Category Archives: Anti Hs2 mob

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…

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

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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!

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!

POLL: Do you want HS2? Tweet #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

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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!

Crazy anti H2 campaigner of the week: No 12.

11 Friday Sep 2015

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Yet again the award goes to Peter Jones, the libelous & unpleasant campaigner from North London who’s part of the supposed ‘Pan-Camden Alliance’

The recent announcement of Hs2 Ltd’s plans for Euston have had him spinning like a top. Since then he’s tweeted even more reams of nonsense & all sorts of daft claims. Unfortunately, what he’d failed to notice was that the Alliance hadn’t paid the bill for their website, so it had been taken down by the provider! To be fair,the Alliance is pretty much a one man & his dog operation, and – as the dog hasn’t got a credit card…

Pan Camden

Needless to say, twitter was soon full of jokes at Jones’ expense. Here’s some of the best;

duck jokes

Even more crazy than his usual claims was this one claiming Sadiq Khan, the newly anointed Labour Candidate for London Mayor, somehow opposes Hs2.

duckkhan

Once again, Twitter soon exposed his rubbish with one person digging out one of Khan’s own tweets!

sharpe

Just in case there’s any doubt remaining, here’s a speech Khan made when a Government Transport Minister back in 2010;

Khan also voted FOR the Hs2 Hybrid Bill in April 2014.

Now he’s a Mayoral hopeful Khan may try & play both sides until after the London election (like Boris Johnson has in the past) but one thing’s clear. He won’t volte-face to oppose a scheme that offers so much to London and the Labour heartlands in the North.

2023 Update.

Khan was easily elected Mayor and has continued his support for HS2 despite Nimbys bleating. Jones’ website made a brief return but soon disappeared again. No-one was reading it and no-one missed it. 

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Another body blow for the anti Hs2 campaign

04 Friday Sep 2015

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, Joe Rukin, StopHs2

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Anti Hs2 campaigners are remaining very tight-lipped about their latest setback. Well over 200 individual petitions have been listed by the Hybrid Bill committee as ‘not appearing and to be recorded as associated with others’. This means their template petitions have been lumped together with others, thus cutting down on the amount of time the Committee have to spend hearing them. You can find the full list here.

Another significant development is this;

Petitions

As the Committee have already rejected the idea of a long tunnel all the way under the Chilterns, petitions which call for it are regarded as redundant. The exact numbers of petitions this affects aren’t recorded, but it will be significant.

In light of this, the Committee have also published a revised timetable for hearings. Now, instead of hearing well over 1000 in September & October, the number has dropped to less than half!

No wonder we’re hearing less & less from the anti Hs2 campaign. Talking of ‘hearing less’ – one other thing the Committee must be pleased about is that these revisions have spared them the ‘delights’ of having to listen to StopHs2’s Joe Rukin droning on. None of the petitions he was meant to be presenting have survived. Still, it’ll give Joe time to start looking for a proper job as he’ll soon be out of this one!

The anti Hs2 mob show how NOT to run a social media campaign.

27 Thursday Aug 2015

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I’ve just had a bit of time to crunch the numbers on the success – or otherwise – of the anti hs2 mobs social media campaign & it makes very grim reading for them. We’re into figures for half a year now and the scores on doors are;

Scores. PNG

The usual caveats apply. Not all followers are fans, many are there just to keep an eye on their rubbish.

What these figures show is their campaign’s stuck – and in some cases it’s gone into retreat. The lack of progress on Facebook (the medium with the largest audience) is especially telling. That said if you ever look at the Stophs2 Facebook page it’s easy to see why. It’s full of bewildered folks (mostly Chiltern Nimbys) saying they can’t understand why no-one in authority is listening to them. But then when you see their daft conspiracy theories & dyspeptic rants it’s really no surprise.

The 51M Facebook page is dead so it’s hardly surprising no-one’s bothering with it. Hs2aa’s isn’t much better. It rehashes old news, tweets & anything critical of Hs2 – no matter how ridiculous. This is an abortive effort to try & hide the fact nothing’s actually going on with Hs2aa. They’ve nothing to report so use others to pretend there’s actually something ‘happening’. Stophs2 are just as bad. None of the groups have any events, meetings or rallies planned which goes to show just how reliant they’ve become on social media to keep their campaign alive.

The picture’s not much better on Twitter. Like Facebook, they’re starting off from a very low base so when 300 followers in 6 months is a 7% plus increase, you kind of get the idea! I mean, 2-300 followers in 6 months from an electorate of some 46 million souls? That’s pathetic! Contrast this with the number of folks who signed up in less than a week to protest about Jeremy Clarkson getting sacked from ‘Top Gear.Or – the 175,000 who signed the petition to let Virgin Trains keep the West Coast franchise.

In a delicious irony the only person in double figures is the person with the least influence: Deanne DuKhan of AGAHST. Her organisation ceased to exist a long time ago (check out their website or Google them to see what I mean) and many of her new followers are not exactly ‘kosher’- or will ever have any impact on hs2!

Where does this leave them? Well, up Shit Creek really. They’ve run out of time (not to mention money, activists, political influence & media friends). They’ve no momentum left & when the Hs2 Hybrid Bill Committee resume hearing petitions in a couple of weeks those will begin to fall like ninepins.

No wonder Stophs2 ‘Campaign Manager’ Joe Rukin is neither organising campaigns (or anything else for that matter). He’s probably too busy filling out job applications!

Jeremy Corbyn dashes the anti Hs2 mobs hope he was their saviour

19 Wednesday Aug 2015

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Members of the anti Hs2 mob are rather like folks who are waiting for a messiah – always hoping someone, sometime, will turn up to save them. The last false prophets were UKIP who the antis worshipped as the party who would kill off Hs2. It was never going to happen & everyone else could see through them, but that’s faith for you. Both UKIP & the anti hs2 mob would much rather you forgot this risible claim:

ukip

Since UKIP were shown to have feet of clay the antis have been scrabbling around for another saviour. This time they latched upon Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn. This was because an article published in the Guardian reported that Corbyn was due to deliver a speech condemning Hs2 & announcing his decision to oppose it (they even carried quotes from a draft of the speech).

However, when the speech was delivered & the report appeared, all reference to Hs2 had mysteriously disappeared. In many ways this wasn’t a surprise as Corbyn was in danger of walking headlong into a Tory trap. I blogged about it all here.

Then, yesterday, Corbyn published this on the rail network & his plans for renationalisation. In the report’s bullet points was this:

“Stimulate the economy by increasing investment in new high speed rail, creating jobs and connecting more towns and cities”

https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/jeremyforlabour/pages/153/attachments/original/1439891675/Railways_JeremyCorbyn.pdf?1439891675

Clearly, some folks have been having words in Jeremy’s shell-like…

Whilst there’s no explicit mention of Hs2 – does anyone seriously think Corbyn would now oppose building hs2 in favour of going back to the drawing board, setting back plans by decades? Not only would this leave us with rail gridlock, it would put in jeopardy massive regeneration schemes in Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester & other Labour strongholds, costing thousands of jobs. Also, note Corbyn talks of increasing (not diverting) spending on High Speed rail.

As Corbyn is hands down favourite to win the Labour Leadership there’s now no chance that the Hs2 Hybrid Bill won’t pass its 3rd reading.

So, it looks like the anti Hs2 mobs search for the messiah continues, with time running out. Corbyn is not the messiah, he’s just a very naughty boy for leading the anti Hs2 mob on!

Crazy (& libellous) anti Hs2 campaigner of the week. No 10

13 Thursday Aug 2015

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Once again the award goes to Peter Jones from Camden who supposedly represents the ‘Pan Camden Alliance’ (a fancy name for one man & his dog) he’s surpassed himself to come out with this gratuitously offensive & libelous comment earlier this evening.

dead duck libel

It’s a typical example of the depths the anti Hs2 campaign’s willing to plumb. I’ve never understood why they thought being so abusive and offensive was ever going to persuade the people whose minds they needed to change to pull the plug on HS2. Can you imagine some civil servant approaching a Minister to say ‘Sir, I’ve just seen a very offensive and rather idiotic tweet regarding the HS2 project from someone I’ve never even heard of. I think you should reconsider building the line as a consequence’. Exactly, it’s bonkers. 

UPDATE:

Not only has not apology for this been received. Jones has gone on to Tweet this:

dd 14 aug 1

and, (even more bizarrely) this:

dd 14 aug 2

When someone repeats offensive tweets then tries to get on their high horse about them being ‘defamed’ by republishing their own words you know their grasp on reality is tenuous but that’s been the theme that’s run through the anti HS2 ‘campaign’ (and I use that word loosely) right from the start. It’s why no-one’s taken these people seriously for years.

2023 update.

Jones is one of only a handful of opponents of HS2 who’re still wasting their time tweeting rubbish on a regular basis. You’d have though that – after wasting 13 years of his life – the penny would have dropped with him the way it has with the vast majority of those who used to oppose HS2 but but realised the futility of doing so ago. But that’s obsessives for you. I expect he’ll still be pretending he can stop HS2 on the day the first trains run.

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