re doing badly in polling nowadays, having slipped in popularity. They’ll struggle putting up credible candidates.
The truth is, Hs2 is only an issue to a tiny (and dwindling) bunch of Nimbys who’ve never displayed any electoral clout. Hs2 simply isn’t an issue to most people, who’ve far more important issues on their mind, like the Brexit shambles. Hs2 won’t even figure in most people’s consciousness.
Indeed – I’m expecting these “johnny come lately” local councillors that have just noticed HS2 is happening in their wards to huff and puff a bit, then quietly disappear again once they are safely re-elected. As (I think) you imply, I’m surprised they are making anything of it, I would not have thought there are many votes to be made of it.
When I spotted a link it was 515 after just over 4 months. In the 3 days since it’s put on around 600 a day and if it keeps that up it will get to around 28000 which is around the same level as the largest previous attempt. But what’s the betting as the days pass the numbers will tail off. Either way it’s got virtually no chance of reaching 100,000. Even if it were to it’s only up for consideration for a debate and as you say it’s just a debate.
Indeed. The problem antis always have with these polls is the number of signatures tapers off quite rapidly after the initial flurry. I remember Joe Rukin boasting when the last one passed the 10,000 Mark in the first 10 days. I know it was a hollow boast as their numbers were far too small to sustain that. This one will be lucky to pass 10k as even Stophs2 are ignoring it!