Category Archives: Hs2

A post-election look at the anti Hs2 ‘campaign’…

27 Tuesday Jun 2017

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, Hs2aa, MAPA, StopHs2

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Sorry for the lack of blogging recently folks. I’ve been so busy with my travels and catching up on work stuff I’ve had little time for writing. Still, here’s one I’ve been hoping to write for some time – a look at the anti Hs2 campaign after the election.

To be honest, antis had an even worse election campaign than I thought they would. Mind you – so did the Conservatives! Apart from the non-story that Joe Rukin put around, claiming the Tories were going add cancelling Hs2 to their manifesto nothing was really heard about the anti Hs2 campaign. Apparently, Hs2aa raised their arse off their sofa long enough to find a few bob down the back of it and pay for an ad in The Spectator, and – well, that was it. Stop Hs2 did little better. It’s evident that Joe Rukin and Penny Gaines are just going through the motions now. The Stop Hs2 website and Facebook page had nothing of relevance added and their tweets were sporadic. There was no attempt to actually lead a campaign. Instead it drifted, rudderless. But then, what is there to lead anymore? If you look at their Facebook page it has a measly 7,488 followers but the number of people who ‘like’ a post have never got above 200 throughout the whole election campaign. The number who share or comment is even poorer than that. Here’s a screen- grab of one of the more popular. This was posted on the 21st June. The screen-grab was taken today (27th).

sths2

Twitter was no better. Stophs2 have a lousy 5,369 followers. So, how many retweeted this same comment?

sths2 tweet

A miserable 21! In an election campaign!

This is a great illustration of what I’ve always said. Social media is a double-edged sword. It exposes your weaknesses as well as strengths.

In past elections they’ve also run a ‘no votes for you with Hs2’ campaign, but it’s always been an abject failure – as the results on election night show. This year was no different.

The phase 1 campaign is a dead man walking. I’ve blogged about it plenty of times in the past so I’m not going over old ground, but what was interesting this time was to see how quickly the Phase 2 campaign groups have collapsed.

Remember that the Leeds branch of Hs2 has (supposedly) the most ‘active’ anti groups on it. A number of new ones were formed due to route changes in Leicestershire, Notts and Yorkshire. So, lets have a look at some case studies.

MAPA is a group that was formed in February this year. Here’s their website. As you can see if you can be bothered to browse it. There’s not a lot going on. The residents of the villages they claim to represent total some 8,700 souls. Their minutes claim 110 turned up to their first meeting, which is 1.26% of all residents. Not exactly a groundswell then! Things haven’t got any better. Despite their commitment to publish regular minutes of meetings, nothing has appeared since January. Instead, this was sent out by the group in mid May…

MAPA The only sign of life is the barrage of pointless tweets from one of the group, Stephen Leary (who I’ve blogged about before here). I can’t help wondering how long this groups can survive. It’s already moribund and if the local area consultation shows that more residents support the route change than oppose it, they’re toast.

Meanwhile, in Nottinghamshire, we have the Erewash ‘Action’ Group. Here’s their website and Facebook pages. Here’s their ridiculously ambitious aims (copied from their website).

Erewash. objectives

Stop Hs2 within 2 years and hold elected representatives to account? My! So, how’s that going then? Badly.

The local MP is Conservative Maggie Throup, who won the seat from Labour in 2015 with a 3,584 majority. Maggie is a supporter of Hs2 and she’s clearly no pushover as the Erewash antis have found out! Their agressive style and regular lack of honesty hasn’t gone down well with the MP who’s confronted them a number of times. Most recently here in response to this bit of bombast from the Erewash antis. Now, take note of this bit;

“In recent weeks, the STOP HS2 Erewash Campaign has gained huge momentum with an influx of new volunteers and supporters, as well as significant press coverage and public interest. The campaign is operated and staffed by concerned local residents, business owners and activists, who all feel strongly that HS2 should be stopped in its entirety.”

So, how did holding Maggie to ‘account’ go?

At the 2017 election she increased her majority from 3,584 to 4,534 on a swing of 0.84% from Labour! Oh dear…

Erewash antis went very quiet after their meeting with Maggie as it was clear it hadn’t gone their way (see their Facebook page for details). Well, quiet until today, when this was slipped out on Facebook:

erewash. 26.6.17

So much for stopping Hs2 in 2 years by a campaign that had “gained huge momentum with an influx of new volunteers and supporters”. They’re very coy about the merger, but it’s actually with the nearby group from Trowell (who aren’t so coy!)

Trowell hs2Trowell are another tiny group with a similar problem. They’ve no political clout either! The idea this creates a ‘unified nation campaign’ is the stuff of fantasy! Their MP is the feisty anti Brexit MP Anna Soubry (another Hs2 supporter). How a merged campaign across the constituency boundaries is supposed to Stop Hs2 is anyone’s guess, but then that’s the problem with these campaigns. They’re so out of their depth there’s only going to be one result. If they’d any sense they’d be working with their MPs to gain the greatest benefits for their areas from Hs2 instead of trying to throw around weight they don’t have, pretending they can Stop hs2.

So, that’s a snapshot of the state of play with StopHs2 after the election. It’s obviously on its last legs. Interestingly, the announcement in the Queens speech that the phase 2b Hybrid Bill will be put before Parliament hasn’t raised as much as a glimmer from any Staffs antis – although that’s hardly surprising. There’s not been a credible Hs2 ‘action’ groups in Staffs for years as they tended to be run by either ‘eccentrics’ or as a front for UKIP. Which brings me neatly onto the other fall-out from the election campaign.

Remember when UKIP said they’d Stop Hs2?

Farage Hs2

Instead, voters stopped UKIP! Now there’s only one party left in Parliament that still opposes Hs2. The Greens – and they’ve still only got 1 MP….

There’s deluded, then there’s Joe Rukin…

29 Saturday Apr 2017

Posted by in 2017 General election, Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, Hs2aa, Joe Rukin, StopHs2

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A few days ago, StopHs2 campaign manager Joe Rukin was frantically circulating this email to the scattered remnants of the Stop Hs2 campaign.

“An urgent message from Joe Rukin:
You will hopefully have seen the news since the weekend about the possibility of the Tories going soft on HS2 in some way in their manifesto, whether that is a pause, cancellation or review.

The first thing I want to make absolutely clear is that this is completely true.

In fact the situation is rather better than reported, as whilst Messrs Gillan & Bridgen along with other MPs went to see George Freeman about a list of issues including HS2, it turned out the team writing the manifesto had already picked up HS2 as an something they might change their minds on. I cannot stress enough that this is totally serious. Whilst it may have been dismissed by 3 Andys; Jones, Street & Percy, they aren’t the ones writing the manifesto. Personally I would doubt they would go as far as saying there would be a cancellation/pause/review in the manifesto, more likely they’d go for no mention at all which would them give the space for any of those three options. Then again, as they’ve already been willing to hint at tax rises, what do I know?

I covered this in todays article https://t.co/XgUiEIpMLN but have decided to leave it a bit more speculative in public, as whilst there is now work to do in terms of trying to influence this decision, I’d rather try and not let on that this is really up for grabs in public for as long as possible.

So that leaves a fortnight to try and influence the Tory manifesto, and indeed the Labour one. We’ve had a conference call today to get things going with other campaign groups and there will be meetings with Labour next week, but as Deanne has mentioned before, it continues to be ASLEF & TSSA which are heavily behind Momentum that are the problem with Labour.

For now please go to Conservative Home and fill in the survey below. When it comes to the rankings, please vote “Continuing with HS2” as zero, and try not to give anything else either a top or bottom score, as you’ll effectively be voting against yourself:

http://www.conservativehome.com/…/what-should-be-in-the-con…

Attached are some of the banners we used at the last election. We may still have some physical ones left.

I cannot stress strongly enough that it really is game on, but in reality it’s not six weeks we have at this point in time, it’s two. More will follow in the next few days. Any ideas welcome!

Joe Rukin,
Campaign Manager, Stop HS2.”

There was only one problem. Like most stuff that emanates from Rukin, it was complete bullshit – although it did fool one of two desperate antis. Hs2aa, who gave up campaigning against Hs2 last year (they abandoned social media in June and their website’s not been updated since November) were forced out of retirement to cobble a page of ridiculous claims for their website (see link). Even AGAHST, an organisation that hasn’t been heard of for years made an appearance in the form of it’s one time Campaign Director, Deanne Dukhan.

It was all a complete waste of time, as most antis realised. Rukin had tried to sell this pup via the StopHs2 Facebook page on April 23rd, when MP’s Gillan and Bridgen had managed to flog their dead horse to a couple of the national newspapers (see my previous blog here). The problem was the claim was met more with derision than expectation. You can see their replies here but I’ve added a selection for your delectation.

g1

g2

And my absolute favourite, which sums up the scepticism and derision this claim met with, is this one!

g3

It was only going to be a matter of time before Rukin’s house of cards came crashing down around his ears. That happened today when Teresa May gave an interview to the Yorkshire Post under the headline “THERESA MAY has slapped down Conservative backbenchers in the South with a commitment to deliver the HS2 rail line to Yorkshire”. So, there’s no room for any dissembling there! She went on to say –

may

May’s statement was soon picked up by the nationals, with the Guardian running it here.

So there you have it. As I predicted, you won’t be seeing any mention of cancelling Hs2 in the Tory manifesto. Rukin, who’s lied through his teeth so often, has ended up looking a complete fool yet again. His stock was never high with other anti Hs2 campaigners anyway (Hs2aa Director Hilary Wharf was overheard being particularly scathing about Rukin’s relationship with the truth a few years ago). Now it must be at rock-bottom.

I wonder how long it’ll take before any of this is mentioned on the StopHs2 website, or will this load of bollocks written by Joe disappear first? I’m not going to be holding my breath…

The weekend’s Hs2 media froth explained.

24 Monday Apr 2017

Posted by in 2017 General election, Cheryl Gillan MP, Hs2, Politics

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This weekend some papers were full of a speculative story that Hs2 is to be cancelled. Reports appeared in the Guardian, the Sun and the Express. The Sun’s story was a classic example of the disconnect between the journo writing the copy and the sub-editor writing the headline. Not only  wasn’t HS2 being cancelled, the PM, Teresa May wasn’t even in the loop and certainly didn’t offer any new opinions – far less actually confirm Hs2 was being cancelled.

sun PM

Only May never said any such thing. She’s not even quoted in the article. It’s another sub-editer ’embellishing’ a story (or lying, as it’s more accurately known).

This bit from the same story in the Express gives the game away.

express

Two MPs have asked that scrapping Hs2 is ‘considered’ and spun the story to the media that it IS being scrapped!

So, what do we really know from all this speculative froth? Only that it bares the fingerprints of two long-standing Tory opponents of Hs2 – MPs Andrew Bridgen and Cheryl Gillan, who’re almost certainly the people who’ve fed this stuff to the media to prop up their votes in the forthcoming general election. The massive irony is both MPs are claiming Hs2 should be cancelled to help pay for Brexit. The very same Brexit they both voted for! So much for the promised extra £350m a week for the NHS then!

Ignoring the froth, let’s remember a few things about the Governments stated position on Hs2. PM Teresa May has always been a supporter of Hs2 and voted to build it. Chancellor Philip Hammond has also been supportive. Both know that cancelling the project would destroy the Governments industrial strategy and stop tens of thousands of jobs being created as well as leave us reliant on a Victorian rail network that’s creaking at the seams. It would also leave our former EU friends (and soon to be competitors) with a massive PR coup when it comes to attracting businesses. May has previously stated her intention to put infrastructure investment at the heart of post-Brexit economic policy, so why change now? Let’s not forget that the UK ranks 24th in the world ranks of quality infrastructure (see link) and cancelling Hs2 would only make this worse. There’s nothing to be gained from cancelling Hs2 as the project isn’t a vote loser – as the 2010 and 2015 elections showed. Plus, the anti Hs2 campaign’s collapsed.

Few will remember the cartoon in a French newspaper when the Channel Tunnel opened. It showed French President Francois Mitterand arriving through the tunnel in a high-speed TGV train, whilst Margaret Thatcher met him in an old tram. It was an effective dig on the fact you’d speed through France and the tunnel on a high-speed train which would then crawl to London at 70mph on the normal UK railway as the Brits hadn’t built a high-speed line to match the French!

One can imagine EU nations saying to businessmen “why would you want to set up business in the UK, their infrastructure is crumbling and no match for what we’ve built across the EU – look they’ve even cancelled their last chance to drag their railways up to modern standards!”.

A cynic might ask why two Brexit supporting MPs have inadvertently admitted that – far from turning the UK into the land of milk and honey – Brexit is having serious financial consequences for the country (and don’t even mention that lie on the side of a bus). In Gillan’s case, it may well be because she’s backed the wrong horse. Her constituency is Chesham and Amersham. It voted to stay in the EU by 60% on a huge turn-out. It’s a wealthy area that stands to suffer considerably from Brexit as its residents find their city jobs moving abroad and their weekend trips to holiday homes in France & elsewhere curtailed by the exchange rate and need for visas. Gillan needs to try and prop up her vote as a Lib-Den resurgence & collapse of UKIP could well cause her problems, so keeping Hs2 antis on side is part of that. Planting media stories like this is part of a cynical re-election strategy, nothing more. Bridgen’s constituency voted leave, he doesn’t have the same worries, but keeping his Hs2 Nimbys sweet won’t do him any harm – especially as he’s fallen out with some over the £2m sale of his house to Hs2 Ltd!

I’m willing to predict that the last thing you’ll see in the Tories 2017 election manifesto is a commitment to cancel Hs2. Ignore the media froth, this is simply a couple of MPs trying to keep the idea out there to prop up their votes at home. 

Will Hs2 feature in the general election? Will it heck…

19 Wednesday Apr 2017

Posted by in 2017 General election, Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, Politics, StopHs2, Uncategorized, YorkshireStopHs2

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As all the parties start getting over their surprise that a general election’s been called and begin to muster their troops I thought it worth looking at the stophs2 campaign and their hope that Hs2 will be an election issue. Of course, the answer is – will it hell.

Since Hs2 appeared on the scene we’ve had two general elections (in 2010 and 2015) and numerous local elections. None of them have seen any serious swing or influence brought about by Hs2 or the people who oppose it.

StopHs2’s ‘Campaign Manager’, Joe Rukin even went as far as to stand for MP in Kenilworth in 2010. He later admitted to the Hs2 petitioning Ctte that it was a con to get a free Stophs2 mailshot out to voters, but even that didn’t do any good. He got all of 327 votes or 0.7% and this was meant to be an anti Hs2 ‘stronghold’! Nowadays Rukin has pretty much given up and spends most of his time ranting about football on Twitter rather than Hs2. (see @JoeRukin). The other umbrella group (Hs2aa) threw in the towel last year, so don’t expect any anti hs2 publicity in local or national media in the run-up to the election as the anti hs2 campaign’s skint.

Another oddball that’s tried to stand on a StopHs2 ticket is Nicholas Ward whom I blogged about here. He stood in Westminster North in 2015 and got 63 votes, then again in David Cameron’s old constituency of Witney in 2016 when he got 92 votes (0.2%)! It’s unknown if he’s going to throw away another deposit by standing again in this election.

Apart from solo players the only political parties that oppose Hs2 on the national stage are the Green Party and UKIP. The Greens claim to support the ‘principle’ of high-speed rail but then wrung their hands and bottled out of it when it actually came to doing so. Mind you, their rail and Hs2 policy is a dishonest mess. I dissected it previously in this blog. The Greens are currently standing at 3-4% in the polls. They have 1 MP and aren’t likely to achieve anything in June.

That leaves UKIP, who’re in such a political and financial mess nowadays it’s unlikely they’ll be fielding many candidates. Their new leader, Paul Nuttall, is such a Walter Mitty character he’d fit right in with the remaining anti Hs2 Nimbys. Despite proposing not one but THREE high-speed rail lines in their bonkers 2010 manifesto, UKIP flipped when they fell for Stophs2 campaign claims that there were plenty of votes to be had in areas like the Chilterns if they opposed Hs2. The problem was – it was a lie. I crunched the numbers in this blog. UKIP famously blustered they’d stop Hs2 with stuff like this:

UKIP Chilterns

UKIP managed to get 2nd place in Aylesbury Vale in the 2015 general election (partly on the back of Hs2) but came nowhere near beating the Tories, who had a majority of 17158, or 31% compared to UKIP’s 19.7%. Since then it’s all been downhill. A by-election was held this month following the resignation of UKIP District Councillor for Elmhurst, Andrew Hetherington. UKIP lost the seat to the Lib-Dems, which suggests Brexit’s more important than Hs2 nowadays. UKIP have lost their solitary MP and the party is in such a mess it’s not going to have any impact on Hs2.

What all these votes have demonstrated is that hs2 is only ever a Nimby issue. The only time it’s had any impact on elections is actually on the route of the line. Even then, it’s never been enough to upset the applecart. Of course, since 2015 things have moved on. Hs2 phase 1 has gained Royal Assent and the ‘national’ Stophs2 campaign’s fallen apart – as well as the Phase 1 campaign.

Now the focus has shifted to Phase 2, where the StopHs2 campaign is hopelessly disorganised, skint and without a coherent strategy. All it does is re-run the failed tactics used by Phase 1 Nimbys. To make matters worse, it has negligible political support. Only 2 out of Yorkshires 51 MPs opposed Hs2 and that figure hasn’t changed. If Labour do badly in the North and lose seats to the Tories, it’ll change nothing as Teresa May has made it plain she’ll build Hs2 (as have the Lib-Dems).

Could a change of Labour leadership after a June bloodbath change anything? No. Because the heartlands labour are likely to be reduced to (the metropolitan areas, like London, Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham and Sheffield) are exactly the cities that Hs2 will serve! They’ll be pushing for Hs2, not to Stop Hs2.

If the remaining Hs2 antis think the general election will somehow stop Hs2, they’re in for a yet another disappointment. Just like they were in 2010, and 2015.

Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week – N0 20

17 Friday Mar 2017

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, MAPA

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It’s a long time since I’ve highlighted one of these but I couldn’t resist this one!

Step forward Stephen Leary, a member of MAPA (Measham, Appleby, Packington, Austrey  HS2 Action) in Leicestershire. This group seems to represent about 1% of the local population. I’m being generous here as that’s roughly how many turned up to their inaugural meeting. Leary is the self-appointed keeper of their Twitter feed, and he’s hilarious! Check out @MeashamHS2Actio to see. The group claim that their aim is to “To make a coordinated response across the villages to HS2 issues affecting our communities” and to “To collect information and research the case against the HS2 Measham Re-Route”. But Leary spends most of his time retweeting any old rubbish that opposes the whole concept of Hs2 – 95% of which has absolutely nothing to do with or relevance to Measham and communities or the phase of Hs2 they’re part of (2b). Leary also seems rather obsessed with the number of views his nonsense gets, hence tweets like this.

Leary. 17.3.17

Quite what Crewe, which is on a completely different leg of Hs2 to Measham has to do with “our communities” is a mystery – as is how advertising that the number of folk engaging with your tweets is tiny will persuade anyone to take you seriously! Still, I’m sure the people who follow him (hardly any of whom live in the Measham area) will be inundating the Phase 2 Hybrid Committee with petitions to get the Leicestershire route of Hs2 changed. Or perhaps not. Here’s some of his 70 followers…

leary followers

 

I’m sure they’ve both been terribly busy drafting responses to the consultation- as were all the Chiltern Nimbys who follow him…

I can’t help laughing at a campaign this inept. They’re spending all their time re-running the same tactics that failed to stop Hs2 phase 1 – as if it’s suddenly going to work second time around. The way they’ve woefully misunderstood how social media works is rather amusing too. A few folk shouting at each other on Twitter was never going to change anything. Leary has added his own unique contribution by not understanding how hashtags work, which means his  multiple tweets are reminiscent of the comedian Norman Collier. His routine was based around someone talking into an intermittent microphone!

MAPA may well have a short life. The consultation that closed on March 9th will soon reveal whether local residents back or oppose the route change. If the result is that more people support the change than oppose it, then MAPA is irrelevant.

2023 update. 

Like most Nimbys Leary eventually disappeared without trace. Having got bored with being laughed at and with his one man band local ‘group’ never having got off the ground Leary wandered off to find another windmill to tilt at. MAPA went the way of all local groups opposed to HS2 and sank without trace shortly after being formed. It now exists in old Council minutes and newspaper clippings but nowhere else…

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They never learn…

12 Sunday Mar 2017

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, YorkshireStopHs2

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One of the things that fascinates me about the anti Hs2 campaign is their pig-headedness and inability to learn lessons. They continually re-run the same failed tactics, whether it’s petitions by the bucket load or threats of legal action. You would think that campaigners on phase 2 would look at the tactics that failed to phase 1, but, oh no…

The latest bit of deja vu comes from the risibly named Yorkshire Against Hs2 (all together now – “Oh no, it isn’t!”) who’ve told the Ridings FM radio station this:

pile

After all, judicial reviews worked so well on Phase 1, just ask Hs2aa who launched loads of them. Oh, wait…

jr

See link for the full story. There’s more here.

The process isn’t cheap either. Hs2aa tried to raise £100,000 to fund their appeal after losing first time around. There’s also the small matter that the costs can be claimed by the Government when you lose. There’s the problem, it’s all very well blustering on the internet or telling stories to local newspapers but a court of law is a very different kettle of fish. They actually expect you to have evidence for and prove your claims and have lawyers who cross-examine them (as Hs2aa found out, to their cost)…

Which begs the question how Yorkshire Against Hs2 (“oh,no…etc”) is going to find the money for a judicial review – even if it’s found grounds for one (which I somehow doubt). They would need to find a war-chest of hundreds of thousands of pounds. Knowing Yorkshire folk have a reputation for being careful with their brass, I can’t see money flowing in even if an appeal to raise the money is launched (it hasn’t been).

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen such empty threats and bombastic rhetoric. UKIP member and self-publicist Trevor Forrester from Staffordshire once promised that he’d lead a ‘class action’ to Stop Hs2 in Staffordshire, but, like most things associated with UKIP supporters, the numbers never added up and it never happened. It seems that Johnathon Pile is following in his footsteps in Yorkshire.

Petitions – a double edged sword…

11 Saturday Mar 2017

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, Politics, Rail Investment, YorkshireStopHs2

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I’ve blogged about this before but I thought I’d revisit the subject after seeing that some folk who live on the Phase 1 route of Hs2 are still asking people to sign a petition to ‘review’ Hs2 – even though phase 1 has Royal Assent and construction work has started!

The e-petition in question was started by one of the two men who’ve been flogging (as in flogging a dead horse) their own ‘alternative’ to Hs2 called ‘High Speed UK’ (HSUK). They’ve never got anywhere, apart from up many people’s noses (see previous blogs like this). But, their petition IS useful – for all the wrong reasons! What I find interesting about the ones on the Governments petitioning website is the level of detail they contain on who signs them. For example, signatories are grouped together by constituency, which is very useful for MPs wanting to know the strength or weakness of feeling on a particular issue in their area. This is the double-edged sword for campaigners, because it often highlights weakness, not strength.

Let’s take a look at the HSUK petition. You can find it here.

First, the bare facts. It’s had 5,887 signatures since the 11th November 2016. It has 62 days left to run and find over 94,100 signatures. It doesn’t stand a chance of hitting the 10,000 that would get a response from Govt never mind the 100,000 to trigger a debate in the Commons. It’s just another example of how weak the stophs2 campaign is. For HSUK it’s a huge embarrassment because it reveals that most of the folk who’ve signed have done so because they live on the route of Hs2 – not because they support HSUK! Talk about an own goal…

Let’s have a look at the areas where the most signs have come from. Here’s the top 12 constituencies. Between them they account for 3107 signatures, or 52.77% of the total.

HSUK 2.PNG

As you can see, the clear winners are the Chiltern Nimbys in Cheryl Gillan’s constituency of Chesham and Amersham! In fact, phase 1 accounts for 5 of the top 6. Despite this not a single constituency managed to get 1% of the electorate to sign – even in the supposed StopHs2 Phase 1 ‘strongholds’!

What’s just as interesting is the way the figures reveal the weakness of the anti Hs2 campaign on other phases. Only one constituency on Phase 2a (Stone) features and there’s not a single one from the extension of Phase 2a to Manchester – which makes a mockery of the supposed strength of groups like ‘Mid-Cheshire against Hs2’!

The news isn’t much better for the Leicestershire antis or the Yorkshire area, which makes a lot of noise but clearly doesn’t have the influence it claims. Mind you, when you see the half-empty websites of groups like ‘Erewash against Hs2’ it’s not surprising. There’s a lot of bluster from Yorkshire but it’s not backed up by political clout or support.

I’m looking forward to seeing the results of the consultations on the phase 2 routes which closed on March 9th. I have a sneaky suspicion they’ll throw up even more problems for some of the new anti Hs2 groups like the one around Measham (Leics) or in Yorks. They’ve been set up to oppose route changes. But what happens if the majority of people support the changes? Watch this space…

Yorkshire picks a fight with itself (again), this time over Hs2.

09 Thursday Mar 2017

Posted by in Hs2, Politics, Transport, Yorkshire, YorkshireStopHs2

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When I moved to from London Yorkshire in 2010 one of the first things I noticed was how much time the county spent in internecine political battles and rivalries. Sheffield, Bradford, Leeds, Doncaster and Wakefield seemed like a bunch of warring states, all fighting against each other over something (or nothing). It sometimes feels like Yorkshire takes itself rather too seriously. I mean – name another English county that has its own political party (Yorkshire First)!

Now tykes really have got something to fight over. Hs2.

Today’s been a cracking example of this. The latest consultation over Hs2 Phase 2 closes today and the ‘war’ between Doncaster and Sheffield over  the new route through South Yorkshire is hotting up. The Mayor of Doncaster, Ros Jones, has taken to Twitter to launch Doncaster’s response to the consultation and made the most curious claim whilst doing it…

Jones Hs2

The “route nobody asked for”? I’m not sure Sheffield or the city’s local newspaper, the  Sheffield Star will see it that way. After all, it was the Star that ran a (successful) campaign to get the route changed in the first place! As the paper said at the time,

star

Personally, I can see the pro’s and con’s of both routes so it will be interesting to see who prevails in the end. If anything, my money is on the new route. That’s because things have changed since the original one was announced. The concept of the Northern Powerhouse has become something far more real. We now have Transport for the North and Northern Powerhouse Rail (nee Hs3). TfN is driving the regions transport strategy and Hs2 and NPR (linked together) are very much part of it and I suspect the new Hs2 route fits in with that strategy more than the old one.

That said, as someone who originated from the other side of the Pennines, I can imagine my fellow Lancastrians cracking a wry smile at the antics of their ever-warring neighbours. Which is more attractive to business. An area that’s managed to put most of its differences aside (look at Manchester and its neighbours). Or the contestant battles and jockeying for position that they observe this side of the chain?

My final observation – whatever happens, it’s very bad news for anti Hs2 campaigners in Yorkshire, because one thing’s clear, the vast majority of the counties politicians and business leader are fighting for Hs2 – not to stop it. This is about who reaps the benefits. Remember, only two of the counties 51 MPs voted against Hs2 Phase 1. To argue over the benefits you first have to agree to build it and there’s little doubt that’s exactly what MPs will agree to do. This means that Yorkshire Hs2 anti’s tactics have fallen at the first hurdle. They’re making the same mistake as the phase 1 antis did by trying to challenge at a local level the business case for a national infrastructure project. As soon as MPs vote through the Phase 2b Hybrid Bill at 2nd reading their arguments are moot. When it comes to hearing petitions a person or organisation will only have locus standi (the right to be heard) if a petitioner’s property or interests are directly and specially affected by the Bill. As we’ve seen from the phase 1 hearings, the Ctte’s take a dim view of a petitioner trying to argue that Hs2 is the ‘wrong’ project or there’s no economic justification for it as Parliament has already decided there is. As most of the antis time seems to be wasted in exactly the wrong sort of arguments, it’s easy to see why they’ll fail.

Spend HS2 money on the NHS? Here’s why it’s economic illiteracy

08 Wednesday Mar 2017

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

≈ 11 Comments

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*blog revised with new data on the 17th June 2020*

Over the years the anti Hs2 campaign grasped straw after straw. One of the most common ones being binary choices. We could either have flood defences or HS2, or fix potholes in the roads or build Hs2, or – you name it. As the years went on the list got longer and more stupid. Now we have the latest manifestation and one of the most stupid of all. If we scrap the biggest construction project in Europe we’ll ‘save’ the economy from the effects of Covid-19!

But there was one they’ve always kept coming back to. Whatever figure they’d invented for the cost of Hs2 that week – it should be spent on the NHS instead. Because everyone (well, except UKIP, Brexiters and various Tories) love the NHS.

Such ‘logic’ is the epitome of intellectual bankruptcy because it fails to understand a fundamental financial fact. The different between capital expenditure (Capex) and operational expenditure (Opex). Let me explain.

Capital expenditure is an expense incurred to create future benefit, such as buying new assets for a business – like buildings, machinery or equipment. Doing so generates profits for the future over several tax years. Hs2 is simply a very large example of the principle. It will generate jobs (which generate tax revenue), kick-start regeneration in some of our major cities and make the UK a more attractive place for businesses (which generate corporation tax). Capital investment on decent infrastructure is well understood as bringing economic benefits. This BBC article sums up the situation. As capital expenditure will generate tax revenue year after year. It’s not just a one off. That income stream would enable the Treasury to spend money on many different things. Including the NHS if it chose to…

Operating expenditure covers the day to day functioning of a business, like wages, utilities, maintenance and repairs. It also covers depreciation. It’s money needed every year.

The cost of building Hs2 is currently around £88bn. For that we get all the benefits I mentioned. In contrast, planned expenditure for the NHS in 2016/17 is £120.611bn. That means if we diverted the supposed pot of money for Hs2 to the NHS it would run the NHS for less than 9 months. Then it would be gone, never to return. It wouldn’t solve any problems, because the NHS would need that money every year. Instead, you’d be left with rail gridlock (which would cost money, not save it) and you wouldn’t have a catalyst for regeneration in cities like Leeds, Manchester and Birmingham, so you’re not helping rebalance the economy either. Oh, and you wouldn’t have all the tax revenue from the jobs HS2’s created either.

This (in a nutshell) is why the stophs2 campaigns calls to divert money from HS2 to the NHS is both daft, and ignorant. Even Labour’s former Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell pointed this out in an interview with the Yorkshire Post.

Oh, there’s one other thing. There IS no pot of money sat in the Treasury labelled ‘HS2’ that’s just waiting for another sticker to be applied to it, so it can’t be diverted. HS2 isn’t paid for by the taxpayer either – despite all the rubbish you hear – it’s paid for by borrowing at a time when Governments can borrow at such historically low levels people will actually pay you to borrow!

gilts

So the money for HS2 is borrowed against future returns in the same way any government in any country invests in national transport infrastructure. Historically, the UK has always been poor at doing this, which is why so much of our infrastructure is old (just look at the existing West Coast Main line – it was built 190 years ago!). The OECD recommends that baseline infra investment is 5.5% of GDP annually for an economy with aspirations to growth. We’ve only spent this amount twice since WW2, so HS2 and  High Speed North is a minimum.

In fact, the cost of building HS2 is spread over very many years, at its peak it will be less than £5bn per year. It’s just another column in the Governments annual budget. But, cancelling HS2 doesn’t free up any money (there’s no pot, remember?). It just means the Government borrows less, or transport infrastructure continues to age and our competitors (the younger, more forward thinking countries) continue to outpace us.

This is why cancelling HS2 and pretending it frees up billions to be diverted anywhere is just economic illiteracy.

High Speed UK caught telling porkies?

04 Saturday Mar 2017

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, HSUK, YorkshireStopHs2

≈ 24 Comments

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I’ve never bothered blogging about High Speed UK before. Mainly because the project has no hope of ever getting off the kitchen table it’s been drawn up on.

However, researching yesterday’s blog on the waste of time that was the Yorkshire StopHs2 ‘conference’ in Wakefield threw up something interesting. It was this comment on the Erewash Stop Hs2 groups Facebook page;

erewash

They can’t make the route public because “it would infringe Ordnance Survey copyright”? Really? That’s not what Ordnance Survey say. Here’s the link to the OS website page, which says;

os

So, that’s HSUK’s claim blown out of the water by the OS!

Of course, there IS another reason why HSUK aren’t keen on using OS maps to overlay their pretty lines on. It becomes obvious when you have a look at the maps they have on their website. Here’s part of the map for West Yorkshire.

hsuk-map

As you can see, it’s devoid of detail. Human habitation is drawn in the vaguest of ways and there’s bugger all topographical detail either. Now, let’s examine this in more detail against satellite imagery used by Google Maps. Let’s take Wakefield as an example, seeing as the conference was there yesterday. HSUK propose a new Western chord linking the ECML at Wakefield Westgate with the lower level line through Kirkgate. But what’s actually in the way of such a chord? Well, you won’t find any detail on HSUKs map – and here’s why!

Wakefield

What HSUK aren’t keen for anyone to see it that chord would cut right through an industrial estate, across Waldorf Way, then pass straight through a housing estate which includes Avondale St, Tew St, Cotton St and Horne St! Can you imagine what the citizens of Wakefield might have said if they saw this map on display yesterday? Would the Erewash and Yorkshire Stophs2 groups be so keen to support HSUK if they knew details like this? I think we all know the answer to that – there would be uproar from their members at the magnitude of demolitions and disruption – which is why HSUK (unlike Hs2 Ltd) don’t use OS maps!

Of course, publishing this level of detail would expose their claims that HSUK would be £20bn cheaper to build than Hs2 as the moonshine it is. None of these demolition/compensation or other costs are factored in.

Now, let’s have a look at the answer to David Briggs question about Long Eaton. Here’s the HSUK ‘map’.

long-eaton

Notice those tunnels to the South of Long Eaton? Where would be the construction site for them – or the entirely new line heading South. Let’s have a look at Google again.

long-eaton-google

Hang on a minute – where have those lakes come from? They’re not shown on the HSUK map. Only the river Trent is. I wonder why? Could that be because those lakes are actually Trent Windsurfing Club, who might not be too happy about this? Oh, and the other side of the Trent is Thrumpton, where Thrumpton Hall is set amongst 300 acres of parkland! Only it’s right in the way of HSUKs little scheme!

The more you compare HSUK’s featureless maps with what’s really on the ground, the more obvious it becomes why HSUK don’t use OS maps. It would kill support for their madcap scheme stone dead.

I do hope some Long Eaton residents see this and get to ask HSUK some rather frank and awkward questions on the 9th – as well as the stophs2 campaigners who’re in bed with HSUK. I may disagree fundamentally with the StopHs2 campaign, but I believe that people who live along the route have the right not to be misled or used as pawns by others with their own agenda.

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