Category Archives: Hs2

More floods of nonsense from the anti Hs2 mob.

30 Wednesday Dec 2015

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, Uncategorized

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Talk about the gift that keeps on giving…

The anti Hs2 mob are working themselves up into a right royal tizzy about flooding East of Leeds on the route that Hs2 will take into the city. Their common refrain is that this flooding proves the route is untenable. After all, who knew a flood plain would flood? Well, everybody but the anti Hs2 mob it seems. Here’s a selection of their tweets.

Davies flood

Cutler floods

Brown fllod

Appleyard flood

The last tweet with the drone view is the most interesting – and the most telling. What the anti Hs2 mob don’t say is that Hs2 will be passing through the flooded area on a 2335m long viaduct which will be between 11 and 4 metres above ground level. Plus, see that narrow (unflooded) strip of land to the right of Woodlesford lock? That’s where the new viaduct will go – off into the distance.

Once again, the anti Hs2 campaign have managed to shoot themselves in the foot – this time with both barrels.

Still, don’t take my word for it. Here’s the drawings from Hs2 Ltd!

hs2 fllod map

If you want to examine the actual map in greater detail (which includes elevations etc) click on this link.

Unsurprisingly, the anti Hs2 mob refuse to answer a simple question. How would such a viaduct be “submerged under floods”?

The anti Hs2 mobs crocodile tears over flooding

27 Sunday Dec 2015

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Flooding, Hs2

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As the North of England & parts of Wales count the costs of the Boxing day floods the anti Hs2 mobs cynicism levels are full to overflowing.

Desperate for any opportunity to try & revive their dying campaign they’re cynically exploiting the floods to call for Hs2 money to be diverted to flood defences – just like they did last time (and the time before that). It seems opposition to Hs2 has a fantastic affect on people’s intellect: Not only does it automatically make you a rail expert – it also makes you  flood experts and a whiz at economics!

My local town (Sowerby Bridge) is one of those that’s been badly affected. It’s flooded for the first time since 1968. What the anti Hs2 geniuses will never understand is expensive flood defences wouldn’t have make the slightest bit of difference as such an unusual event couldn’t have been predicted. What would make a difference is something that would cost very little money – a change of Government land use policy. These interesting articles from George Monbiot explain the issues. It’s not about turning our rivers and streams into sterile storm drains & scarring our landscape – it’s preventing the bloody floodwater from getting to them in such catastrophic quantities!

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/17/farmers-uk-flood-maize-soil-protection

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/13/flooding-public-spending-britain-europe-policies-homes

Of course, none of this suits the anti Hs2 mobs agenda, so it will be ignored. Then again, so will their ridiculous either/or flood defences or Hs2 comparisons. Wiser heads have always prevailed when it comes to building Hs2.

UPDATE;

A couple of days on and the anti Hs2 mob have got worse. This tweet is pretty typical.

Cutler floods

Hs2 would be “underwater” eh? No. It’s complete tosh. The area in question is the Aire Valley flood plain. Hs2 will cross it on a couple of viaducts, the longest of which will be 2335m long! You can find the detailed plans here.

As usual, the anti Hs2 mob never let the facts get in the way…

 

Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week No 17.

24 Thursday Dec 2015

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Bigotry, Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week, Hs2, Uncategorized

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

Sensible christian 2

sensible christian

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

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

Forrester

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

2023 Update.

Moaning about Cameron was an abject failure, as was targetting the next FOUR Tory PMs (May, Johnson, Truss and Sunak) – or the leaders of HM Opposition for that matter. As for UKIP, they never got anywhere as a party. Forrester is still as bigoted as ever,  and still posts the same xenophobic rubbish rehashed but he’s turned his attention to the new bigots in town, the Reform Party although he rarely tweets about HS2 now. His Twitter bio is a full-house in right-wing BS Bingo. 

The ‘human oxymoron’ Jon Sensible is one of the few who still thinks him posting nonsense on Twitter will somehow stop HS2, which just goes to prove that some people never learn…

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Another fact-free rant from Simon Heffer

20 Sunday Dec 2015

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, Simon Heffer, Uncategorized

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It’s not hard to see why members of the fourth estate are often held in low esteem when you read unmitigated fact-free nonsense from the likes of Simon Heffer. The man has long opposed Hs2 & uses his Telegraph column to try & rubbish the project as a way of attacking his bete noir, Rime Minister David Cameron. Like another of the projects opponents (Simon Jenkins in the Guardian) he never lets the facts get in the way of his diatribes.

Take yesterday’s Telegraph article as an example.

Amongst the ridiculous claims is this gem about Hs2; ” It has no connections to the existing network; no connections to a possibly expanded Heathrow”

This will come as news to the people of places like Crewe, which is getting a new Hs2 station precisely because of those connections! Or the fact that the East Midlands station will be at Toton because of the connectivity it will be able to offer. London-centric Heffer has even managed to ignore the fact there will be a major interchange at Old Oak Common which will allow folks to easily reach Heathrow.

Oh, and what about the fleet of classic compatible trains that will run off the new Hs2 line to directly serve stations across the network such as York, Newcastle, Wigan, Warringon, Preston, Carlisle and Glasgow? These will start running as soon as phase 1 opens in 2026.

Heffer then thunders that building Hs2 is “undemocratic” as the legislation hasn’t yet been passed. He studiously ignores the fact that the Hs2 Preparation Bill (allowing, as its name suggests, preparation work to begin) gained Royal Assent as far back as November 2013. He also refuses to acknowledge that the Hs2 Hybrid Bill’s 2nd reading had a stonking majority of 411, is going through the democratic process now – and still has the support of all the major political parties! It will receive Royal Assent next year and there’s no way a dying number of anti Hs2 protesters or dyspeptic right-wing newspaper columnists can stop it.

Heathrow shows the anti Hs2 campaign’s toothless

11 Friday Dec 2015

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Heathrow 3rd runway, Hs2, Hs2aa, StopHs2

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Today’s announcement that a decision on a 3rd runway at Heathrow has been postponed should leave anti Hs2 campaigners with their heads in their hands. Why? Because it highlights just how inconsequential they are and how ineffective they’ve been.

The Heathrow postponement is widely seen as a political maneuver to avoid the Tories being embarrassed during the London mayoral elections in May as their candidate, Zac Goldsmith, is an implacable opponent of Heathrow expansion.

In contrast, the Tories (and all the other parties for that matter) have shown no real concern that Hs2 would have politically adverse affects. This is a huge blow for the the anti Hs2 mob as for years they’ve  pretended the high speed line is a political hot potato. What’s interesting is that Heathrow is essentially a local London/South-East issue whilst Hs2 affects much more of the UK and far more constituencies.

As Hs2 isn’t seen as a negative political issue one can only wonder how much longer the anti Hs2 campaign can stagger on for. They’ve been on the back-foot ever since the Hybrid Bill passed with such a stonking majority, the general election result compounded their woes and they’ve had no good news for years. There’s none in the offing.

I wonder how much longer their remaining groups (StopHs2 and Hs2aa)  will last into 2016? Joe Rukin’s laughable claim that there were ‘reasons to be cheerful‘ looks increasingly likely to be his epithet.

 

Trump trumps the anti Hs2 mob.

09 Wednesday Dec 2015

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Bigotry, Hs2, Mid Cheshire against Hs2

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Nowadays the anti Hs2 campaign provides more comedy gold than it does a credible threat that can stophs2. The past 24 hours have provided yet another  example of that, as well as a lesson in how not to use social media.

Since May 2014 there’s been an anti Hs2 Tweetbot in town with the laughable moniker of ‘Hs2Facts’. It’s laughable because facts are in short supply – although there’s unintentional humour in abundance. This particular tweetbot started a poll, asking folk to register their Yes/No votes on Hs2. Like much of the anti’s social media campaign – all it’s done is shoot them in the foot. After 18 months the result is? A grand total of 220 no votes. To make it even more delicious the twitter names are displayed – so straight away you can see it’s all the usual suspects.

tweetbot

Meanwhile, in the real world, real people have got rather upset about American Presidential hopeful Donald Trump’s tirades and his call to ban Muslims from the USA. So much so that yesterday, one person decided to set up a petition on the Governments website, calling for him to be banned from th UK. 24 hours later, this was the result:

trump.PNG

It puts the anti Hs2 mob claims of support into perspective, doesn’t it? Remember, these same nutters once claimed that their protest was bigger than the one against the poll tax!

The anti hs2 mobs social media campaign is the gift that keeps on giving…

UPDATE:

It’s Thursday morning and the Trump petition has now passed the 402,000 mark with little sign of it slowing. If you want to add your name, here’s a link

Meanwhile, the anti Hs2 mob are still stuck on 220…

More crap journalism from the Independent

06 Sunday Dec 2015

Posted by in High Speed UK, Hs2

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Once again the Independent shows that critical journalism is a dying art by publishing an article on a supposed “alternative” to Hs2 called High Speed UK. The article written by Dean Kirby is nothing better than one long advert for HSUK that looks like it’s been cobbled together from press releases ahead of Saturday’s talk in Birmingham that was sponsored by the Fabians.

Note that no-one other than HSUK has any input and the author hasn’t even bothered to corroborate any of HSUK’s dubious assertions – like the one that their plans are “fully costed” (they’re not) or that HSUK will be £20bn “cheaper” than HS2. Kirby goes on the write that “The scheme has the backing of campaign group re:think HS2. Other supporters include Greg Mulholland, Lib Dem MP for Leeds North West.”

So, who are re:thinkHs2? It’s a website & Twitter account with no registered address. The names associated with it are Neale Upstone (a former Lib-Dem candidate in Wolverhampton) and Stephen Stretton who appears to be an unknown. They have 240 Twitter followers. This is largely made up of the usual rag-bag of anti Hs2 mob accounts, a few fellow Lib-Dems and one or two folks there to keep an eye on them. Not exactly what you’d call an influential group.

As for their “other supporters” there’s only the Leeds Liberal Democrat MP Greg Mulholland and – err, that’s it. Oh, apart from arch anti Hs2 writer Christian Wolmar. Hardly a force to be reckoned with, although the recurring link to the Lib Dems is interesting.

The reality is that HSUK is a table-top operation that’s the brainchild of two people, Civil engineers Colin Elliff and Quentin Macdonald (interestingly, another Lib-Dem & ex-York Cllr) and – that’s your lot, really. There’s no organisation behind them. They’ve no backing from rail passenger of freight companies, industry bodies, financiers, Network Rail – or any of the political parties. All they have is a coterie of people who all appear to be Lib-Dems. Their idea isn’t even new. Elliff has been touting it around in different incarnations for years without any takers. See how many of their HSUK maps are copyright 2005! Those who have been around the transport debate will remember “High Speed North” – Elliff’s previous scheme which has been re-badged as HSUK.

This kitchen table plan is meant to force a rethink on Hs2? I don’t think so. Even Hyperloop has a better chance!

I can only assume it was a slow news day at the Independent.

Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week. No 16

01 Tuesday Dec 2015

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

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

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

Mid ches

So, there you have it. Don’t build the rail capacity we need to get modal shift from road/air to rail to tackle climate change, don’t build a catalyst for massive regeneration in our major cities. Don’t create tens of thousands of jobs that will up-skill the workforce (who will then pay tax back to the government) – simply bung every ‘poor’ person in the UK £20,000 of taxpayers money, gratis – job done.

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

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

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

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If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, 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 me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

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A terrible time for the anti Hs2 campaign.

28 Saturday Nov 2015

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It’s that regular time of month when I take a snapshot of the state of the anti Hs2 campaign and (for them) the news just gets worse. Let’s kick off with the usual analysis of their performance across social media – which they’ve become increasingly reliant upon as their activist base declines.

anti scores

There’s now 9 months of data to analyse and what it shows is that, despite evidence that they’ve been stung into trying to improve the numbers – they’re still getting nowhere fast.

First, remember the usual caveat, not all followers are supporters, many are simply there to keep an eye on what they’re up to. Also, many of their Twitter followers are fake accounts or sock puppets so Twitter is a very poor gauge of real support. Plus, a group of people all ranting to each other don’t really have an impact outside of their own small circle. Facebook is even more insular. It’s good for getting your message out to people who like your pages, but that means you’re only really preaching to the converted. It’s also a double-edged sword as the Stophs2 Facebook page shows. On it you can see a small group of hopelessly confused people who really can’t understand why no-one is actually listening to them, although anyone looking in can easily see why. Here’s a few recent examples;

fb1

fb2

Crunching the numbers shows their Facebook campaign is moribund with only a 5.33% increase for Stophs2 and a mere 0.74% for Hs2aa. What’s even worse is the increases are from a tiny base! As for 51M – they’ve gone backwards, but as their FB page was last updated in June 2011 & they’ve effectively ceased to exist it’s moot.

Over on Twitter things aren’t much better. The two surviving groups (stophs2 & Hs2aa) are still under 5,000 followers apiece so a 10% increase in 9 months means little. Of course, many of these followers will be the same people, which limits their spread even more. The great irony in the figures is the only person with a decent increase is the former Communications Director of another defunct group (AGAHST) who’s achieved her popularity by tweeting about anything other than Hs2! Their Twitter campaign is increasingly farcical. It’s mostly in the hands of isolated individual who try to to keep it going. The ludicrous stuff they tweet is mostly outright bonkers or offensive, it certainly won’t convert the people they need to stop Hs2 – which makes it all the more counterproductive. This is starting to tell as the numbers of retweets their nonsense gets is steadily declining.

Another sign of the anti Hs2 campaign’s decline is that the Hs2aa website is STILL blocked by virus protection software some three and a half weeks after I first blogged about it.

Meanwhile, in the real world,things are even worse. Their campaign’s had a truly awful month…

The stophs2 campaign held a secret gathering of countrywide groups that was nothing short of an embarrassment. You can read about it here. All it achieved was to show how much the strength of their campaign has declined in the past couple of years. Their woes were compounded when the Chancellor, George Osborne presented his budget review. Not only did this expose their claims that hs2 would divert money from improvements to the existing rail network, it also skewered their ridiculous claims for how much Hs2 will cost as the budget was updated to 2015 prices. You can read about that here.

Budget day also exposed a growing schism between the two remaining anti Hs2 groups. Whilst Stophs2 have been trying to spin the costs of Hs2 as “spiralling” Hs2aa members were distinctly off-message at the Hybrid Bill petitions! Hs2aa’s Hilary Wharf was part of a group that was arguing the Chilterns could have a fully bored tunnel as tunnelling costs often turned out to be lower than official estimates!  You can see their evidence to the Committee here.

So, where does this leave their campaign? Up shit creek really…

They’ve utterly failed to make any political breakthrough. Their activist base is steadily declining and their stability of the two remaining groups in looking increasingly rocky. Meanwhile, the Government and Hs2 Ltd are  pressing ahead with the project whilst the Hybrid Bill Committee are steaming ahead with the petitioning process – all of which eats further into the Stophs2 activist base.

Somehow I don’t think there’s going to be much cheer at the Stophs2 Christmas party, which is going to be their last….

Financial spin & contradictions from the anti Hs2 mob.

25 Wednesday Nov 2015

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Economic illiteracy, Hs2, Hs2aa, Northern Powerhouse, Politics, Rail Investment, StopHs2, Uncategorized

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Today’s not been a good day for the anti hs2 campaign despite their high  expectations. For some reason they’d convinced themselves that there was trouble on the horizon for Hs2 and that the Autumn spending review might even see Hs2 cancelled as the Government ran out of money for investment.

For days they’d been circulating nonsense comparisons such as ‘defense spending or Hs2’ or  even ‘Police Officers or Hs2’. In the end the Chancellor made complete fools of them! Not only did he find new money for the armed forces and didn’t cut the police budget – he also confirmed extra money for transport investment including Trans-Pennine electrification and confirmed the Hs2 budget at £55.7bn in 2015 prices.

funding envelope

The poor anti Hs2 mob didn’t know how to respond. StopHs2’s Penny Gaines and Joe Rukin had been sitting by their keyboards, waiting to spin what they could, but found the cupboard was bare. They managed a few desultory tweets but Osborne had clearly wrong-footed them.

Once the news broke that the Hs2 budget had been adjusted they tried the usual daft spin to pretend that the budget for Hs2 is the same as the cost of Hs2. They were helped by one or two confused Journo’s who managed the same feat, so I must give credit to the BBC’s Paul Scoins (@paulscoins) who corrected a tweet when I pointed this out to him.

What wrong -footed the antis even more was the revelation that the updated budget also included the budget estimate for the Hs2 trains, meaning the increase was far smaller than they’d be trying to spin! What they’d failed to understand was the 2015 cost is simply the 2011 cost adjusted for inflation. Of course, if you’re going to adjust the Hs2 budget for inflation you also have to adjust the benefits of Hs2 by the same amount. Watch some of the antis really struggle with that little fact…

Meanwhile, in one of those wonderful ironies, whilst StopHs2 and a few other antis were trying to pretend that this is a real cost increase in Hs2, Hilary Wharf, a member of the other remaining anti Hs2 Group – Hs2aa – was with a group from Potter Row who were presenting their petition to the Hybrid Bill Committee. Wharf and Co are arguing for a fully bored tunnel under the Chilterns. Part of their argument was that the actual costs of tunnels can come in lower than initial budgets- a position in diametric opposition to their fellow travellers at StopHs2!

Worse was to come as details of Sir Peter Hendy’s report into Network Rail was released. This exposed the anti Hs2 mobs scaremongering on Hs2 sucking money from rail investment was complete nonsense. You can read the details on RAIL magazines website.