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Category Archives: Anti Hs2 mob

StopHs2: Shutting the stable door in Haddenham…

08 Friday Mar 2019

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, Politics, The Green Party

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Yesterday there was a local Council election in Haddenham and Stone, a ward on Aylesbury Vale council in Buckinghamshire. The seat had been held by a long-serving Conservative Cllr who had passed away at the age of 82. In yesterday’s election the seat was won by the Green Party’s David Lyons, a well known local Green party member who’d stood before, coming second in 2015. Here’s the result, thanks to the excellent Britain Elects website and Twitter feed

greens

So, with no UKIP or Independent candidates standing and the long-standing Cllr deceased, The Greens won the seat with an impressive 36.5% swing. Picking the bones out of this one would be interesting as it suggests a lot of voters have swapped allegiances for a whole host of reasons. Does anyone seriously believe UKIP voters decided to go Green en-masse?

Here’s a background on the constituency and the players from Britain Elects. It adds some valuable context.

Of course, Hs2 passes through the area and antis are falling over themselves to claim this is a backlash against the project. No doubt some of that is true – especially as preliminary construction work has started. This is no longer a project that was on the drawing-board. Now there’s visible evidence on the ground, which tends to concentrate a few more minds. However, it’s clear that Hs2 isn’t the only issue in the area, as some local Tweeters have pointed out. Housing is also a big issue with 500 new homes due to be built in the area.

halber

As is often the case in Council elections the party that won had put in a lot of effort on the ground and built up a following behind a local man. Add this the demise of a long-standing incumbent and some local issues like Housing and Hs2 and you can see why the Greens have managed to go from 2nd to 1st place. Was Brexit a factor as some people are claiming? Probably, but again, these are local elections which tend to reflect local issues, so you can’t read too much of the national picture into them and get a true image.

So, what does this mean for Hs2? Absolutely nothing.

For a start, these decisions are way above a local Councillors pay grade. Parliament, MPs and the Lords decide on these things, not Councils. This is the political equivalent of a flea trying to bite a rhinoceros. It’s also worth noting that the Council David’s been elected to will be abolished in 2022, so his shelf life isn’t long.

If those opposed to Hs2 had real political muscle they would have shown it long before this. 2010 would have been good, or in any of the local or national elections since. It never happened. Even if Hs2 was the primary consideration (locals suggest it isn’t), this is very much a case of someone shutting the stable door long after the horse has bolted!

Update

I’ve done a bit of digging and found the actual numbers of votes cast, and the results from the May 2015 elections which is the last time the seat came up. You can draw your own conclusions…

haddenham

haddenham 2

Meanwhile, the Independent’s Europe Correspondent, Jon Stone (@joncstone on Twitter) has added this, detailing why some of the Nimbys in the area just might be upset with Hs2!

jon stone

Could we be faced with a delicious irony here? A Green party win because of a few disgruntled golfers? After all, golf courses aren’t exactly on top of the Green Party’s list of favourite things!

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Crunching the StopHs2 social media numbers. February 2019

01 Friday Mar 2019

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, Politics, Railways, StopHs2

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Yep, it’s that time of month again, as February morphs into March I’ve manfully ploughed my way through hours of rubbish to ignore the hyperventilating and crunch the actual numbers. There’s been more mush than usual in February as Hs2 antis were cock a hoop at the fact Hs2 would be featured in Channel 4’s Dispatches. Once again, they hyped it as the ‘smoking gun’ that would finally kill off Hs2! How many times have we heard that now? Allied to Dispatches were efforts by the same small group of right-wing Journo’s associated with the residents of 55 Tufton St to spin as many negative articles as they could in the media. We were (un)reliably informed that Teresa May’s Cabinet couldn’t wait to kill off Hs2 and that it was only a matter of time now. How many times have we heard that one too? Needless to say, February came and went – and so did Liam Halligans lazy and badly researched Dispatches programme (filleted here). Despite all the froth, Hs2’s still here. Informed sources who’ve been talking to members of the Tory party have told me this was always a non-story, that it was posturing by individuals who privately admit there’s no chance of Hs2 being killed off at this late hour. To say that the Cabinet are rather more concerned about an issue beginning with B would be an understatement.

So, what’s all this hoo-ha done for StopHs2 on social media? The answer is – very little. Here’s their Twitter statistics over 2019.

Twitter stats

As you can see, they’ve gained 2.5% more Twitter followers this month. 166 in total. The irony of this is that’s more than the total number of people who’ve retweeted any of their nonsense. The largest amount of retweets they’ve had all month has been 122, which is just 1.8% of all their followers! Not exactly Twitterstorm material, is it? Their average is a paltry 23.1, which is a miserable 0.3%! When you consider 6,6 million people live in the 63 constituencies Hs2 passes through, 6650 followers is pathetic. It’s 0.10%! Whichever way you cut these numbers, they’re tiny – and this is after 9 years!

Wading through StopHs2s twitter timeline one thing becomes obvious. How mind-numbingly banal most of the stuff is. StopHs2 spend most of their time tweeting links to stories in newspapers or from other media outlets. In fact, anything they can find that’s critical of Hs2, or the railways. What they don’t do is Tweet news of their ‘campaign’ because there isn’t any! Rukin wasn’t even interviewed for Dispatches, he spends most of this time throwing around childish insults on Twitter. The only instance of anything resembling a grassroots event happened yesterday when a few hundred people turned up to protest at an Hs2 event in Calvert Green (Bucks) and that’s it. This isn’t the stuff of a campaign going anywhere other then into the history books as a grand failure. A quick look through StopHs2’s followers list soon shows the problem. Many of their followers gave up years ago, like this pair.

dead acc. 2013

dead anti acc. 2017

This problem hasn’t escaped the attention of some of the Right-Wing backers of their campaign as an increasing number of pro Brexit Trolls and bots have been reprogrammed over the past month to include anti Hs2 tweets – as I’ve blogged about here.

Right, now let’s have a look at Facebook.

FB hs2

For some reason Facebook stats on the number of followers isn’t available right now. As you can see, activity’s increased since January thanks to Dispatches, but the numbers (bearing in mind the 6.6m living on the route) are appalling. There’s something else too. Of the 49 posts made by StopHs2 all but the last two were nothing more than links to media articles. There were no notices of forthcoming events from ‘action’ groups like meetings etc. Nothing that would reflect a campaign that’s actually going anywhere. Like Twitter, it’s always the same handful of names posting comments, many of which are either completely bonkers or pure bluster, like these…

fb nutter

eu hs2

I expect stophs2 March social media stats to be on the slide again now all the ‘excitement’ has died down. Both Panorama and Dispatches have flopped and the penny’s going to drop sometime that Hs2 is continuing. In the meantime, their little band gets ever smaller as more people settle, sell up and move away from the route. Meanwhile, work continues along phase 1 in preparation for the notice to proceed with the main civils work and Phase 2a continues its journey through Parliament. No-one’s stopped Hs2…

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The curious crossover of Brexit supporters who oppose Hs2 and Twitter trolls.

19 Tuesday Feb 2019

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Brexit, Hs2, Liam Halligan, Politics

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The past few weeks have demonstrated a curious crossover between the dogmatists who still support Brexit (despite all the evidence of the utter shambles it was always going to turn into) and opposition to building Hs2. Anyone could be forgiven for thinking this is actually collusion. Today we’ve had Andrew Neil add his name to the list, claiming Hs2 money should be diverted to building high speed rail in the North. For the North this is all very touching. It’s also completely false. None of them could really give a damn about the North, it’s just the latest excuse to try and get Hs2 cancelled.

Liam Halligan trotted out the same excuse in Dispatches (which I analysed here). By pure co-incidence Neil is the Chairman of the Spectator, a magazine well know for printing anti Hs2 stories. Who had one in there recently? Yep, you’ve guessed it – Liam Halligan.

The crossover isn’t just through this little cabal of right-wing media types. It’s taken an interesting and rather darker turn. We’re suddenly seeing a lot of Twitter trolls which have been bashing out pro-Brexit propaganda now starting to tweet in opposition to Hs2. Who’s the guiding mind behind this I wonder? Meanwhile, other (long dormant) Twitter accounts have been resurrected to Tweet against Hs2. Here’s some examples.

brexit

pro brexit 2

stratfan

It’s clear that this is now a co-ordinated campaign. The truth is, the anti Hs2 campaign’s getting rather desperate. They’ve been campaigning to stop Hs2 for nearly a decade now and got absolutely nowhere. In that time most of the local Stophs2 groups have collapsed, meaning there’s little in the way of a ‘grassroots’ campaign anymore, just a few isolated people. Even the notionally ‘national’ groups like HS2aa have failed and gone to the wall as the cross-party support for HS2 has remained unbreakable. Now, all that’s left is the Tory right-wingers in the media and their curious contacts with the shady world of social media manipulation through the use of Twitter trolls to further their aims.

Trolls are desperately needed because StopHs2’s own tiny band of Twitter followers are pretty useless. There’s just over 6000 of them. The problem is most of them never retweet or like anything, so they’re as much use as a chocolate fireguard! Foolishly, StopHs2 keep ‘pinning’ tweets to the top of the page, which makes it easy to see how many retweets or likes they get. It’s never over 100 and often far less. I crunch their social media numbers every month. Here’s last month. There’s a very obvious flaw in their troll strategy. Trolls and bots can’t write to their MPs or vote in elections. Oh, you might influence one or two people, but as Hs2 has never been an electoral issue you’re on a hiding to nothing. Also, this is not a referendum. Besides, who would Chiltern or Northern Nimbys actually vote for other than their normal party. UKIP? They’re finished. Try as you might, you’re not going to frighten many MPs in to opposing Hs2 – if any -and it’s MPs who vote on building Hs2.

Here’s a graphic illustration of their problem – all the dead Twitter accounts of people like this who’ve moved away from the Hs2 route after being bought out/relocated of their own accord. Unlike bots, these people could vote but Ms Carter gave up in June 2015. There’s many, many more like her…

caro

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More Stophs2 straw-grasping and daft scaremongering.

18 Monday Feb 2019

Posted by in Andrea Leadsom MP, Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, Politics

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A copy of a desperate letter being sent round Parish Councils dropped into my email inbox this morning. It’s been composed by some members of Greatworth parish council, which lies in the South Northamptonshire Constituency of prominent Brexit supporting MP and opposer of Hs2 (funny how those two things often go together), one Andrea Leadsom MP. It’s highly likely that Leadsom was the source of the spin about the Cabinet wanting to scrap Hs2 that was reported by Liam Halligan in his poor hatchet job broadcast by Dispatches. It’s also highly likely that this letter (riddled with factual inaccuracies and spin) was approved by her. The covering email from Helen Du Bois, the Clerk of the council, claims ” The  insidious  changes  that  are  being  made  to  the  original  blueprint   for  HS2  need  to  be  made  very  clear  to  Parliament.    The  plans  for   HS2,  presented  in  the  hybrid  Bill  for  this  massive  infrastructure   project,  that  were  put  before  Parliament  in  2013  and  2014,  no   longer  mirror  the  detail  in  the  plans  for  this  railway  today”. No, that didn’t make any sense to me either, until I began to read their letter. Her email ends ” A   prompt  reply  would  be  much  appreciated  as  there  is  an  urgent  need   to  get  this  message  across  before  it  really  is  too  late  to  halt  this   unaffordable  vanity  project”.

Here’s the actual letter.

“HS2 – THE SLOW TRAIN TO OLD OAK COMMON

FROM PARISH COUNCILS ACROSS SOUTH NORTHAMPTONSHIRE, WARWICKSHIRE, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE, WEST MIDLANDS, STAFFORDSHIRE, OXFORDSHIRE and GREATER LONDON.
The all consuming Brexit babble is drowning out major concerns that the Government is failing to address. All over the country the concern that excites the most vociferous condemnation is the HS2 infrastructure project. Mr. Thurston, HS2’s Chief Executive, claims that there is a groundswell of support nationwide for this railway – we do not believe him.

When launched nine years ago, HS2 was heralded as the train that would carry 1,100 passengers every four minutes from London to Birmingham at speeds well in excess of 200mph. A straight line was drawn across England, obliterating anything in its path, in order to accommodate this “high speed” wonder. After nine years of planning and numerous changes of management at senior level, the Government needs to reassess the criteria on which the viability of this project should be judged.

Everyone knows that the budget is ballooning and out of control. In order to try and regain control we hear that the trains may now go slower – to save cost. The trains may be greatly reduced in number – to save cost. The line may never be built beyond Birmingham – because the cost will be too great. The latest ex-Chairman suggests that the development at Euston should be delayed and the trains should stop at Old Oak Common – to save cost. Local observation of the preliminary enabling work that has been done already shows a total disregard for cost control, and a complete lack of common sense.
There are claims that this whole project is already obsolete. It earned the nickname ”White Elephant” almost at its inception, and it still carries that description today. “White Elephant” projects make people nervous. Improving our existing railways nationwide is so obviously the better option and would be a far more popular plan.
Andrea Leadsom, our Member of Parliament, has put all these points about HS2 to Mr. Thurston and challenged him to review the business case and the value for taxpayers money. He trots out an all too familiar assurance that the project will be “on time and on budget” – a commitment also made by Mr. Grayling. Another major infrastructure project, currently under construction, that boasted to be “on time and on budget” is Crossrail. Now the Government admits that Crossrail will be late and over budget. By the time HS2 is up and running the IT phenomenon will see more and more people working from home – they do already. The whole world can already make instant contact, with eye contact, on screen. The cry for more and more capacity (a necessity strongly advocated by Teresa May) will fade away. Who will need to travel, on an expensive ticket, from Old Oak common to Birmingham, with no stops en route and no saving on time?

Mr. Grayling still labours under the illusion that Phase One of HS2 will cost £27.18bn. We all know that the cost is over £50bn and rising. He also says that HS2 will become the backbone of our national rail network. A backbone is no use to anyone if it only connects a third of the body. If this railway never goes beyond Birmingham, the improvement to connectivity between London, the Midlands, northern England and central Scotland will be greatly diminished.

Every week recently there have been more and more revelations which demonstrate the inadequacy of those in charge of delivering HS2. The source for the considerable amount of electricity needed to power the HS2 trains has long been questioned. The possible, unbelievable answer to this problem at this late stage is wind turbines and solar panels along the route. More land acquisition and much, much more cost, both financial and environmental. There was no mention in the EA of wind turbines powering the trains. Therefore when Parliament gave the go ahead for HS2, there was no knowledge of this huge environmental impact to wildlife and the countryside.

We, the undersigned, urge all those with power and influence to stop this bloated mammoth now, before any more money is wasted, and thus release billions of pounds for far more important, necessary and worthwhile projects”

I had to laugh at the line about ‘Brexit babble’. It shows these people really don’t DO irony, as Leadsom is one of the prime sources of such babble! As for the stuff about solar panels and wind farms along the route powering Hs2 – I’d love to know what these people have been smoking! Quite where they’ve got this idea from is a good question, but it does show how out of touch with reality they are. The very idea that HS2 could be powered from wind turbines and solar panels is (frankly) barking!

The letter reeks of desperation and it’s interesting to see which areas the letter claims to have support from as it (unintentionally) highlights the fact the opposition to Hs2 is very much centred on the route – and on Phase 1. Somehow, I can’t see such a load of nonsense from Parish councils (who’re very much at the bottom of the political food-chain) carrying much weight with the people who actually decide on these matters. MPs and Ministers. It’s also worth noting that whilst Leadsom may still be playing political games, as long as she’s a member of the Government she’s bound by collective Cabinet responsibility – and Hs2 is firmly Government policy…

Stophs2? Give over…

26 Wednesday Sep 2018

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, Politics, StopHs2

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It’s the party conference season once more, which means StopHs2’s inflatable elephant is dug out of storage, checked for punctures and wheeled out for utterly pointless ‘demonstrations’ of Stophs2 impotence outside the events.

Gone are StopHs2’s ‘glory’ days when they could afford a stand inside the conferences and find enough volunteers to staff it. In those days you’d get Penny Gaines tweeting that everyone they talked to was solidly against Hs2 and that *really* every MP (Labour or Tory) privately opposed the project.

It was all tosh of course. Now the money and supporters have dried up, Hs2’s being built and it’s all rather pointless really.

A final effort to save the campaign from oblivion was launched a couple of weeks ago by one of the surviving ‘action’ groups on phase 1 of the route. Not that you’d notice as it’s been yet another in a long-line of damp squibs. The meeting in Balsall Common in Warwickshire. Here’s a couple of excerpts from the email that did the rounds

” We hope to attract members from both the South and the North to this meeting. We recognise that most action groups on Phase1 have faded away and this meeting is called by Richard Lloyd of Berkswell and Archie Taylor of Burton Green. We will offer coffee and biscuits but refreshments are available at next door Tesco’s.
We have a glimmer of a chance to stop the whole project as costs escalate and Brexit approaches while those on Phase 2 are perhaps in a stronger position”

“Glimmer”? Talk about optimistic! The email goes on…

“But we also have to plan for the future. Are any of the Northern Groups planning to lobby the Labour Conference at Liverpool, a week later, on the 23rd? If they are, perhaps, a few of us can help with the pamphlets. As a Labour member, I intend to write to all Labour MPs in the first week of September but articles don’t always get to the MP. But if we can give out leaflets at Liverpool, we can certainly play the northern card with the east to west alternative. If we do have volunteers to leaflet, I might go up to the Conference myself.

Perhaps the Conservative Conference at Birmingham on September 30th is more significant and accessible. Again it would be great if we can get people along. Similarly we can work on leaflets before our meeting.

I would appreciate if you can come to our meeting, or you are ready to go to Liverpool to contact me. I hope people will make this meeting. It will be great to see people from the past. It is going to be very difficult to stop it but we have a chance if we join together. I will give more details about the meeting at a later date”

So, the ‘new’ plan is to re-run the same old tactics, only this time with less money, less people and less interest! Here’s the agenda for the meeting;

stophs2 2 agenda

Note that the other national groups AGAHST and Hs2aa didn’t bother turning up. That’s because they exist in name only. Their written ‘updates’ will probably have been as blank as the Governments benefits of Brexit! AGAHST folded years ago and Hs2aa haven’t been heard from since the summer of 2016!

I haven’t seen a copy of any conclusions from the meeting or list of how many attended, but I not that it’s had no media coverage or mention on the surviving groups Facebook pages or websites other than on from a Groups on the Leeds route which described it as a ‘good’ meeting and err, that’s it!

So, what’s been the result of the relaunch. Well, yesterday a couple of people did make it up to Liverpool with the inflatable elephant and duly set it up outside. How many of them were there? It’s impossible to tell as the only picture Stophs2 tweeted out doesn’t contain a soul!

elele

By this morning the tweet had amassed a grand total of 29 retweets and 39 likes from their 6175 Twitter followers, which tells you all you need to know really…

There is one video, which is an ‘interview’ of a very scruffy and dishevelled looking Joe Rukin, spouting his usual polemical bluster, but no-one else is in sight!

Contrast this pathetic performance with what was going on inside the Labour conference. Firstly, this tweet from train builder Bombardier showing some of their young apprentices meeting the Shadow Chancellor.

bombardier

Or this, from Siemens. Shame about the quality of the picture, but you get the gist,

sie

Or this…

prescott

To say that Rukin and Co have been outclassed and outgunned is an understatement! If this is a campaign that’s been relaunched, then it slipped straight off the stocks and did a submarine impression! I don’t expect any better at the Conservative conference. If I have the time I might even pop along so that we can get some proper pictures to gauge their support by.

Meanwhile, one last word about Liverpool. This is a proper demonstration Joe – oh, and look, that’s your very lonely elephant in the background!

sodem.PNG

sod 2.PNG

Stop Hs2? I had to laugh!…

12 Wednesday Sep 2018

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, StopHs2, Uncategorized

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This morning there was a Parliamentary debate on Hs2 which had been organised by Bill Cash, the MP for Stone (on the Hs2 route in Staffs). Cash is, how shall we say – not entirely connected with the real world. Not only is he an ardent Brexit supporter (and we all know just how well that’s going), he’s also been rather creative in the past with his expenses.

Still, the debate he secured this morning kicked off promptly. It was meant to help ‘revitalise’ the campaign against Hs2 as it followed on from another opinion poll commissioned by the Daily Express that showed a ‘majority’ of people oppose Hs2.

There was only one problem

The anti Hs2 ‘campaign’ (and I use that word loosely) is so short of political support that hardly any MPs turned up to the debate! I counted 5 that actually spoke to criticise Hs2. Cash delivered a long ramble which was nothing new, it was just Cash rehashed. You might as well have played one of his old speeches on a monitor and saved the old boy the bother. The usual suspects followed, the most prominent of which was the MP for Chesham and Amersham, Cheryl Gillan. Embarrassment followed embarrassment when it became clear that the anti MPs were matched and indeed surpassed by MPs who’d turned up to speak in Favour of HS2. These included Sir Robert Symes MP, the former Chair of the phase 1 Hybrid Bill Cttee, Graham Stringer MP (former leader of Manchester City Council), and of course the under secretary of state for transport, Nusrat Ghani MP, who wound up the whole sorry shambles by pointing out the political arithmetic by highlighting the overwhelming numbers of MPs and Lords who supported HS2 compared to those who opposed. In short, it was a humiliation.

Here’s a couple of pictures of the ‘packed’ meeting room. You’ll notice that the gallery outnumbers the MPs

debate

minister

So, what of the Daily Express poll? Well, it’s a gauge of the number of people who’ll grumble about Government spending, but apart from that it’s worthless. If you inserted a multiple choice question that said “OK, so what are you actually going to do about HS2” you know what the answer would be: nothing – as we’ve seen from hard evidence over the years in local and general elections (much to UKIP’s chagrin). It’s just not an issue that will make people change who they vote for.

Crunching the Stophs2 August social media numbers

01 Saturday Sep 2018

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, StopHs2

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I’d mentioned that I was going to do this previously, so here they are – the social media numbers for sole remaining anti Hs2 ‘group’ (and I use that word loosely).

First, a bit of background. There are over 6.5 million people living in the 63 Parliamentary constituencies that HS2 will pass through. So, of the country really is ‘up in arms’ about HS2, you’d expect that the last group that’s still standing to oppose the project would have massive support – especially on social media as that’s the easiest way to join in a campaign from your armchair without having to actually do anything!

Unfortunately for Stop Hs2, that’s where real numbers expose hyperbole. I’ve crunched the August numbers on their Twitter and Facebook accounts and they make interesting reading. Well, not for them as the numbers are a complete embarrassment because they show how little support they really have.

Here’s the bottom lines. Stophs2’s Twitter numbers are up and down like a brides nightie as they seem to attract a lot of bots. That said, they’ve never moved much above 6100 for quite a while. Whilst that’s a ridiculously poor number, the amount of retweets and likes is even worse. What it suggests it that many of their Twitter followers are dead accounts.

Here’s the numbers. I’ve looked at every Tweet StopHs2 have in August. There’s very few so it’s not difficult. I’ve taken snapshots through August so that you can see how things progress – or not!

stophs2 twitter

The latest total for their ‘followers’ is 6142. Not exactly active, are they? The only day they’ve managed to get over 100 is the day they tweeted a Private Eye article and included the Eye’s Twitter address.

Here’s Facebook.

fb

Pathetic, isn’t it?

This is meant to be a ‘grassroots’ campaign. Clearly, someone’s poured weed killer on it.

Another Stophs2 (fake) storm in a teacup!

17 Friday Aug 2018

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Carillion, Fake News, Hs2, Lazy journalism

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Sometimes it’s fake news that causes problems, sometimes it’s lazy journalism and other times it’s people who are either utterly incapable of reading and understanding factual material or who twist it to suit their own ends.

The latest storm in a teacup over Hs2 has elements of all this. Here’s the straight story as reported by Rail Technology Magazine.

“The former boss of Carillion’s UK infrastructure business is set to take over Balfour Beatty Vinci to lead its HS2 joint venture.” His name is Mark Davies, which is pretty easy to remember. He’s had a 30 plus year career in the Civils industry and joined Carillion after its acquisition of Alfred McAlpine in 2004. His correct title was Managing Director – Carillion Infrastructure, one of the divisions of the company.

As Carillion imploded in spectacular and controversial fashion, Mr Davies has obviously had some time on his hands, leading him to being recruited by the Joint Venture.

This is where the fun starts. In a combination of lazy journalism, mischief making and downright lies, Mr Davies has been spun as the ‘boss’ of Carillion, taking over at Hs2 itself. It’s complete tosh of course, but those who’re opposed to Hs2 are spinning like tops to make out this is the case. There’s a couple of rather major flaws with their story. Mr Davies was never the ‘boss’ of Carillion. He was never even on the Board of Directors!

The ‘boss’ (or bosses to be more precise) of Carillion when it collapsed were the chairman, Philip Green, along with Keith Cochrane who became its Interim Chief Executive on the 10th July 2017, a position he retained until the company went into liquidation in January 2018.

Whilst the Chairman and the Board of Directors have been quizzed by Parliamentary Committees and been criticised for their actions. I’ve not seen anything to suggest Mr Davies has been accused of anything. Not that this has stopped Hs2 antis trying to smear by association – as usual!

As for the ludicrous claims that he’s been made ‘boss’ of Hs2 –  I despair! He’s the MD of a joint venture that’s won an HS2 construction contract, nothing more, nothing less.

Still, facts eh?

 

 

Stop Hs2 number crunching.

13 Monday Aug 2018

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, StopHs2

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I’ve not written anything about the anti Hs2 campaign for a while now, mainly because there’s nothing going on that’s worth writing about. To be honest, I’ve seen more life in a tramp’s vest! Apart from a few local groups still agitating in Yorkshire, there’s hardly anything to be seen – especially at a national level, where the campaign’s collapsed completely.

The only group that’s active (and I use that word in its loosest sense) is ‘StopHs2’ – otherwise known as the Penny & Joe show. Joe Rukin’s still not managed to find a proper job so he occasionally resorts to punching something out on the groups Facebook page or via their Twitter account. What they put out is very telling, because it’s purely reactive, not proactive. They’ve gone from campaigning to complaining. Everything they put out is a moan about Hs2, or the wider railway industry. There’s no campaign news, because there’s no campaign! Their problem is they’re increasingly shouting into space as no-one’s listening anymore – and that includes their supposed supporters. I’ve crunched some numbers to demonstrate the extent of their problem.

Firstly, here’s a bit of background. Hs2 will pass through 63 constituencies containing 6,567,433 people. In contrast, StopHs2 have 8439 Facebook followers whilst over on Twitter they have 6152 followers. Not exactly amazing numbers after 9 years, are they? That’s just 0.12% for Facebook and 0.09% on Twitter! I can’t help wonder why – if as was claimed – so many people are up in arms about Hs2 they’re not engaging with the sole remaining ‘national’ group set up to stop Hs2?

It gets worse!

How many of those 8439 on Facebook and 6152 on Twitter ever engage or respond? Bugger all! I’ve crunched the numbers for every Tweet and post for August. Here are the results;

stophs2 stats

Embarrassing, isn’t it? Does this sound like an active campaign to you? It’s worth bearing in mind this is after Hs2’s been in the news a lot recently. The truth is, apart from a tiny bunch of die-hards and trolls on social media, most people have given up and moved on. There is no active campaign and hasn’t been for several years now.

Here’s some examples of their tweets and Facebook posts and their responses.

stophs2 tweet 1

tweet 2

More people respond on Facebook than on Twitter.

fb

Often the responses are so out of touch with reality they’re classics!

res 1

Well, that’s worked really well for the last 9 years, hasn’t it? Ditto this response…

res 2

And then there’s the usual mad UKIPper nonsense.

kipper

Is it any wonder why no-one takes this tiny bunch of ‘eccentrics’ seriously anymore?

A classic own goal from Stophs2!

17 Tuesday Jul 2018

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, StopHs2, Uncategorized

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I can’t think of when I last blogged about the Stop Hs2 campaign. Mainly because there’s nothing going on! There’s no active national campaign anymore, just a few local groups, most of which are moribund. Stop Hs2 (otherwise know as Joe Rukin and Penny Gaines) are a complete waste of space. Their ‘campaign’ consists of increasingly rare posts to their website, or the occaisional moan about Hs2 on Twitter and, err – that’s it. They’ve gone from proactive to reactive, swapping campaigning to stop Hs2 to nothing more than moaning about Hs2 (and railways in general). Not that they get much reaction. Officially, they’ve over 6,000 followers on Twitter, but it’s painfully obvious many of those accounts are defunct (or bots) as the retweet & response rathe is tiny. They’re lucky if to get a couple of dozen retweets or responses.

Until now…

Stupidly, one of the pair decided to make disparaging remarks about the fans of singer Harry Styles, who’ve been using the #hs2 hashtag to discuss the name of the artists second album. StopHs2 made the cardinal error of thinking the hashtag was somehow their property and posted a patronising response!

stophs2 styles

The reaction (understandably) was predictable. StopHs2 were schooled on politeness and how fanbases are international!

styles 1

styles 2

Some UK folk enjoyed StopHs2’s own goal…

styles 3

So, Stophs2 finally manage to make an impact on Twitter – and it leaves them with egg on their faces around the world!