Category Archives: Anti Hs2 mob

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!

Crunching the final numbers on the Stop Hs2 petition

22 Thursday Mar 2018

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, Rail Investment, StopHs2

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As sure as night follows day, the last daft Stop Hs2 Parliamentary petition ran out of time and signatures yesterday. Despite frantic efforts by the remaining anti Hs2 groups in the last couple of days they never managed to scrape together more than a few hundred of the 70,000 plus signatures they fell short by after 6 months of trying. Here’s the final (humiliating) total.

Final petition total

29,838 from a population of over 65 million is (quite frankly) pathetic. It’s less than the population of a small town like Bedworth in Warwickshire (30,001). Or, look at it another way. Hs2 will pass through 63 constituencies containing 6,567.433 people. Here’s a breakdown of those figures by the phases of Hs2. They make interesting reading.

percentages

Lets take the headline figure first. Of the 6.5m living on the Hs2 route, just a quarter of 1 percent signed the StopHs2 petition. That’s despite the anti Hs2 campaign having been running and organising for 8 years! 55.29% of all the petition signatures came from just 9.69% of constituencies! (63 out of 650).

This is what makes me laugh about these petitions. Tactically, they’ve never made the slightest bit of sense! They’ve never stood a chance of getting 100,000 signatures and even if they did they’re a waste of time because what’s on offer? – the chance for Parliament to do what it’s already going to do – debate Hs2. But, as Parliament has to vote on the various Hs2 Hybrid Bills anyway that’s a given! Add in the fact that Hs2 enjoys cross party support and there’s not a cat in hells chance of it being voted down by MPs. So you can see why all these petitions do is hand people like me a rich seam of data to drill down through and expose the weakness of the anti Hs2 campaign! For example. Just looking at the constituency map of where most signatures come from shows that (surprise surprise) it’s easy to work out where Hs2 will run. So much for the claims that StopHs2 isn’t a Nimby based campaign!

petition map

Now let’s look at the numbers for each constituency by phases, starting with Phase 1.

Final Phase 1 petition. 21 Mar

Initially I just kept a running total and percentage. At the end of November 2017 I decided to add monthly totals and last date of signings in order to examine trends. Here’s some headline figures.

The constituency with the most signatures is Chesham and Amersham with 1,723 (1.83% of constituents). The lowest is Birmingham Ladywood with 12 (0.01%). This reflects a trend across all 3 phases. The constituencies with the most signatures are rural and the lowest are urban. Look at the constituencies in Birmingham. The numbers are poor right across the board. They’re no better in London. Only Ruislip, Northwood & Pinner has over 1%. Camden has a measly 555 (0.3%) despite all the supposed opposition to Hs2 in the borough

These figures put to the sword the anti Hs2 campaign’s claims  that the majority of the UK opposes Hs2 and that ‘millions’ are blighted. What they show is areas where StopHs2 action groups are active – and where they’re not.

Of course, other people were calling for people to sign the petition, notably the Green Party. Estimates for their membership numbers vary but they’re certainly under 50,000, which suggests they had mixed success. The Greens have struggled to rally opposition to Hs2. I’d suggest the reason for this is twofold. One is their schizophrenic position on High Speed Rail, supporting it ‘in principle’ but opposing it in practice, plus the fact Hs2’s a railway and people rather like railways – it’s not fracking.

The other party (if you can still call them that) to oppose Hs2 was UKIP. Their membership figures can’t be trusted as most of the ones they claim are actually pushing up daisies, but they may still have managed to get a few hundred people to sign.

Now let’s look at the Phase 2 and 2a route from North of Birmingham to Manchester.

Final Phase 2 Mcr petition. 21 Mar

Compared to 0.36% of folk living on Phase 1, the number’s dropped by two thirds to just 0.12% on the Manchester leg. This reflects several things. One’s the weakness of organised opposition here. Stophs2 was always a Southern based campaign and its heartland was the Chilterns. There’s only a handful of ‘action’ groups up North and it’s easy to spot where they’re based on the Manchester leg.

The constituency with the most signatures is Stone with 368 (0.43%) and the lowest is Denton & Reddish in Manchester with 12 (0.01%). Yet again, the figures expose the fact this is a rural campaign, not an urban one. In fact, there’s not a single StopHs2 ‘action’ group in any town or city Hs2 will serve. You could add every single signature in Greater Manchester and it would still be less than the total for Stone, despite the disparity in population size! In fact, look at how few in Gtr Manchester signed each month. The figures are so small that one family signing could double the monthly numbers!

What conclusions can we draw from this? Well, the Phase 2a Hybrid Bill petition’s currently making its way though Parliament. This affects the first five constituencies on the list – 4 of which are in the top 5 signatures! I’d suggest that this means the Phase 2 bill for the leg to Manchester has very little to worry about in the way of organised opposition. The support for Hs2 far outweighs anything else. Now let’s go and look at Phase 2 to Leeds.

Final Phase 2 Leeds petition. 21 Mar

I’ve fleshed this one out with a bit more data. It includes population sizes, the names of the MP’s and which way they voted on the Hs2 Phase 2a Bill.

The constituency with the most signatures is Rother Valley with 1650 (1.74%) and the lowest is (yes, you’ve guessed it) an urban constituency – Nottingham North with 17 (0.02%). The picture on this leg is different to the others as the situation’s more mixed. The majority of the opposition to Hs2 has been driven by the 2016 route change – hence the figure for Rother Valley. Also of interest is that despite all the noise made by a vociferous but tiny ‘action’ group in Erewash, they could only muster 200 signatures (0.21%) and their MP, Maggie Throup is no pushover and voted FOR Hs2 phase 2a. The figures also show that the claims that Yorkshire is totally opposed to Hs2 (see one Johnathan Pile here) are very wide of the mark as of the 2,185.931 souls here, just 4793(0.21%) have signed the petition – and 34.4% of them are from one constituency!

These figures lead me to conclude that Yorkshire’s a bit “all mouth and no trousers”. There’s a handful of  tiny groups that make a lot of noise, writing cheques they can’t cash, but they’ve little support in the wider community or the political arena. Nor can they agree on a concerted course of action.

This leads me on to another observation. nationally, the anti Hs2 campaign’s collapsed. In 2010 there were 4 allegedly ‘national’ anti Hs2 groups. AGAHST (Action Groups Against Hs2, based in the Chilterns). 51m, a collection of councils (mostly Chiltern and phase 1 based). Hs2aa (High Speed 2 Action Alliance, based in Amersham) and StopHs2 (based in Warwickshire).

Now only StopHs2 survives – if in name only. Its two leading lights live in Bournemouth and Kenilworth, miles away from each other and where the action is nowadays! They’ve given up any pretence of leading a campaign and when they do appear it’s to moan about Hs2 on social media. They’ve no influence on proceedings on Phase 2 and I doubt they’ll survive long enough to even be around when the Phase 2 Hybrid Bill enters Parliament next year.

What’s left of the anti Hs2 campaign is a bunch of disparate local groups with no clear agenda to unite them and no national organisation worth its name to guide them.  Some are still re-running the tactics that failed to Stop hs2 on phase 1, others have given up and are fighting for mitigation (such as extended tunnels) and/or compensation.

In summary, there is no Stop Hs2 campaign anymore. It’s collapsed. To stop Hs2 a campaign needs money, organisation and most crucially – political support. The remaining folk opposed to Hs2 have none of these and the way many of the MPs who opposed Phase 1 voted FOR phase 2a is the most obvious example.

No doubt a few die-hards and the bandwagon jumping egotists who infest such campaigns via social media will continue to pretend otherwise, but it matters not. Cross-party support for Hs2 remains unbroken, Phase 1 is under construction, the phase 2a bill is unstoppable and the phase 2 bill is inevitable.

that's all folks

 

Another Stophs2 apathetic fiasco!

19 Monday Feb 2018

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Harvil Rd Hs2 protest, Hs2, StopHs2

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I’m working in central London today and serendipity meant that nearby the Harvil Rd stophs2 protesters were ‘up before the beak’ at the Royal Courts of Justice, where Hs2 Ltd and the DfT had applied for an injunction against 8 named protesters (that’s all there is on a regular basis). Here’s the details, care of the protesters own Twitter account.

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Rather foolishly considering they’ve so little support, the protesters called for a demonstration outside the hearing. They publicised it via Twitter and the Penny & Joe show (formerly known as Stophs2) joined in…

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10.30-12.30? That suited me fine, so I decided to pop along and see how they were doing and what the media scrum would be like. Would the City of London police be out in force to keep order I wondered? I thought I’d give them plenty of time, let Joe Rukin get his inflatable elephant set up and the party get into full swing, so I didn’t pop along  until 11.30. This is what I found. Nothing, no-one, nada, zip, not a sausage – nothing….

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The Rolls building’s to the right of the picture. Considering that Hs2 passes through NINE London constituencies holding a total of 1,079.897 souls that’s an impressive bit of apathy!  It also highlights the Harvil Rd protesters problem. Unlike when they flit between Hillingdon & Euston, when you’re up in court, you can’t be in two places at the same time!

Twyford Down they ain’t….