I had to laugh when I came across the latest missive on the HS2 ‘rebellion’ website! It’s a masterpiece of bluster and not understanding messaging. Allegedly, after 47 days, the protesters who’d hidden themselves away in tunnels no-one cared about have given up. Of course, they try and spin this as a ‘victory’ and add various lies, bombast and empty rhetoric to cover their tracks, but they’re so full of themselves they forget what the salient message is. Here’s the text of their failure.
Let’s cut through the crap and get straight to the points shall we? They’ve given up after 47 days, having achieved what, exactly? The answer is – nothing. This was never more than a publicity stunt. Their problem was – it didn’t attract any real publicity! The camp above the tunnel was swept away within 24 hours leaving the tunnellers isolated. The satellite camp didn’t last much longer, which meant the troglodytes in the tunnel couldn’t get any messages out, so no-one was interested. The days passed by and it became obvious the HS2 security teams and bailiffs weren’t going to risk anyone’s lives digging them out. Why should they? There was no rush to get them out. Why? Another serial failure (Mark Keir) gave it away in his puffery above. “Hs2 do not even plan to use this woodland until 2024”. So what was the point of this stupidity? These muppets were going to stay underground for the next 2 years? These were crude tunnels, not the bloody Maginot line!
This futile protest always had a sell-by date, but the tunnellers (in their isolation) had no idea that date expired almost as soon as they headed underground with no communication with the outside world.
As for their ‘great escape’, this will be a pyrrhic victory. They’re willfully in contempt of court – and the courts don’t take such persistent flouting of their authority lightly. There will be arrest warrants outstanding here and it’s only a matter of time before the law catches up with these hapless and hopeless people. They may have flattered their egos by claiming a pointless record in a pointless protest, but that’s potentially going to come at a very high price – and all for nothing….
Where does this leave the anti HS2 protests? Up sh*t creek without a paddle. They’ve no camps left and no way to try and attract media attention (their primary aim) and also no way of trying to mug people for money through crowdfunders. It’s clear that the further North they moved the less support they had – especially amongst friendly landowners. The anti HS2 heartlands were always on HS2 phase 1 and much closer to London where they could draw on a pool of young Extinction Rebellion supporters. Informed sources tell me that the rump of the protesters are likely to retreat South in the hope of finding succor. The obvious flaw in this ‘plan’ is that HS2 phase 1 construction is well underway so pretending you can stop it is a fool’s errand. Add in the fact that most of the original protesters have given up and either buggered off or signed affidavits to say they’ll stay away and it’s obvious where this is going to end.
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It’s been a dank and dismal day here in the Calder Valley which was a shame as I’d hoped to start a new week in positive fashion. Sadly it wasn’t to be. Added to the gloom was the bounce I felt yesterday as I thought I was shaking off Covid bounced the opposite way today! This isn’t uncommon apparently. You have good days and bad days, it’s just the bad days get less bad. I’d tried to keep busy with paperwork and preparing for the week and even ventured out for a walk on my own through the local woods where I wasn’t likely to come into contact with people, but by the time I got back I was knackered! The stamina levels obviously still need a bit of tweaking. To that end I’ve loosened the reins on eating and drinking. After all, there’s got to be some pleasures left in life. Thankfully, Dawn still seems to be Covid free even though she feels that not all cylinders are firing.
Away from our own concerns there’s the tragedy of the Ukraine still unfolding. I’m resisting blogging about this (for now) as I need to be in full spleen-vent to describe my feelings about what’s going on, the atrocities occurring and the senseless waste of life on all sides. Because of this I did snap at one point earlier today when I saw a young HS2 opponent tweet about how the protesters were suffering ‘lifelong trauma’. What? from events that never happened? For years the protesters have complained about ‘brutality’ from police and security. This ‘brutality’ happens just as soon as someone says ‘no’ to them. A classic example would be a trespasser refuses to move despite several requests to do so, so the police/security use their powers and exercise reasonable force (as they’re legally entitled to do). As soon as the protester has a finger laid upon them they start screaming about being ‘assaulted’. Oh, please! Despite these protests having lasted for 5 years the only convictions for assault have been of protesters. Several charges and arrest warrants are outstanding but certain people have ‘disappeared’ in the hope of evading the police. Even though said protesters nearly all carry camera-phones to record their antics they’ve never yet managed to film a single genuine assault and the video they do produce often leads to the exact opposite result in court. Now, I’m not taking sides here (other than that of the law). If any member of HS2 security or the police does actually assault a protester they should have the book thrown at them. But that’s up to a real court to rule upon, not the court of social media. Frankly, I find it insulting that people who’ve suffered genuine traumas in their lives are being compared to a protester being told ‘no, the law applies to you too’ who them makes stuff up. It’s disappointing to see some mainstream greens supporting this position but I can see their dilemma.
The Green party began from a protest movement and it’s struggling to be a mainstream political party with aspirations of political power. It’s torn in too many directions. Because with power comes responsibility. How could you pass laws when you encourage people to break laws? It’s a question some greens would rather you don’t ask – especially coming up to the May elections. How can they reconcile support for the tactics of people allied to the Extinction Rebellion banner who routinely break the law (sometimes receiving custodial sentences) and at the same time criticise the Johnson Goverment for its law-breaking without looking like hypocrites. Clearly in ‘green’ eyes some laws are more equal than others. This leaves a huge hostage to fortune and the right-wing media an open goal.
Anyway, enough of these musings. I’m sure I’ll be revisiting them again in the future. In the meantime, here’s the picture of the day which relates to some of my earlier comments. We spotted this on out walk on Norland Moor yesterday.
The sooner this war criminal’s in the bin the better…
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The anti HS2 protesters may have done it their way but there was one major problem. Their way was an utter failure! Late to the party, After the abject failure of groups like ‘StopHS2’ HS2Rebellion was formed in 2019 as a banner under which a rag-bag of professional protesters who were refugees from other failed campaigns could coalesce and recruit young people and locals who lived along the route of HS2 to form a grassroots activist movement. It was a project doomed from the very start because of the tensions inherent in trying to weld together people with diametrically opposed outlooks and political sympathies. Anarchists who who had the dream of ‘smashing capitalism’ (bless! Ed) and thought laws only applied to other people were never going jell with Nimbys who owned multi-million pound homes, nor with landowners and farmers who actually knew something about the environment they stewarded. Add in the fact it was an impossible aim. A tiny handful of people that never numbered more than a few hundred to try and stop the largest construction project in Europe that was spread over hundreds of miles was only going to end one way. And so it came to pass.
At the height of their campaign (2020) there were more than a dozen ‘protection’ camps littering (literally) the phase 1 route of HS2. Gradually, these were evicted or abandoned as ‘weekend warriors’ who only turned up to party lost interest never made credible troops. Here’s a list of camps HS2Rebellion openly advertised on their website in August 2021 (with my annotations in bold).
There were several others that only lasted a few days/weeks that never even made the list. Here’s the current list that’s buried away on a back page of their website today.
– and then there was one…
Another factor in the mix is the fact some of the people attracted to these protests are ‘nere-do-wells’ or damaged people who lapse into drug-taking, theft and violence. Insiders attest to the fact the atmosphere at these camps could be quite poisonous and women often felt marginalised or even at risk. Some of the young people whose idealism attracted them to the ’cause’ were soon disillusioned by the reality. The aggression shown by some protesters towards ordinary HS2 workers wasn’t what these idealists expected – or wanted, it was all meant to be peaceful and ‘fluffy’ on the protesters part but the reality was anything but. Factionlism soon broke out as those behind HS2Rebellion turned out to be control freaks who tried to take over the campaign – and control the money. This didn’t sit well with some of the earlier activists. I documented some of the spectacular fallings out in this 2019 blog – “trouble at t’stophs2 mill”
The decline of the ‘rebellion’ was swift as it became obvious that all their stunts were almost exclusively for PR purposes. None of them stopped a thing. Many weren’t even on land needed to build HS2 although that was never, ever admitted. Neither was the weapons-grade lying! As far as those leading the campaign were concerned, lying was fine as it was all about publicity. It made a mockery of the Extinction Rebellion slogan ‘tell the truth’ but that’s always been a lie anyway. As far as XR are concerned the truth is what you make up.
Admittedly, work on some sites was delayed or disrupted temporarily and millions of pounds was wasted but there was only ever going to be one winner. Their tactics were hopeless, carbon-copies of the same stunts that failed to stop the road-building programme of the 1980s. They never twigged that people stuck up trees or squatting in tunnels were sitting targets. It was simply a question of how long it would take them to be removed. It was the same with their tactic of blocking site access or sitting atop vehicles. That got them arrested, with onerous bail conditions applied that limited what they could do, further draining their pool of activists which was rapidly turning into a puddle.
The last squatter camp on Phase 1 (at Wendover) was finally evicted without any media attention in November 2021. That left one camp remaining, at Swynnerton in Staffordshire where a pitiful handful of refugees from other camps had pitched up after everyone else had scattered to the four winds. ‘Bluebell’ camp as the squatters named it was all they had left. It was painfully obvious to anyone with half a brain that by this stage in the game they were wasting their time, but those at the camp had nowhere else to go. Plus, they were still managing to get mugs to fund their lifestyle through Crowdfunding. All they had to do was keep up the pretense that they were actually doing something…
So, every few days a video would appear of a handful of them ‘blockading’ a nearby HS2 worksite. There was only one problem – it was complete bollocks as it was purely for show. They’d reached an agreement with their police liasion so that in order they could legally exercise their right to protest they could parade outside the gate for an hour or so. Any longer and they’d fall foul of the law and be arrested. It was painfully obvious they were achieving nothing because if you look back through the video’s you can see the HS2 worksite expanding and the fences growing! But, it was enough to fool the mugs on social media and keep the money flowing. ‘Job’ done the protesters would retreat to camp to waste the rest of their time drinking, smoking and digging the odd bit of tunnel. Interestingly enough, the majority of their crowdfunding doesn’t come from individual ‘widow’s mites’ but large, regular and anonymous donations of £500 at a time. Here’s a screenshot.
Of course, there were a couple of very middle-class kids in the Euston tunnel who’s parent is a millionaire. I wonder…Looking through all the various Crowdfunders the protesters have organised (and there’s loads) there is a pattern of large anonymous donations. So much for a grassroots campaign. I sometimes wonder just how many 100s of 1000s of pounds have been raised and wasted on this futile campaign. No accounts have ever been held and none have ever been published. It’s been a financial black-hole. No-one knows where all the kit they’ve bought (solar panels, climbing gear, vehicles etc) has gone, other than most of it has ‘disappeared’ – along with some the personal and private property of a few of the camps inhabitants.
The lack of a genuine ‘grassroots’ has always been the anti HS2 campaigns weakness. Considering the fact millions of people live in the constituencies HS2 passes through the number of folks protesting has always been ridiculous in comparison. Even celebrities like Chris Packham with his dual vanity projects (a petition and a legal case, both of which failed) plus his weapons grade dishonesty couldn’t revitalise the campaign.
Another sign of their decline is that no-one seems to be directing HS2Rebellion anymore. The people who set it up appear to have either deserted it or taken a very back seat. Looking at the stuff on their social media feeds and accounts it looks like a bunch of clueless kids have been given the keys and allowed to post what they want – hence them endorsing those libertarian, climate-change denialists and smokescreen for the oil lobby – the Cato Institute! Link here.
The people behind HS2Rebellion seem to be Extinction Rebellion acolytes Larch Maxey and Samantha Smithson (aka ‘Swan’) plus a chap called Micheal Truesdale (aka ‘Miami’) who was involved in a lot of the spats over control of the money and protest camps. All are keeping a very low profile. Maxey and Smith have court cases pending due to various daft stunts whilst Truesdale has disappeared, having deleted his Facebook account. Most of the usual suspects were amongst the 63 (with aliases) named in this recent injunction for the real name of ‘Bluebell’ Woods (Cash’s Pit). The injunction’s interesting for several reasons. It exposes just how few people formed the hardcore of the protest, how many have since deserted the campaign, and also which ones are left – and their real names. I mean, seriously – a campaign where there’s less than 100 hard-core supporters to be found and named after four years of protests? That’s pathetic.
So, who’s vice ‘Miami’? real name Michael Truesdale, last seen wasting his time up a tree in Euston Sq gardens?
In February the ‘Bluebell’ camp was served with an eviction notice which expired on March 24th. There was a lot of bluster from some of the residents about how they were going to challenge this but they’ve gone very quiet after the hearing (let me guess, it failed. Ed). Now the stage is set for the eviction as all the players are in place for the showdown which will obviously take place in the next few days or weeks. The result is in no doubt. What will be interesting is to see how many people are left in the camp when the eviction takes place as more of the long term regulars who ended up at ‘Bluebell’ have already given up and moved on. Here’s two examples from recent weeks.
Ross Monaghan was a refugee from Crackley and Jones’ Hill woods camps (amongst others) and had convictions for assault. ‘Tepcat’ was an occupant of the Bluebell camp who’d previously drifted in and out of several other camps over the years.
Meanwhile, despite these desertions, the bluster from the remaining occupants goes on!
“Growing”? Bless! As for working ‘hard’, here’s a picture posted on one of their social media accounts in recent days which shows just how hard they’re ‘working’. After all, those cider flagons are had to lift don’tcha know! “working hard” at ‘Bluebell’ woods, thanks to mugs donating to Crowdfunders ‘cos they’ve been conned into thinking a tiny group of woodland wasters like this are going to stop the largest construction project in Europe. If this is ‘the resistance’ then it’s painfully obvious resistance is futile!
On the 5th April there’s a hearing in the High Court in Birmingham where HS2 Ltd are applying for a route-wide injunction to prevent any more of these incursions onto HS2 land and prevent unlawful activity such as blocking access to HS2 worksites. You can find all the court papers here. There’s a lot of them but some make interesting reading as they document protests going back to 2017 and expose the protesters claims of being ‘peaceful’ for the lies they are. If the injunction’s granted (and they have been in the past) expect the eviction of ‘Bluebell’ to happen very soon afterwards.
No doubt I’ll be blogging about the eviction as and when it happens as this is the final chapter in this useless and misguided campaign. It’s possible another pointless camp may spring up somewhere in the future but it’s patently obvious that what passed for a national campaign to stop HS2 died a death years ago.
Now the focus moves to Parliament as the consultation period on the Phase 2b route from Crewe to Manchester closes on March 31st. Soon, the Hybris Bill for the route will get its 2nd reading in Parliament. It will pass and the only question is how big the majority will be. There’s no credible political opposition to HS2, but then there’s no credible ‘grassroots’ campaign either. The mantra I’ve been repeating for years is self-evident. ‘Stop Hs2’ is dead….
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Supposed ‘eco-warriors’ Extinction Rebellion have a simple slogan. It’s “tell the truth”. There’s only one slight problem with such a slogan. XR wouldn’t know what the truth is if it bit them! Far from telling the ‘truth’ they’ve got a long and nasty habit of making up stuff to feed to their gullible supporters, not all of whom are fooled. Here’s an example from Tuesday, when XR members in the North pulled yet another stupid stunt involving trains to/from Drax power station.
For a while now, @hs2rebellion and XR have been trying to claim that trees chopped down to build the new High Speed 2 (HS2) railway are being chipped and sent to Drax as biofuel. It’s cobblers of course, Drax use trains to move massive amounts of wood chippings from the ports of Liverpool, Immingham and Hull. These trains, weighing in at 2,400 tonnes each carry 1600 tonnes of biomass and operate nearly 30 services A DAY into Drax. The idea the power station needs or requires this to be supplanted by a few hundred tonnes of green woodchips moved by road from scattered sites across the route of HS2 is laughable, but that’s HS2Rebellion for you. The truth is what you make up.
Here’s what those biofuel trains look like. These are the services from Liverpool Docks to Drax which use very high capacity hopper wagons (wood-chip being light, but bulky). All biomass to Drax is moved in long trains of hopper wagons similar to this.
Now have a look at this nonsense and bluster from XR North via one of the useless anti HS2 protesters in Staffs who bills himself as ‘Run Away Jim’!
Their claims are a complete fiction for several reasons. 1. That’s not a biomass train. 2. That silly person didn’t stop anything as a few seconds into the video the train starts pulling away, leaving the bemused protester looking very stupid indeed as she delivers an intellectually incoherent ramble to camera. It’s an incredibly stupid stunt. Believe me, as someone who’s held the PTS (Personal Track Safety) qualification, I can tell you trackside near moving trains is a very dangerous place to be even if you’re fit, active and trained to be there. For a clueless elderly person it’s a potential death-trap. By encouraging such dumb actions XR are putting people’s lives at risk. Plus, it’s no fun (at all) for the railway staff and emergency services who might (literally) have to pick up the pieces. You can watch the whole, ridiculous video on the XR North Facebook page (link).
The comments on the XR FB page show that some people weren’t fooled and knew this wasn’t a biomass train. XR North doubled-down on the lie by pretending its a ‘local’ service bringing in woodchip – which is utter rubbish, because there aren’t any.
How do I know this? Easily. Can I prove it? Yes, of course.
What idiot protesters like XR don’t understand is that even freight trains operate to timetables and those timetables and details of the train types are available online. So, what was that train? Well, it’s very distinctive because of those ‘Interbulk’ container tanks atop flat wagons. It’s actually ash from Drax which only runs on a Tuesday and Thursday when it’s worked from/to sidings at South Milford North of Leeds before travelling down to Appleford near Oxford where the ash is disposed of. Here are the copies of the actual (real time) timetables for Tuesday. Now, I can’t tell which of the two trains this is, but one of the little revelations is neither the inbound or outbound working was delayed at all by that silly protester. Oh, another thing to note. Look at the weights of each train. It went into Drax empty and came out loaded – exactly the opposite of what a biomass train does!
The train was seven minutes late leaving Milford and seven minutes late arriving at Drax. Some ‘delay’.The train was seventeen minutes late leaving Drax and clearly suffered no extra delays around Drax!
There you have it. Extinction Rebellion caught out lying and then when questioned they double-down on the lie. It’s time people started seeing these people for whom they really are – untrustworthy, dishonest and who couldn’t ‘tell the truth’ if their lives depended on it. Which (allegedly) they do…
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As I’m busy with other things and I’ll be busy reporting on positive progress with building the new HS2 railway I haven’t paid what passes for a campaign to stop Hs2 much attention recently. Mainly because it’s collapsed into a farce. Yes, there’s still four or five people holed up in a tunnel at Wendover, waiting to be dug out by bailiffs. But as they’re not even in the way of HS2 construction and aren’t achieving anything, what’s the point? Their few friends are realising no-one else is interested either, so spend their time trying to drum up support by pretending this self-isolation is somehow heroic rather than what it really is. Dumb and pointless.
The eviction of the Wendover camp brought an end to the protest camp network, depriving those involved of refuges. Now, many of the tiny hard-core have drifted away. The arrival of winter’s speeded up that retreat. Oh, a few still turn up to HS2 compound gates to wave flags and video themselves before buggering off again, pretending they’ve actually achieved something, but it’s painfully obvious to any impartial observer this is just window-dressing as there’s over 300 active HS2 worksites and less than three dozen regular proteters.
So, like StopHS2 before them, HS2Rebellion have little left other than social media. They try to keep up the pretense of actually doing things by posting whatever they can find that’s critical of HS2, or even high-speed rail per se. Because this was never really about ‘green’ issues at all. Like Extinction Rebellion they’re an offshoot of – this is all about politics, not the environment. XR and HS2rebellion are (laughably) all about trying to bring down capitalism and democracy which they want to replace with the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ through citizens assembly’s. Or in other words, they want power.
There’s one huge problem. They’re politically inept and hopelessly naïve. Many of them have as little understanding of politics as they do of real environmentalism. Their ideology’s a mess, as is their knowledge of the real world influencers (who aren’t who they think). Here’s an example. Yesterday HS2rebellion published this on their Facebook page.
Apart from the fact this obviously nails their colours to the anti-rail mast, you have to ask, did any of them bother to check who the Cato Institute is, what its beliefs are, or who funds it? Clearly not.
Why, because the Cato Institute is (yet another) right-wing, libertarian lobby group that’s been prominent and influential in spreading climate-change denial! It was set up and bankrolled by the Koch Brothers (Charles and David) in 1977. The brothers are (or were, David died in 2019) some of the richest people in the world. Their company, Koch Industries is the largest privately held company in the USA. It made its money through oil. For decades, the brothers have used their massive wealth to gain political and social influence, shaping American (and thus world) policy on a number of fronts which includes trying to undermine efforts to tackle climate change, opposing public transport projects (like high-speed rail) and pouring money into numerous conservative political campaigns. Friends of the environment they’re not. All this is well-documented and anyone with a real interest in these issues has known about the Koch brothers for donkey’s years.
But not HS2rebellion – who’re happy to promote the ideology of the climate-change deniers and puff their influence through advertising the ‘think-tanks’ they fund!
Mind you, HS2rebellion aren’t alone in this. Many supposed ‘greens’ are happy to promote similar propaganda from the UK version of the Cato, the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), another bunch of right-wing lobbyists masquerading as an educational organisation as a cover for what they really are – a bunch of political lobbyists.
Rather foolishly, the IEA complained about the broadcaster James O’Brien for calling them out. The OFCOM judgement is worth reading as – not only was the complaint thrown out – the judgement exposed the IEA for what they really are. You can read it here.
At the behest of their anonymous paymasters (the IEA refuse to come clean on who funds them) the IEA also engage in trying to undermine action on Climate Change. Here’s an example. This bunch of nonsense has appeared on the website of ‘Transport Watch’.
But who are ‘Transport Watch’? Well, until recently they were one man – Paul Withrington, a retired road planner who was obsessed with the idea that all the UKs railways should be tarmac’d over and replaced by fleets of coaches. It was quite mad and no matter how many times Withrington was challenged on the maths and the physics of the idea he was so obsessed nothing could convince him he wasn’t talking out of a fundamental orifice. Withrington used to turn up at events like Infrarail in the hope of buttonholing Ministers to press his lunacy but most saw him coming and managed to avoid him. Needless to say, Withrington was grist to the mill for the lobbyists of the IEA and fell in with their risibly named ‘Head of Transport’, Richard Wellings – a man who’s never held a proper job in his life – much less had any frontline experience in transport. The pair of them co-authored an IEA paper called ‘paving over the tracks’ in 2015. It’s completely crazy of course, but he who pays the piper…
Withrington died in January 2021 and it appears that he bequeathed his baby to the IEA, because who’s name is on the bottom of that climate change denialism and scaremongering? Yep, one Richard Wellings. ‘Transport Watch’ seems to be a way for the IEA to publish even more loony conspiracy theories in an attempt to undermine the fight against global warming whilst trying to maintain plausible deniability. In fact, the only articles that have appeared on the TW website have all been authored by Wellings. I’m not going to give them the pleasure of a boost by providing a link to their website, but if you’re really curious it’s easy to find and verify everything I’ve said about them.
These are just some examples of why I’ve long held the belief that much of what passes for a UK ‘green’ movement simply isn’t fit for purpose. They’re tone-deaf and utterly unable to tell when they’re being played by the far smarter and much more intelligent right-wing, which would be funny if it wasn’t so dangerous and damaging. The fact UK ‘greens’ are doing the climate-change deniers and oil and roads lobby’s job for them by opposing green public transport shows just how screwed-up this country is nowadays. Their European (and Scottish) cousins are far more savvy. Sadly, we’re lumbered with the dogmatic and disconnected likes of Baroness (“I like trains, me”) Jenny Jones, and the demagogues of Extinction Rebellion gluing themselves to or opposing us building public transport. What a time to be alive…
Meanwhile, we have the fun and games up at COP26, where Extinction rebellion protesters arrived by train. Here’s the ‘Red rebels’ on Glasgow Central earlier this week after arriving from London. These are the very same ‘rebels’ who could be seen protesting at HS2 construction sites.
‘cos dressing up in red rags and opposing HS2 is obviously going to save the planet…
An irony that is completely lost on these people is the very railway they’ve been protesting against would (by slashing Anglo–Scottish journey times) be a viable alternative to Europe’s busiest domestic aviation routes, those from Aberdeen/Glasgow/Edinburgh to the London airports as this graph makes clear.
You can find lots more information on Anglo-Scottish air traffic from Chris Ogilvie (@Ogilvie_CJ) on Twitter.
I’ll be back in Scotland next week for more COP26 rail related activities, so watch out for other blogs. Needless to say – unlike our Prime Minister – I’ll be letting the train, not the airlines take the strain…
I’ve a favour to ask… If you enjoy reading this blog, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course (although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab!), but the revenue from them helps to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site – and right now (because of Covid), us freelances appreciate all the help that we can get to aid us in bouncing back from lockdowns. Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website – https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/
It’s just as well I promised not to give you a day by day account of the eviction of the Wendover squatters as I’m not sure I could have sat through hours of their turgid ‘livestreams’ and rambling commentaries that would make GBNews (the ‘gammon channel’) seem interesting.
Most of the videos posted on the HS2rebellion Facebook page have come from that fantasist Mark Keir. I did recommend that *if* you had to watch them to do it with the sound turned down. Sadly for me, I’ve had to endure his unhinged ramblings so that you don’t have to. Apart from the general lying through his teeth about the impact of HS2 on the environment the general rule of thumb with Keir is that if he asserts or suggests something in his commentary you know the opposite will actually happen. A few days ago he claimed that the bailiffs were packing up for the day because they were moving a cherry-picker. A short while later they’d plucked the last remaining tree protesters out of a bath stuck up said item of foliage. The other day he claimed an Inspector from the Health and Safety Inspectorate was going to stop all the work because it was ‘dangerous’. A few minutes later the cherry-picker was back in action, resuming demolishing the only Tower on the site! Oh, and never trust a man who spends so much time laughing at his own (unfunny) jokes! One thing I’ve noticed and a trend that’s continued since the start of the eviction is how few people tune in to watch these tedious livestreams. They never get into triple figures. When you consider that some of the folk dipping in to observe will be supporters, not opponents of HS2 these numbers are appalling, but predictable. A lot of HS2rebellion supporters have moved on after defeat after defeat.
Frankly, the last few days have been an embarrassment for HS2Rebellion. Despite all the ‘calls to arms’ from people like Keir, no-one, apart from a handful of the usual suspects, have turned up to stand helplessly on the opposite side of the A413 to ‘bear witness’. Whilst Keir and Co have focused on the slow demolition of the tower over the only tunnel on the site which is held by less than 10 people, they’ve deliberately ignored what’s happening on other areas of the three sites that make up the camp but one of their number let it slip in his livestream. Iain Oliver (aka ‘Pirate’), who’s been evicted from several camps (most recently the completely useless Wormwood Scrubs squat) filmed the dereliction and destruction of what appeared to be the main camp through the fence. This part of the camp was allegedly meant to remain untouched as one of the protesters – who faces several serious charges unconnected to her HS2 activities – had been remanded on bail to that address. The fact the bailiffs are now taking possession of that part of the begs the question as what’s happened to said person, as the other protestors aren’t even mentioning them anymore. Has ‘Yogi’ done a runner?
This leaves the ‘tower’ and the only tunnel on site which lies beneath it. Both appear to be occupied by around half a dozen people. The bailiffs are taking their time scrapping the tower before they can get to the tunnel, but why wouldn’t they? There’s no hurry. The camp isn’t in the way of any work. It’s not stopped any HS2 construction anywhere. Plus, there’s only ever going to be one result.
Because half a dozen people cut off from the real world on a site that’s not even needed to built HS2 was always going to stop HS2…
No doubt this farce will drag on for a while yet, but it’s achieving nothing other than wasting time and money. If anything of any note happens I’ll do an update. In the meantime expect a blog next week from somewhere where the real action is – the HS2 construction sites at Euston…
Meanwhile, the fat lady’s in fine voice and enjoying her last hurrah…
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With the collapse of the anti HS2 ‘protection’ camps and protest on the ground, the shambolic remnants of their campaign (and I use that word loosely) spend more and more of the little time they have trying to shore-up their social media efforts to oppose HS2. Like the folks on the ground, this has mostly evaporated as the young people recruited via Extinction Rebellion who made up the bulk of it have (like many young people) short attention-spans. Most have already moved on to whatever lost cause is the latest ‘thing’. What’s left are retreating into an increasingly out of touch world which makes me wonder what some of them have been smoking/ingesting. Here’s an absolute classic of that genre!
Step forward ‘Tellheed Green’, yet another anonymous person supposedly based in London who’s just churned out this rebranded poster and posted it on the Facebook page of the Bluebell woods ‘protection’ camp. I’ve no idea who did the original artwork or where it’s been pinched from, but ‘Green’ has stuck a ‘stop HS2’ logo on it to turn it into something that’s truly ‘through the looking glass’!
Oil companies want HS2? HS2 is a carbon-neutral, electrically powered railway that will get people out of planes and cars to provide a real alternative to fossil fuel use and allow us to wean ourselves off them. Oil companies hate it! It’s the antithesis of everything Shell, Exxon and the others want! This is so bonkers it’s beyond words, yet it’s lapped up by some stophs2 supporters who’ve shared it dozens of times, or left comments like this:
Of course, the fossil fuel companies and their supporters like the Taxpayers Alliance and others must be absolutely p*ssing themselves laughing at this weapons-grade stupidity. The UK ‘green’ movement has swallowed their propaganda hook, line and sinker in order to oppose a carbon-neutral, green railway. The irony? Not one of these supposed ‘environmentalists’ has stopped, looked at this, engaged a brain cell and spoke up to say “Hey, guys? Just stop and think about this for a minute”? Their campaign is so intellectually bereft and bankrupt this stuff gets shared without any thought or question. You genuinely couldn’t make this stuff up. Well, unless you’re the likes of @hs2rebellion and it’s supporters, obviously.
And you wonder why I argue that the UK ‘green’ movement’s completely unfit for purpose? I wonder what madness they’ll come up with next?
UPDATE.
Thanks to a tip-off from Pete Johnson (@pedrojuk) on Twitter I now have the source of the original artwork which was stolen for this. Needless to say the original by Namaya Productions carried a very different message.
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Over the past few years I’ve become increasingly cynical about the ‘green’ credentials of the Green Party of England and Wales (please note, the Scottish Green party is a seperate entity and a very different kettle of fish, they’re actually sensible!) mainly because I had to study their policies on transport, rail privatisation and High-Speed 2 way back in 2015. Everything I’ve experienced since has made me even more cynical. Frankly, as a ‘green’ party, they’re not fit for purpose. They’re little more than a posturing protest group where dogmatism is allowed to override science and facts.
The latest example of this is the antics of their candidate for the Chesham and Amersham by-election on June 17th. The local ‘green’ party chose one Carolyne Culver who is currently the leader of the ‘Green’ group on West Berkshire council.
The by-election was called following the death of the sitting Conservative MP, Dame Cheryl Gillan, who passed away on the 4th April 2021. Gillan was a Brexit supporter and opposer of the High Speed 2 railway which passes through the constituency.
The ‘Greens’ have decided that the ‘cunning plan’ of their campaign in Amersham and Chesham will be to base it around a single issue (opposition to HS2) in the hope of attracting the ‘Nimby’ vote. To that end Culver is running one of the most cynical and opportunistic campaigns I’ve ever seen from the GPEW. Imagine, a party that’s supposedly concerned about ‘green’ issues and global climate change pandering to parochialism, nimbyism and self interest – and the truth (and science) be damned!
Here’s an example. This is Culver’s statement on the local Green party website.
Carolyne says,
“The people of Chesham and Amersham have been taken for granted for too long. The government should scrap HS2 and invest in local services and infrastructure instead. The destruction of the environment, homes and businesses must stop. HS2 tunnel boring has started, threatening the chalk aquifer and water supply. The residents of this constituency are bearing the brunt of this project but will gain nothing from it. At the same time, they have to put up with poor quality, unsafe roads and inadequate bus services.
“Spending more than £100bn on HS2 is frankly obscene. The Covid-19 pandemic has taught us that we need to spend more on the NHS and adult social care, school students who have missed out on education, and helping people back into work and to reskill.
“I have campaigned alongside local residents and other Green Party members to protect Jones Hill Wood and the Leather Lane oaks. I have witnessed the anger, despair and disbelief of residents affected by HS2. If elected to parliament I would be a fearless advocate for local people and opponent of HS2.”
So, no mention of anything to do with anything outside of local issues and forget GLOBAL Climate Change! It’s a manifesto for Nimbys, nothing more. It’s also pure posturing. HS2’s being built, now. Even if by a miracle Culver was elected (she won’t be) it’s a dead issue as far as Parliament is concerned. She can no more stop it than fly in the air.
There’s more…
This is the “vote Culver” website which contains the following gems.
“Carolyne is the only candidate endorsed by the Stop HS2 campaign”. Well, ignoring for a moment that campaign is as dead as a Dodo now that Joe Rukin hung up his inflateable white elephant for the final time earlier this year, it’s also bizarre thing to boast about because this conflicts with the Green Party policy TR244, which says “The Green Party supports the principle of a new north-south high speed line which would reduce the number of short-haul flights within the UK.” Except when it actually comes to putting your money where your mouth is and building one, obviously! Hypocritical, much? Confused, much?
It gets worse. Culver is shown on her website holding this banner.
That’s 6 claims – and not a single one is true! Let’s go through them.
‘Biggest deforestation’? I nailed that lie here. It’s not even close…
108 Woodlands ‘destroyed’ Another lie nailed. In fact, not a single ancient woodland is destroyed (but a minority do suffer some loss of area).
‘Experts say’? No, experts (plural) don’t say. In fact, only one man has claimed this, Lord Berkeley’s sidekick Micheal Byng. It’s a figure no-one else recognises. Oh, and as for the HS2 only ‘saves’ 15 minutes, that’s complete cobblers too, as the official journey times show. Culver seems unaware (or just doesn’t care) that HS2 isn’t just a Euston to Birmingham service only running between the two stations so there are multiple journey time savings. This claim was always idiotic, it’s even more idiotic now that HS2’s being built from Birmingham to Crewe, but does Culver care? Obviously not.
No ‘local’ benefits? HS2 frees up capacity on lines running through the constituency, it also helps take lorries off the roads (cutting local pollution), can reduce domestic aviation and contribute to UK GDP (which benefits everyone) – and cut transport Co2 emissions which benefits the whole planet, not just a few local Nimbys.
The old Working From Home (WFH) and videoconferencing claim isn’t borne out by any real statistics either, least of all by the fact road traffic’s almost back to pre-Covid levels and rail traffic continues to recover. It’s middle-class wishful thinking, nothing more. The reality is the majority of people can’t work from home.
Err, no taxes are paying for HS2, like most big-ticket infrastucture projects and Government spending, the money’s borrowed on the Gilts markets where the costs of borrowing have reached historic lows.
Oh, and as for that ‘NHS not HS2’ economic illiteracy – I dealt with that here.
Still, facts eh? Carolyne clearly wouldn’t know one if it bit her.
There’s (yet) more. Here’s an interview Culver gave to the Bucks Free Press which is a rehash of all the daft claims off her website plus extra scaremongering about local water supplies.
What’s facinating and depressing about all of Culvers electioneering is the way she’s running a rabidly parochial campaign all about local issues like potholes and with an obsessive focus on HS2. You’d be forgiven for thinking she’s running for the position of Councillor, not Member of Parliament. None of the great issues of the day – like Brexit, the economy, or most bizarrely – Climate Change – even get a mention!
So, what’s her background? Could that help explain this? Her bio says;
“Ms Culver, a Green Party county councillor in West Berkshire, has spent much of her career working in communications in the charity and university sectors, including the Berks, Bucks and Oxon Wildlife Trust and the University of Oxford. She has also been a teacher, lecturer and journalist.”
Hang on, how can someone who’s educated and worked most of her life in PR and Comms be so tone deaf and inept? Her campaign’s a PR car-crash – literally! Here’s a classic example from this week, when another ‘Green’ party car crash (Natalie Bennet of ‘brain fade’ fame) popped in. What did the two of them do? Toured HS2 worksites – in a 2014 built petrol-driven car! Here’s a Green party candidate who opposes building a green electric railway that we need to get modal shift from road/air to rail to tackle global climate change and she’s touring around the sites in a petrol driven car!
Needless to say, this Tweet soon attracted attention – and it wasn’t kind…
Sadly, like most ‘green’ candidates or members of the heirachy, Culver doesn’t like being questioned or challenged. Raise any of these issues with her or ask how someone from a party whose priority is supposedly global climate change can run such a parochial, fact-free campaign and this happens…
See what I mean about that tone-deafness?
The really dumb thing about this apparently experienced communications and PR ‘wizard’ running an anti HS2 based campaign is that Culver hasn’t bothered learning about Cheshaam and Amersham’s political history in relation to HS2, because Culver’s not the first one to optimistically think opposing HS2 will win her a safe-Tory seat. UKIP tried that one too!
Let’s delve into a bit of history…
The Chesham and Amersham seat was formed in 1974. Only two MPs have held it in all that time – both Tory. Dame Cheryl Gillan first won it in 1992 and held it until her death this year. Although she was a Brexiter, the area returned the biggest Remain vote on the UK mainland at 55%, it was second only to Gibralter. But, like many Tory MPs what mattered to Gillan wasn’t the views of her constituents, it was her local Tory party association who are the real power behind MPs and their views. Nonetheless, on the back of HS2 passing through the area and the vocal cries of a Nimby minority, UKIP were persuaded that if they stood on an anti HS2 platform they just might take the seat. Hence bombastic nonsense like this.
UKIP were to be disappointed as the local HS2 nimbys had been writing cheques they couldn’t cash by boasting of support thay didn’t have as the General election results in 2010, 2015 and 2017 demonstrate. Oh, they also show the problem Culver and the ‘Greens’ have. How on earth does she think she’s going to persuade dyed-in-the-wool Tory voters to vote ‘Green’ when they couldn’t even bring themselves to vote for a party that was so close to many Tory hearts (UKIP)?
UKIP never got close to unseating Gillan, despite HS2 and the ‘Green’ vote has been up and down like a bride’s nightie! In 2019 it was 3042, or 5.5%, only mariginally better than it was in 2015!
So, Culver doesn’t stand a hope in hell of winning. Her only achievement by running such a fact-free and parochial campaign will be to tarnish the national party’s image even further. I mean seriously, a ‘green’ candidate who campaigns on potholes and better roads, but doesn’t even mention Climate Change? It’s time the GPEW grasped the nettle that’s their mad policy on HS2 before it does them any more damage. Sadly, with the dogmatic leadership they’ have in place, I can’t see that happening, which takes us back to the theatre of the absurd. By pushing ahead with HS2, Boris Johnson and his Government have proved (with their rail policy anyway) they’re actually greener that the ‘green’ party! How absurd is that!
UPDATE: 6th June 2021.
Things haven’t got any better with the ‘green’ party. Exactly the opposite in fact. Seemingly stung by the criticisms of their campaign, the Chiltern ‘green’ party has resorted to blocking anyone on Twitter who has the temerity to question the wisdom of their campaign – including other Green party members and voters!
It’s a classic example of ‘groupthink’ and why the party is so out of touch with ordinary voters. Mind you, as this policy come right from the top and is practised by the majority of ‘green’ leaders it’s hardly any wonder it’s taken up by the grassroots. The ‘greens’ block list is beginning to resemble an old London telephone directory in size!
It’s incredibly unhealthy for a supposed democratic party but then I’ve always maintained that the ‘greens’ are no such thing, as they’re proving by their actions. This is a protest group that brooks no dissent from the party orthodoxy.
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The ‘environmentalists’ of Hs2Rebellion never cease to amaze me by their levels of cognitive dissonance, and this one is an absolute doozy! Take a look at this latest attempt to seperate fools from their money by getting them to donate via a crowdfunder.
More detail is given on the Crowdfunder page. To paraphrase “please donate money so that I can buy another old car to drive down to Cornwall from the South-East to protest about climate change”
Are you having a laugh? Drive an old banger all the way to Cornwall? Have these ‘environmentalists’ never heard of public transport? You know, like trains, the very thing they’re protesting about and trying to stop? The irony that these ‘environmentalists’ are driving between protest camps in a fleet of old gas-guzzling, carbon-spewing jalopies is completely lost on them. I wonder how many of them are diesels too? Here’s another example. I wonder what the emmissions and MPG are for this old Range Rover which is another of the clapped-out vehicles they use (they were crowdunding the repair bill for it the other week). Now, what do you reckon the carbon footprint is of a round trip of circa 300 miles to pick up an old caravan is? Plus, after achieving nothing outside the G7 meeting in Cornwall, these ‘environmentalists’ are proposing to drive all the way to Glasgow to repeat their failure outside the COP26 conference. How many miles is London – Cornwall – Glasgow – London in a gas guzzler I wonder?
Whatever these people are – ‘environmentalists’ they ain’t. They leave a trail of destruction and pollution wherever they go, be it destroying the ecology of pristine chalk streams, sullying woodlands with sewage and other detritus or driving hundreds of miles in old cars – or pulling stunts like this by burning rather than recycling timber from a camp they were being evicted from. Even one of their followers lost it with them over this!
Hopefully, now that their campaign has collapsed, the crowdfunding tap will be turned off. If those mugs who’re donating *really* want to save the environment, give the money to some charities who’re genuinely helping restore and preserve nature!
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Regular readers will know I’ve become increasingly cynical about the UK ‘green’ movement. Mainly due to my support for building the High Speed 2 railway. This has brought me into contact with various charities, pressure groups and ‘celebrities’ in a way I’d never had before. Like many people, I simply assumed they were on the right side of things, knew what they were talking about and actually cared about Climate Change. Several years down the (metaphorical) line and my rose tinted glasses are well and truly consigned to the dustbin.
Over the years I’ve blogged about the fact free nonsense, scaremongering, hypocrisy (and downright lies) pushed by many conservation groups. Like the Woodland Trust (who’re still at it) or people like Chris Packham who really is beyond the pale (remember his ‘largest deforestation since WW1‘ claptrap?). Today I’ve found another in the Packham mould who I’d never heard of before. One Iolo Williams.
It seems Williams is another TV celebrity Conservationist. Well, in Wales at least – although he also works for the BBC and has appeared on ‘Springwatch’, so presumably knows Packham. What drew my attention was this fact-free load of nonsense on Twitter.
Ignoring the usual lazy canards about HS2 being a ‘Vanity project’ and only saving 20 mins we have a new one. According to Williams HS2 “destroys thousands of acres of prime wildlife habitat”. Really? Where? As usual, the truth is completely different. HS2 affects a tiny amount of ancient woodland (less than 1 ha on Phase 1) a large chunk of the line is in tunnels and the land it does traverse is mostly monocultural farmland – which is hardly renowned as “prime wildlife habitat” (as many environmentalists are at pains to point out)! In fact, some of the farmland that HS2 crosses and that’s being used in the construction phase will be repurposed afterwards and turned into genuine “prime wildlife habitat” like this example (link).
Here’s an image of what to expect once the line is built. Not exactly the barren wildlife wasteland people like Williams pretend, is it? Not only that, but HS2 is committed to ensuring there’s no net loss of biodiversity, something Williams ignores completely.
Let’s have a look at Williams other claims too shall we? Let’s start with the tired and trite canard about HS2 only ‘saving’ 20 mins. Apart from the blindingly obvious fact HS2 isn’t just an end to end railway with just two stations (but a network serving 31) so can’t just be a single time saving, let’s look at the real figures. Note: 20mins isn’t true on any of them…
Right, that’s that canard exposed. Now let’s move on to one of my favourites, that HS2 is a ‘vanity project’! Here’s my standard response to anyone who’s lazy enough to trot that one out;
Since HS2 was first mooted in 2009 we’ve had a Labour government, a Coalition government and now a Tory Majority government. We’ve had four Prime Ministers: Brown, Cameron, May and Johnson. We’ve had five Transport Ministers: Adonis, Greening, McLoughlin, Grayling and Shapps.
The HS2 phase 1 bill passed with the biggest majority of any Coalition legislation, both in the Commons and the Lords. It continues to enjoy massive cross-party support from all the major political parties. Hs2 is also supported by the elected regional mayors (both Labour and Tory), The Core Cities Group, Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPS) transport bodies, business groups and individual companies. The list is huge.
So, exactly whose ‘Vanity project’ is HS2 meant to be?
Oh, there’s another thing. As I’d never heard of Williams I did a bit of research and found this on his website. Just like Packham, Williams advertises expensive trips to exotic locations where you can enjoy the pleasure of his company. For a price, of course. Williams is currently advertising 6 such trips in 2021-22. Destinations are Brazil, Costa Rica, Sri Lanka, the Antarctic, Cantabria and East Africa. These trip don’t come cheap either. Here’s an example.
Five grand each for a party of 10. Nice work if you can get it. But how far is it from London to Costa Rica by air? Here’s your answer…
Yes folks, that’s a round trip of almost 11,000 miles (not including any internal trips within Costa Rica itself). As old Cilla Black used to say – that’s a lorra, lorra Carbon Emissions – and that’s just one trip…
So, (just like his mate Packham) Williams is happy to see groups of wealthy people fly around the world as a business opportunity, but opposes building green land transport in the UK for everyone (rich or poor). Because without HS2 we simply won’t have the rail capacity for the future to get people & freight off roads and cut transport CO2 emissions to tackle GLOBAL ClimateChange. Stopping HS2 isn’t ‘green’, it’s exactly the opposite.
Hypocritical, much?
There seems to be a recurring pattern here. With these people it’s very much a case of ‘do as I say, not as I do’ plus a completely cavalier approach to facts and fact-finding. Scaremongering and exaggeration’s the order of the day and they seem to feel no obligation to report responsibly which is sad as we desperately need a Green movement that is worth its name. Sadly, these people aren’t it.
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Paul Bigland 