Category Archives: Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week

Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week. No 26.

20 Monday Jul 2020

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Yes, it’s back! Despite the fact the campaign against Hs2 has been as pointless as giving away condoms in a convent and most of the old guard of Nimbys and other locals have bowed to the inevitable now its obvious HS2’s being built we’ve had members of Extinction Rebellion move in to provide some comedy gold.

Extinction Rebellion have left a very large hostage to fortune with their slogan ‘Tell the truth”. Here’s an example, with serial porkie teller Chris Packham (exposed in this blog for having pants on fire) holding up their slogan here.

packham

Of course, such a slogan is hypocritical is the extreme as XR members have lied through their teeth about HS2 ever since they became involved. Here’s one classic example. Step forward ‘William’, a American in the UK who calls himself ‘Boots on the ground News’ on Twitter.

william

 

Rather laughably, William claims that “The truth always surfaces” as part of his bio. Well, yes. It often does. But not in the way he meant…

You see, the man is just another of those odd fantasists who’re often drawn to groups like Extinction Rebellion and the campaign against HS2. We’ve seen them in action for years and I’ve documented many of them and their tenuous relationship with reality (and facts) over the years.

Here’s just a few of his recent howlers.

boots lies. 1

Eh? I’m sure I’m not alone in reading this and thinking – ‘hang on, I remember the summer of 1976 and standpipes and water bowsers in the streets – I’ve not seen or heard a dicky-bird about any anywhere in 2020’? Of course, in my neck of the woods (West Yorkshire) I’ve also seen a lot of nearly full reservoirs over the weekend, and earlier in the year I remember the damage caused to my local town. Not by drought – but by floods!

DG339636. Sowerby Bridge floods. 9.2.2020.crop

Oh, the UK metrological office would care to differ too. Here’s a couple of quotes.

“This winter (December, January, February) has been the 5th wettest winter on record (data back to 1862) for the UK as a whole as well as the 5th mildest.”

And…

“Is this due to Climate Change?

Met Office records show there is a recent trend of increasing rainfall on seasonal and annual timescales. Since 1998, we have seen six of the ten wettest years on record. However, rainfall patterns in the UK have always shown a large range of natural variation, which makes it more difficult to unambiguously identify long term trends linked to climate change. However, wetter winters have been observed and is consistent with what we expect to happen in the future with continued climate change.” You can find the rest of what the Met Office has to say here. And Spring? The pictures far more mixed, and more complex.

And what of June? The Met office reports that “Rainfall was 144% of average”! I’m sure those people across the country who were caught up in June rainstorms and flash floods will be as surprised as me to know it never happened! So, the assertion that this is ‘greatest drought the UK has ever seen’? Utter bollocks. The man must have been been getting his weather advice from the Daily Express!

Then there’s these recent classics. It seems that teenage ‘tree protectors’ have the uncanny ability to travel through time and space, allowing them to be in two places simultaneously. Take a look.

windfall. Crackley

On the 18th young ‘Windfall’ lives up a tree in Crackley woods eh? Hang on a minute, on the same day she’s supposedly up a tree in Cubbington woods!

Cubbington windfall

Clearly, it was such a rush to get between the two sites (they are over 6 miles apart) she never had time to change her red top!

woods

I could go on (and on) but as his twitter feed is so full of twaddle, lies and scaremongering I’d be here all night. The fact these people are now the backbone of the ‘campaign’ against HS2 should tell you all you need to know.

Sadly, the UK ‘green’ movement seems to be full of clowns like this. Whilst their European counterparts are helping to cut Co2 emissions by encouraging the modal shift from air/road to rail to tackle climate change, these muppets are trying to sabotage building the rail capacity we need to be able to follow their lead. The good thing is they’re so bloody useless they’ve not stopped a thing!  My only concerns are twofold. The damage they’re doing to the reputation to the wider green movement, and the facts they’re filling the heads of young people like these misguided but well-meaning protesters with lies. They deserve better.

“Tell the truth”? The immortal words of ‘Jim Royle’ spring to mind…

jim royle

It would be good to see more people challenge the likes of @bearwitness2019 over the crap they fill impressionable young minds with. Feel free…

 

 

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Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week. No 24.

11 Monday Nov 2019

Posted by in Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week, General election 2019, Hs2, Politics

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With the general election campaigning in full swing it’s been fun resurrecting this feature as we could all do with a laugh at something, and the tiny anti HS2 campaign is certainly providing a chuckle or two thanks to their bizarre insistence that (God knows how) they’re actually some sort of electoral force to be reckoned with! It’s completely bonkers of course. Their influence is so small they couldn’t even get 25,000 signatures on their recent Stophs2 petition. Still, here’s the latest in laughable delusion, this time it’s from another old favourite, Stephen Leary, who lives in NW Leicestershire constituency. You can find him on Twitter as @MeashamHS2Actio

Leary gave up his one-man campaign against HS2 last December but he’s recently returned to continue his programme of self-promotion. He no longer claims he’s going to set up a new StopH2 ‘action’ group, but he does still advertise the non-existent website of the defunct local group (MAPA) which is was a minor member of before it went to the wall.

Here’s one of today’s Tweets, which is a hilarious miscalculation and misunderstanding of party political support!

Green party candidates in Eddisbury and Congleton, eh? Leaving aside the fact the Greens aren’t predicted to win a single extra seat in the general election and are bobbing around at 5% in the polls, we’re expected to believe that the few Shire Tory Brexit supporters who oppose HS2 are going to vote Green to stop HS2? Especially when the incumbent Tory, Antoinette Sandbach, has had the Tory whip removed over Brexit and has gone off to join the Lib-Dems? I mean, seriously? Has it even occurred to Leary that they just might have other considerations on their minds when it come to placing their X’s on the ballot paper? Obviously not, but then that’s typical of these people as their knowledge of politics never normally gets beyond Parish Council level.

To illustrate just how ridiculous and out of touch these claims are, here’s the 2017 election result for Eddisbury. That’s not a hill for the Greens to claim, that’s bleedin’ Everest!

Meanwhile, what of Congleton? This is a real true-blue Constituency which is held by Fiona Bruce with a majority of 12,619. Here’s the 2017 result.

Why Leary’s even bothered with this one’s a mystery as it’s not on the route of HS2! Just 62 people living there signed the last stophs2 petition, that’s 0.065%! The Greens vote dropped last time too, leaving them last on the board.

You have to laugh! Electoral maths clearly isn’t Leary’s forte. Nor has it occurred to him that even if by some miracle, people were persuaded to change their vote because of HS2 and help unseat the incumbent MP, it wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference to anything because HS2 has cross party support from Tory, Labour and Lib-Dems (plus the SNP in Scotland) so it doesn’t make any difference if the seat swaps between any of the major parties – which is the most likely outcome.

To add to the general merriment, Nigel Farage has announced that his Brexit party won’t be standing in any Tory held seats, so that’s really going to rain on the HS2 anti’s parade as there’s no-one else left who opposes HS2 to vote for other than the Greens, who are dead set against Brexit. I’m sure we can expect more laughable nonsense like this from the few remaining HS2 antis over the next few weeks, but there’s no doubt that HS2 won’t be an election issue – despite their desperate and fantastical claims – just like every other election since 2010.

Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week. No 23.

04 Monday Nov 2019

Posted by in Brexit, Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week, Hs2, Politics

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I didn’t expect to be bringing this back twice in a week, but then we’re in general election mode which has thrown up all sorts of nonsense, not least from the anti HS2 camp who’re really making me laugh!

The latest exponent of this craziness is one Peter Deeley, an ardent Brexiter (funny how so often being pro Brexit and anti Hs2 goes together, Ed). Deeley is a former Parish Councillor in Boddington which is in the Daventry constituency. You can find him on Twitter as @PDeeley. He’s always been one of those who’re opposed to HS2 who never lets fact get in the way of fiction, especially when it come to claiming how many people actually oppose HS2! If you believed his rambling tweets, the whole country’s united in opposition to HS2! Here’s one of the latest examples, as Deeley tries (and fails) to get people to retweet him.

This was yesterday. Since then, Deeley’s been on a continuous and tedious loop with the same basic tweet and getting nowhere fast as no-one’s interested. But how can this be? Deeley claims there’s “hundreds of thousands” of potential Tory voters willing to switch allegiance because of HS2!

Really? Where?

Well, not in his own constituency for a start! Here’s how many in Daventry signed the last StopHs2 petition which finished last week.

Just 100 signatures, or 0.101% of the 99,130 constituents in Daventry. So where are these ‘hundreds of thousands’ then? They exist only in Deeley’s fevered imagination! That ridiculous petition only got 24,079 signatures, nowhere near ‘hundreds of thousands’. Nor have their been any sign of all these people in a single election since 2010. This is the stupidity of these people, it’s pure bluster and it’s so easy to disprove you have to wonder what the hell’s the point? Who do they think they’re fooling other than themselves?

Of course, there’s the usual hypocrisy at large here. Whilst claiming he’d vote Tory if Johnson releases the Oakervee report, Deeley’s not clever enough not to have let the cat out of the bag in his own Twitter feed. His intention’s always been to support the Brexit party, no matter what.

There’s a double irony here. The MP for Daventry is one Chris Heaton-Harris, a Brexit zealot and member of the European Research Group and former group Chair! But then when have these Brexiters ever made sense?

Talking of Farage and the Brexit party, it’s a great shame the man has declared that he’s not going to stand in any constituency in this election as we’ll be deprived of the pleasure of seeing him beaten for the eighth time. Of course, the Brexit party are only Farage’s latest vehicle for his ego, and it’s certainly the strangest. It’s very much his party as it has no national executive or structure, everything is in his control, right down to him charging folk £100 a head for the chance to get on the list of candidates. To say the whole process is bent and the antithesis of democracy is an understatement, but then it’s typical that the people who bang on about the EU being ‘undemocratic’ are the biggest hypocrites.

These are the people that fantasists like Deeley are in bed with. Is it any wonder no-one takes these StopHs2 keyboard warriors seriously anymore?

Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week. No 22

31 Thursday Oct 2019

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week, Hs2, Penny Gaines, Railways

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Yes, it’s back – after a gap of nearly 18 months! To be honest, there’s been no point in doing one of these for two reasons. One is that there’s so few of these people left nowadays the field is pretty thin and two – the ones left are all pretty much crazy. If you don’t believe me, go and have a look at the comments from people posting on the StopHs2 Facebook page!

But I couldn’t resist resurrecting it after seeing this classic tweet from StopHs2 ‘Chair’ Penny Gaines which went out earlier today. It’s an absolute pearler! The levels of egotism and perspective failure are weapons-grade. Let’s take a look…

“I told them my vote will depend on whether they oppose Hs2” tweets Gaines. Well, I’m sure the canvasser who knocked on her door must be absolutely sick to death of hearing that said to them. Wait, where does Gaines live? That absolute hotbed of anti HS2 activity, otherwise known as err, Bournemouth…

Yes, Bournemouth. Now I don’t know which of the two constituencies she lives in (East or West) but I’m willing to bet that HS2 isn’t exactly high up on their list of concerns. Brexit? Absolutely. The NHS? Almost certainly – but not HS2!

So, how many people in the two constituencies signed that last daft and doomed StopHs2 petition? Here’s the results.

Wow! All of 31 eh? I’m sure that’ll really make Tobias Ellwood MP change his mind on HS2. Oh, wait, he’s a strong supporter of the project as he’s written here as recently as August 2019! Meanwhile, in Bournemouth West…

Oh dear, just 17 signatures, all of 0.016%. I’m sure that’s giving sitting MP Conor Burns and his canvassers sleepless nights! He’s been absent for the past couple of votes on HS2, but then he’s now a Government Minister, so the idea that he’ll vote against party policy is moonshine. It’s also worth mentioning he’s got a healthy majority!

This rubbish from Gaines does show one thing – why no-one takes what’s left of the anti HS2 grassroots campaign seriously anymore. They really are so divorced from reality it’s actually funny! Now we’re in the run-up to an election, expect to hear more nonsense like this as the few remaining antis bluster and try to puff out their chests and flex non-existent political muscle.

I’ve no doubt the election is going to be a fascinating night as I don’t think we’ve had one with these levels of political uncertainty for a very long time, but there’s one thing that isn’t going to be a factor in any of this and that’s HS2. Not in the Chilterns, and certainly not in Bournemouth!

Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week. No 21

19 Monday Mar 2018

Posted by in Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week, Hs2, YorkshireStopHs2

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It’s a long time since I’ve done one of these, but I thought the award was merited this week due to complete spin and utter disregard for the facts by one Johnathan Pile, from Crofton* in Yorkshire, who is the Chairman of the grandly titled ‘Yorkshire Against Hs2’ (of course, Yorkshire’s nothing of the sort. Ed).

Pile has tweeted this load of fact free nonsense this morning.

yorks 1

yorks hs2

Let’s unpick this, shall we? Besmirching Virgin Trains East Coast’s reputation to claim they’ve cancelled trains due to the snow may sound clever, but Pile’s story fell apart by his own evidence. VTEC’s 12.55 from Wakefield KIRKGATE to London Kings Cross? I don’t think so…

VTEC run from Wakefield Westgate, not Kirkgate and the cancelled train is run by Grand Central. It was cancelled yesterday, but due to a technical issue with the trains traction equipment, not snow – as Grand Central tweeted.

GC

Grand Central arranged for their tickets to be accepted on an East Midlands Trains service from Leeds. This ran and arrived in London St Pancras, just across the road from Kings Cross (on time) at 18.26 several hours after the GC service which was scheduled to arrive at 15.07. Of course, there were other alternatives. The next Grand Central service did run. It left Kirkgate at 16.02 and arrived in Kings Cross at 18.32 (18 mins late).

If Pile hadn’t already got a Grand Central specific ticket there was a VTEC service (the company he claimed was cancelling trains ‘cos of snow). leaving nearby Westgate at 13.18, giving him plenty of time to get a taxi across Wakefield to catch it. Here’s a copy of how VTEC’s services ran that day. None of the Kings Cross services were cancelled due to snow – or anything else – and timekeeping was pretty good.

wakey

So, why did Pile have to drive? he didn’t, the 12.55 was the only London train cancelled, all others ran. It was a Sunday and his meeting (by his own admission) appears to have been today, so he had plenty of time to get to London. Of course, that wouldn’t have made a tenuous ‘let’s try and bash Hs2’ story!

How long would it have taken him to drive yesterday anyway? Google maps calculates a journey made today would take between 3hr 43m – 4hr 6m to drive from Kirkgate to Kings Cross. As there was a lot of snow on the ground yesterday I’d suggest it would’ve taken longer and also been a pretty daft thing to do bearing in mind the weather conditions which were (allegedly) causing trains to be cancelled.

But that’s Hs2 antis all over – a cavalier attitude to facts and the truth. It seems that according to people like Pile, facts are what you make up. Is it any wonder their campaign’s fallen apart?

*Crofton is in the West Yorkshire constituency of Hemsworth. Despite Pile’s grand claims the anti Hs2 campaign isn’t exactly setting the constituency alight. I’ve had a look at the number of folk who’ve signed the latest Stop Hs2 Parliamentary petition. Here’s the result (updated today).

Hemsworth

Just 0.34% eh? Yorkshire ‘against’ Hs2? Even bleedin’ Hemsworth isn’t!

Of course, Pile has form for making grand claims and writing cheques he can’t cash. A year ago he was threatening that he’d start a Judicial Review against Hs2 (link). It was nothing more than bluster. His group never even started to raise the money to pay for one.

 

Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week: No 19.

19 Wednesday Oct 2016

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

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I haven’t highlighted any individual campaigners for some months now as the whole StopHs2 campaign’s crazy nowadays but I couldn’t resist this outstanding example. So, step forward Nicholas Ward – who’s standing as a Stophs2 candidate in tomorrow’s Witney by-election!

Witney is an ultra-safe Tory seat that was the constituency of David Cameron, the former Prime Minster, who held it with a majority of 25,155. Ward, who lives in Greatworth near Banbury has decided that this is the ideal place for him to persuade voters that Hs2 is such a major issue (even though it’ll go nowhere near the place) they’ll reject their Tory tendencies to elect him as their MP instead. There’s a grand total of 14 candidates standing in Witney which means Ward has to fight for votes against parties with far more credibility, like The Monster Raving Loony party, or bus pass Elvis!

Ward’s website claims that “there is little to be gained from voting for one of the main parties in this by-election” as if Brexit and the economy are somehow a side-show in Witney compared to Hs2. He goes on to claim that he’s “always worked on the basis that, no matter how difficult the odds, one had to go on trying to achieve one’s objective for as long as there was any chance of success. This attitude has motivated his decision to stand in the Witney by-election.”
How Ward expects to be able to do anything about Hs2 (even if by some incredible miracle he was elected) is a mystery as the project has solid cross-party support and the Hs2 bill sailed through Parliament with a massive 411 majority. Like many other Hs2 antis Ward doesn’t understand that the general public don’t share his obsession with the project. It’s an attitude that’s bedevilled the anti hs2 campaign from the beginning, leading to them making serious tactical errors by assuming ordinary voters will ‘rally round’ – as Ward is doing. It’s a tactic that’s backfired time and time again as all it’s done is expose how little support they really have. Ward is doomed to repeat this failure when the by-election result is declared on Thursday night/Friday morning. If this isn’t crazy, then…

POST-RESULT UPDATE.

Mr Ward managed to get all of 92 votes. This beat his previous total of 63 votes from when he stood in Westminster North at the General election. It equates to 0.2% of all votes cast in Witney.

 

Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week No 18..

04 Monday Jan 2016

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The first award of 2016 goes to one Nicholas J Batty for this (just posted) supremely idiotic tweet where he forgot to check the calender before typing;

BattyBS

What happens when you click on the petition link?You get a petition that closed on the 7th August 2014 after gathering 124 signatures!

The appropriately named Mr Batty appears to be a classic Walter Mitty personality as anyone browsing his details will find. He has a long history of preposterous personal claims. The anti Hs2 campaign does seem to attract an awful lot of people like him.  Still, a man who can claim the anti Hs2 campaign is both “relentless” and “expanding” whilst posting rubbish like this obviously lives in a special place the rest of us don’t.

Meanwhile, the active anti Hs2 flood petition has just passed the 1700 mark in 7 days. Anyone proficient in either maths or the way these polls work will know that means it doesn’t have a snowballs chance in hell of hitting the 100,000 in 6 months that it needs. I’ll do an update on this petition and the embarassment its providing for the StopHs2 campaign in a couple of weeks, when it’s clear it’s fading away.

Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week No 17.

24 Thursday Dec 2015

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Jacques Cousteau would be proud of this weeks anti Hs2 mob winner. Like him, they’re not afraid to plumb new depths. This week the award goes to one John Mitchell of Culcheth who hides behind the wonderfully ironic Twitter name of “John Sensible”, for it is he who has come up with the ludicrous claim that it’s “unchristian” to want to build Hs2 – and I kid you not. Here’s some of his ludicrous tweets on the matter;

Sensible christian 2

sensible christian

Such distasteful claims only go to show how desperate & divorced from reality the anti hs2 mob are as it becomes clear their campaign’s failed. But it also shows many of them have become indivisible from UKIP – who jumped on the anti Hs2 bandwagon after the 2010 election in the hope there’d be votes in it. Anti Hs2 campaigners have never been afraid to use homophobia, racism, threats or intimidation. Now they show they’re not afraid to play the religious card either.

Here’s another of today’s examples, from UKIP fan Trevor Forrester which also manages to combine religion and racism.

Forrester

The sooner their whole distasteful campaign is put out of its misery the better. The good news is that – at the rate decent folks are turning their backs on it – that won’t be long…

Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week. No 16

01 Tuesday Dec 2015

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Although the week has only just begun I think it’s going to be hard to beat this lunacy from the Twitter account of the Mid Cheshire anti Hs2 group.

Admittedly, they have a lot of form for spouting complete nonsense. After all, it was one of their members who claimed that the anti Hs2 campaign was bigger than the 1990s poll tax demonstrations (stop sniggering at the back!). I doubted they’d be able to top that but I have to say the anti Hs2 mob always seem to be able to exceed my expectations. Take a look at this..

Mid ches

So, there you have it. Don’t cure rail gridlock, don’t build a catalyst for massive regeneration in our major cities. Don’t create tens of thousands of jobs that will up-skill the workforce (who will then pay tax back to the government) – simply bung every ‘poor’ person in the UK £20,000 of taxpayers money, gratis – job done.

Quite what they’d been ingesting when they came up with this stunning idea is open to conjecture….

For some reason only a couple of other antis latched on to the idea, presumably because anyone with half a brain stopped and thought – “what the actual f***!”

With this level of intellect, grasp of economics and understanding of politics powering the anti Hs2 campaign, what could possibly go wrong?

Crazy (& obnoxious) anti hs2 campaigner of the week No15

14 Saturday Nov 2015

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week, Paris terror attack, Peter Jones

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As the anti Hs2 campaign continues to implode and gets more desperate by the week it’s become harder to single out a single campaigner for the weekly award. Nowadays, crazy sums up their whole campaign.

That changed today when Peter Jones, the obnoxious and libelous Camden campaigner came out with something so utterly crass and blinkered that it takes your breath away.

Like many people, I’ve spent the past 12 hours watching with horror as the tragic events unfolded in Paris. This morning it became clear just how awful the scale of the terrorist attack had been. Along with people worldwide I was moved to show solidarity with Paris and the people caught up by displaying a symbol drawn up by a young man who then shared it on social media. That symbol has since gone viral. You can read about it here – although I’m sure many of you will have already seen it.

Enter Peter Jones, who posted this on Twitter this morning (hence my reply);

dd fuckwit

Since then this has been retweeted by several other anti Hs2 campaigners. As their campaign’s collapsed cheap insults have become Jones’ and the anti hs2 mobs stock in trade. Typically, each time you think they couldn’t sink any lower they manage to dig another basement level. One can only hope that their increasingly extreme and unpleasant campaign isn’t digging basement levels but its own grave…

UPDATE:

To cement his title to the crown, Jones has added ambulance-chasing to his list of odious accomplishments. To compound French woes there has been a rail accident today. A high-speed test train has derailed on a yet to be opened TGV line, killing five of the technicians aboard. Jones triumphantly & sickly uses this incident in a crude attempt to scaremonger & smear high speed rail in general & Hs2 in particular, then pretends a 2014 incident in which a TER service hit a TGV was a second accident today!

TGV 1

TGV2

Note there’s not a single drop of sympathy anywhere for the dead and injured, or their families, just triumphalism. Jones and his fellow travellers in the anti Hs2 campaign are beneath contempt.

16 November UPDATE

Here’s proof (where any more needed) from this evening that Jones is a brass-necked hypocrite of the first water who has the cheek to accuse me of exploiting tragedy!

DD hypocrisy