Category Archives: Hs2

Labour hopeful Corbyn blindly walks into Osborne’s Northern Powerhouse trap.

04 Tuesday Aug 2015

Posted by in Andy Burnham MP, Hs2, Jeremy Corbyn MP, Labour election

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I’ve long suspected that Labour leadership hopeful Jeremy Corbyn would prove to be hopeless on understanding detailed issues. His tone is that of a man who likes broad brushstrokes & airy rhetoric, but doesn’t really understand the rest of the country outside his constituency in North London. I used to live in an adjacent constituency to his (Hornsey & Wood Green) where his reputation was similar. He’d been a Haringay Councillor there between 1974-1983. Jeremy has never bothered himself with having to make hard, practical decisions. He’s the perpetual backbencher. As far as I’m aware, in all that time he’s only ever chaired one real Committee, the rest are all talking shops like the All Party Parliamentary Group on the Chagos Islands (where? Ed.)

So, it was no surprise when the Guardian reported on Corbyn’s pitch to the North & ‘response’ to the Governments ‘Northern Powerhouse’ plans. In it, Corbyn comes out with classic soundbites on the railways, London and Hs2:

As the Guardian reported. Corbyn will also raise a question over the government’s plans to build the HS2 high-speed railway line to the north, on the grounds that it will drain other lines of investment and turn northern cities into “dormitories for London businesses”.

Apparently, his document says: “The Conservative government has torn schools away from the support networks of local authorities, regardless of the wishes of teachers and parents, and made them accountable directly to Whitehall, bypassing parents and local communities. They have suspended the much needed investment in rail infrastructure in the north to fund HS2, a project with the aim of turning our great regional cities into dormitories for London businesses.”

Apart from the obvious factual error that rail investment in the North hasn’t been ‘suspended’ (yes, one scheme, trans-Pennine electrification has been paused, but that’s so the scheme can be rescoped to include the extra work the local train operators have been pressing for) Corbyn clearly has no idea about what’s going on with the railways – or Hs2. Also, money hasn’t been diverted from funding rail investment in the North to Hs2 – they’re completely separate budgets & Network Rail’s money is intact – as the Transport Minister has made clear. Either Corbyn has no idea how things are funded (likely) or he’s playing a dishonest political game (also likely). Another stupid soundbite is that Hs2 will turn Northern cities into “dormitories for London businesses”. He completely ignores the major regeneration schemes in Northern cities that are being driven by Hs2. One only has to look at the plans for Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and Manchester Airport to see how out of touch with reality Corbyn is – and that’s before we look at plans that are yet to be finalised for regeneration for the Hs2 Phase 2 sites at Toton and Sheffield Meadowhall – and Crewe. Let’s be clear, all these schemes hang on Hs2, cancel it and you can kiss goodbye to them – and the 10s of thousands of jobs they’ll create and thousands of homes they’ll provide.

Something else Corbyn’s rhetoric ignores is the thousands of skilled apprenticeships that Hs2 is creating in the North. The Hs2 training college is due to open on two sites in Birmingham and Doncaster . These will be a keystone in training our rail engineers of the future & helping to create a skilled workforce. Kiss Hs2 goodbye & you can kiss these opportunities goodbye too..

Clearly, this is a view of the world as seen from Islington. It has nothing to do with anything based in reality on the ground,or in the North.

I’ve little doubt that the alarm bells will be sounding in the Labour held cities of the North which are staunch supporters of Hs2. We could be seeing the start of a North-South divide within the Labour party here if Corbyn persists with this nonsense or, (heaven forbid) gets elected as the next Labour Leader. If that happens, he’s handing the next election to the Tories on a plate as he’ll have walked headlong straight into Chancellor George Osborne’s trap. The Tories will be able to show that they’re getting on with regenerating the North whilst a Corbyn led Labour party would pull the plug on Hs2 & the huge regeneration schemes coming in on the back of it. Caught in the middle would be the Labour held authorities in the North who’ve worked so hard to get the benefits for their areas. So, we’d end up with A London-centric Labour leader at loggerheads with the Labour heartlands of the North – and Osborne laughing on the sidelines!

Needless to say. I won’t be voting for Corbyn as Labour leader, he’d be a disaster for the North and the Labour party. One can only hope that the other Labour leadership contenders like Andy Burnham see the opportunity this offers them & decide to stand up for the North.

UPDATE: It wasn’t long before a response came from the North care of Manchester’s leader, Sir Richard Leese, who tweeted this riposte;

Leese

What I predicted is already coming to pass…

Interestingly, all reference to Hs2 has been dropped from Corbyn’s Northern Future paper, which can be found here

The anti Hs2 mob don’t ‘do’ detail (or academia) – just headlines.

02 Sunday Aug 2015

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, Imperial College London

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It’s been quite funny to see the anti Hs2 mob getting their knickers in a twist over a new academic study & mathematical model from Imperial College London. In its newsletter the college describes the report thus:

“A new mathematical model suggests that major rail infrastructure projects, such as High Speed 2 (HS2) and London Crossrail, will cause some businesses and homeowners to lose out financially, when other destinations become better connected”.

Do we really need an academic study to tell us the blindingly obvious? There are always winners & losers when transport links are improved, nevertheless, trying to quantify this is an interesting exercise.

The newsletter goes on to say that;

“The scientists applied their model to analyse the effect of the proposed High Speed 2 (HS2) ‘phase one’ Birmingham to London route. HS2 has been estimated by a KPMG report, commissioned by the Department for Transport in 2013, to create £15 billion annually in increased economic output, with phase one estimated to deliver 40 per cent of this benefit (£6 billion per annum). However, the new study predicted that phase one would create only £3.6 billion annually in increased economic output; less than one per cent of current output of both cities.”

Needless to say, the anti Hs2 mob jumped on this with glee, although I doubt any of them actually bothered to read the report itself (it’s not exactly holiday reading) or even stop for a moment to consider its implications.

For example, the KPMG report doesn’t actually form part of the Hs2 business case. It’s an extra. Therefore, what this report is actually suggesting is that around £60bn at Present Value (PV) should be added to the Hs2 business case. Eagle-eyed readers will spot the fact that’s at least £10bn more than the cost of building Hs2. Not only that, but it doesn’t take into account all the other benefits Hs2 generates in released capacity on existing lines, fares etc.

So, the report isn’t a reason NOT to build Hs2 – it’s actually the opposite! Oh dear…

More crap reporting, this time from the Independent

27 Monday Jul 2015

Posted by in Crap journalism, Hs2, The Independent

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Is it any wonder the world of journalism is held in such low esteem nowadays? Take this example from today’s Independent.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/church-to-oppose-hs2-rail-link–because-it-would-desecrate-graveyards-9468659.html

The Church of England is to oppose Hs2? Really?

No, of course not -as the C of E made clear to the Indy – who ignored them & fabricated a headline anyway in order to cobble together up some cheap knocking copy.

Here’s what the C of E really said.

Indy

Is that so difficult to understand by the Indy’s wordsmiths that they manage to translate it into the exact opposite? No, of course not. It simply shows the declining standards of that newspaper & why hardly anyone outside the M25 reads it nowadays. The story isn’t even new but presumably the Indy wanted to jump on the bandwagon the Express started with their non-story about Brunel being dug up to make way for Hs2

I don’t know why the Indy doesn’t bother to change the colour of its masthead to red & join the other downmarket rags it obviously aspires to be nowadays.

Classic media hysteria & Stop Hs2 deceit from the Sunday Express.

26 Sunday Jul 2015

Posted by in Crap journalism, Hs2, Joe Rukin, StopHs2, The Daily Express

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The Sunday Express, a newspaper well known for hysteria & inaccuracy has published this piece on Hs2.

“Isambard Kingdom Brunel may be the father of British railways but it might not save his grave from being dug up to make way for HS2″

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/593825/HS2-given-permission-exhume-the-dead-build-new-train-line

And the evidence for this is?

There’s none, it’s complete bullshit, as anyone who actually bothers to read the article & use their brain will realise – which probably rules out a goodly percentage of Express readers.

Hs2 spokeswoman Katherine Button explained the truth: “We have made one precautionary application as we are doing some ground investigation in Kensal Green Cemetery in London. The cemetery manager does not believe the site we have chosen contains burials but we have agreed a specific careful excavation process to prevent the unexpected disturbance of human remains.”

So, not only is Brunel not in danger of being being dug up, no-one else is either.

Tucked away in the article is this rather salient fact. ‘The tunnel under Kensal Green Cemetery is expected to be between 80ft and 115ft down’ All Hs2 Ltd are doing is drilling a test bore to assess the ground they’ll be tunneling through, nothing more.

Not that you’d get StopHs2s resident ranter Joe Rukin to admit the truth. Given the opportunity to comment he comes out with his usual deceitful rubbish, claiming that;

““It is not a great surprise they haven’t told anyone about this. The whole project has been a catalogue of mistakes.

“You don’t make an application like that if you don’t need to do it. It is clear they have strong suspicions that they will need to exhume bodies.”

Not told anyone? Hs2 Ltd have gone through a formal application process & got all the relevant permissions from the authorities concerned, they’re not exactly turning up in the dead of night like some modern Burke & Hare! There’s also the small matter that all this has come to light beforehand precisely because of that formal process. Needless to say, in a further effort to scaremonger, Rukin also completely ignores the fact that if you’re tunnelling 80ft underground, there’s no need to dig anyone up.

Clearly, Rukin & the Express are well suited. Both love scaremongering & have a cavalier attitude to facts. Perhaps Rukin can get a job with the Express when Joe Elliott finally sees sense & pulls the plug on funding Stophs2.

The anti Hs2 mob get shown up by the Woodland Trust

25 Saturday Jul 2015

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2

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In another of life’s delicious ironies the Woodland Trust have intentionality exposed how little real support the anti Hs2 mob have. How? By launching this Twitter campaign.

irony

In just 24 hours they’ve had far more people Tweet than the anti Hs2 mob have ever managed to find! Remember the antis laughable ‘Twitterstorm’ from 2 years ago (you’d be forgiven if you didn’t, it was an abject failure). Or Hs2aa’s more recent ‘thunderclap’? So much for laughable claims that the anti Hs2 campaign’s bigger then the poll tax demos.

Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week – No 9

24 Friday Jul 2015

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For some reason the anti Hs2 campaign has always attracted the Walter Mitty types & this weeks chosen campaigner is a classic example!

Step forward Nicholas Batty…

Today’s superbly daft tweet sets the scene.

batty

‘Relentless & expanding rapidly’? How deluded can you get?

I’ve blogged before on the true situation with their campaign but let’s have a look at the state of play since I wrote that back in January. In the past 6 months the anti campaign’s failed to make any impact on a general election. Unlike previous years it’s not organised a single national event, demonstration or gathering- nor has it any planned. It’s failed to capture much media attention and its social media penetration is poor (to say the least). Here’s the latest ‘scores on the doors’ to illustrate the fact.

scores on doors

The usual caveats apply. Not all followers are supporters etc. The figures show that not only is the anti campaign growing slowly from a ridiculously small base, in some cases it’s going backwards! To put these figures in perspective, over 46 million people are registered to vote in the UK! So much for ‘expanding rapidly’ eh?

2015 has shown that the anti Hs2 campaign only really exists on social media nowadays. The ‘action group’ network that Hs2aa used to boast about (claiming over 90 +) has been shown to be less than half that. No new groups have formed since Phase 2 was announced but plenty have folded.

The anti campaign was further embarrassed when the Mid Cheshire ‘action’ group published their 2015 AGM minutes online. These exposed the fact only 23 people attended out of a Cheshire population of 700-800,000! Unsurprisingly, the group has since taken the minutes off the web. No doubt the ‘action’ group network will dwindle further one the petitioning process is completed. After all – what are they for anymore when there’s nothing going on?

So, where’s any evidence (outside of his own fevered imagination) to back up Batty’s claims? There’s none. Anywhere.

Of course, this isn’t the first time Batty has come out with abject nonsense. Back in 2013 he claimed that there were ‘thousands’ of anti Hs2 protesters in central London ahead of their annual rally. Only around 500 actually turned out to be real. But then Batty is a typical Walter Mitty who invents his own attendance at these events as well as that of others. Mind you, if you look at his profile, then do some research, it seems that’s not all he’s invented…

You’ve got to hand it to the anti Hs2 campaign, they really do know how to attract some very ‘special’ people.

2023 update.

Like the majority of the anti HS2 keyboard warriors, the ‘batty bricklayer’ (as he was known as by HS2 supporters) has vanished into thin air. His Twitter account disappeared years ago as his ridiculous fantasies and bluster came to naught. There’s literally hundreds of other abandoned anti HS2 Twitter accounts still out there, cluttering up social media. It’s one of the reasons the few remaining anti HS2 Twitter accounts get such a poor response. Most of the people who’re following them gave up and moved on years ago. A case in point is this tweet from Batty. It got all of 8 retweets. Of those 8 accounts only one – the human Oxymoron ‘@johnsensible’ is still tweeting, all the others are long gone…

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Pragmatism prevails on Hs2.

22 Wednesday Jul 2015

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, AONBs, Hs2

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Yesterday the Chair of the Hs2 petitioning Committee, Robert Syms MP announced that they had rejected the idea of a full length tunnel to take the railway underneath the Chiltern’s AONB. You can read the full decision here. It was a decision that surprised no-one but a few fundamentalist antis & those naive enough not to understand the issues.

The idea was always a non-starter. there’s lots of reasons why but the main ones are cost & (perhaps more importantly) the precedence it would create. If new transport corridors like Hs2 have to be buried under the Chilterns, what would happen when any have to pass through other AONBs or National Parks? After all, there are 46 AONBs covering 18% of the UK. Many of them are grouped to the North West of London, as this map shows (Interestingly, it also shows how the Chilterns is one of the smallest AONBs). It was an impossible demand & the Committee sensibly rejected it.

Whisper it, but the Chilterns aren’t particularly special. Only 5% of the AONB is virgin landscape. The other 95% is man made. It’s an area already criss-crossed by railways & motorways & I don’t see the local anti’s clamoring to have building restrictions applied that might prevent land being taken by factories etc. Let’s be honest, much of this is about protecting a few folks house prices as much as it is about the environment.

Of course, this decision doesn’t bode well for the anti’s other ridiculous demand – that the Euston terminus is abandoned & Hs2 is terminated at Old Oak Common instead.

The Hs2 Petitioning Committee go into overdrive.

14 Tuesday Jul 2015

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, Hs2 petitions

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One of the central planks of the anti Hs2 campaign was the idea that Hs2 could be stopped by bogging it down during the petitioning process. The ‘logic’ ran that if the timetable was dragged out the project would be cancelled by a new Government, such as UKIP (yeah, right..!) or the costs would force a rethink. The Hs2 antis duly stuck in a few thousand carbon-copy petitions & smugly thought ‘job done’.

It was never going to work.

The Hs2 Petitioning Committee have always made it clear that they weren’t going to let the will of Parliament & democratically elected MP’s be subverted in this way. The Committee’s worked with Hs2 Ltd to ensure these template petitions can be dealt with swiftly – and how!

Now the Committee has published its autumn hearing timetables. This lists 720 petitions to be heard in September & another 300 in October

This leaves the anti Hs2 campaign in tatters. They’ve run out of ideas & have no new tactics to offer. Their campaign groups are dying & no doubt the end of the petitioning process will kill a few more off. The writing’s on the wall…

Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week – No 8

08 Wednesday Jul 2015

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

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In the crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week competition we seem to have to have one contender who’s determined to stay ahead of the pack. Yet again the award goes to Camden’s Peter Jones. Not content with having won the accolade last week & being involved in Camden’s debacle at the Hybrid Bill Committee yesterday, he’s come out with this absolute gem today.

Duck

So, how will Hs2 stop industrial action on the tube? Probably the same way that it won’t cure cancer or prevent anyone but a Brit winning Wimbledon – or any of the other things it’s not designed to do.

Honestly, what is it with these people?

I’ve a small favour to ask…
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/

Or – you can now buy me a coffee! https://ko-fi.com/paulbigland68312

Thank you!

The HS2 Euston Action Group have a car crash in Parliament

07 Tuesday Jul 2015

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Euston, Hs2

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The HS2 Euston Action Group gave their evidence to the Hs2 Hybrid Bill Committee today – and what a car crash it was too! Presented by Camden’s new MP, Keir Starmer, backed by former MP Frank Dobson & local anti group member Robert Latham, it was halting, incoherent & completely failed to make the case they wanted to – the abandonment of Euston as an Hs2 terminus in favour of halting the line at Old Oak Common.

Starmer was awful. He didn’t seem to understand the case he was trying to make and had no idea about the cross London connectivity issues that are solved by having both Hs2 stations. Put simply, Old Oak Common serves East & West London & Euston serves North & South London.

The Committee looked less than impressed, especially Sir Peter Bottomley who clearly has a far better grasp of the issues than Starmer. Dobson wasn’t much better. His cavalier approach to facts & reliance on supposition didn’t score him any points. As for Latham, he made no impression at all. In contrast Sir Peter Bottomley was excellent. He pointed out that the projections were that only 2 out of 5 Hs2 passengers were expected to use Old Oak Common with the rest using Euston. In his evidence the QC representing Hs2, Timothy Mould gave a far more impressive and informed performance forensically demolishing the antis argument brick by brick – as if it were the former Doric Arch at Euston!

Have a look at the session here;

http://parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/1a9f4ae3-c26d-4dda-979c-b62cc696f9c0

Once the transcript is out I’ll update this blog as Mould’s tour de force will be worth reading!

After the session was over, Starmer tweeted this;

Starmer

All I can say is – if that shambles was a ‘good’ session it’s not difficult to see why the anti hs2 campaign’s got nowhere in over 5 years!

To be fair to Starmer, he has been put in an impossible situation. The idea of scrapping the Euston Hs2 terminus is so obviously a non-starter I suspect even he knows it’s going to be impossible to sell. He’s been put in that position through no fault of his own but by a crazy cocktail of a Council that’s become hostage to a vociferous minority and the actions of the previous MP, not to mention a few rather upset Labour luvvies. Admittedly, the original Hs1-Hs2 link plans didn’t help as they weren’t well thought out (which is why Higgins dropped them) but that’s history.

Somehow, I can’t see the Hs2 petitioning Committee being persuaded by today’s efforts….

UPDATE.

The transcript of evidence has been published here