Apologies for the lack of blogging yesterday but I decided to have a rare day off and enjoy the start of the week in a different fashion. The weather was glorious here in the Calder valley, leaving me sorely tempted to head out with the camera, but DPD put paid to that by informing me they’d be delivering a parcel around lunchtime. Resigned to the fact I was tied to the house I managed an early perambulation around the woods and canal before retreating to the office. The day wasn’t all bad – I managed to get a lot done which included beginning to scan a new album of slides from 1994-95. In fact, I got far more done than I expected as the damned parcel didn’t turn up until the early evening! Ho hum.
In between work I kept one eye on the news and the latest antics of our Prime Minister who – hot on the heels of his tremendous ‘success’ with pissing off most of Yorkshire and the other Northern regions with the disaster that’s his rail plans – managed to go one step beyond with an utterly surreal speech extolling the virtues of ‘Peppa Pig world’ to (of all people) the Confederation of British Industry! Here you have hard-nosed businessmen and Captains of industry who want to know exactly what the PM’s Government’s doing about the economy, and all they get is a rambling, incoherent speech that was more Benny Hill than Churchill – the man Johnson likes to consider himself as equal to. Jesus, doesn’t it make you proud to be English? Truly, British politics is beyond parody nowadays…
Apart from not having to hang around for parcels, today’s been in similar vein. I’ve had a productive time and British politics remains utterly mad. I can’t even be bothered to write about what a shit-show it is as I’d run out of expletives within a few paragraphs. Besides, I’ve more worthwhile things to do.
So, here’s the picture of the day, which comes from my latest batch of old slide scans. The weather may be turning cold here, but when I look at these pictures I’m taken back in time (and distance) to somewhere where it never gets cold. Today’s picture was taken in Mid December 1994 on Gili Trawangan, the largest of the three Gili islands which lie just off the West coast of the Island of Lombok, Indonesia. Here’s the view across Gili Meno, looking at Lombok and Mount Rinjani in the distance. In those days the islands were barely developed and a haven for backpackers. I’ve not been back to the Gili’s since, but I do know they’ve changed out of all recognition. I think I’d rather remember them as they were, before mass tourism took over. Lombok, however, is another matter – as is nearby Bali…
That’s all from me for tonight. I’ve another silly o’ clock start tomorrow as I’m off to Newcastle-Upon-Tyne as part of a commission. The job itself doesn’t last long but I’ll be making the most of the trip there and back, so expect a rolling blog through the day as I’m going to be spending some time on the Tyneside metro, a system I rarely visit…
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/
*Warning – blog in progress. I can’t digest and dissect a complex 162 page report in one sitting, so more later*!
Finally, after months of delays. revisions and leaks the Governments Integrated Rail Plan was released today. What it says about scrapping the HS2 Eastern link to Leeds comes as no surprise to most people as this shambolic Government has been leaking details for months. Under Johnson and in his usual contempt for the political structures and Parliament, policy is no longer announced to Parliament, it’s drip-fed to the media first.
And, as usual, Johnson has reneged on promises and lied through his teeth. Even his supporters can no longer be surprised. Here’s a masterclass. Johnson gave this speech in Manchester back in 2019. In journalism, were told to ‘check against delivery’. As my colleague in the rail press Roger Ford observed, with Johnson it’s a case of checking against reality. See how many broken promises are delivered here.
Johnson just can’t help himself. He’s been a liar all his life (he’s been sacked for it twice) but he doesn’t care because no-one in his political career’s really ever held him to account for it – including the electorate. He’s lied again in the forward to the IRP, where he’s said;
“Our plan delivers high speed journeys, but also helps places on the existing lines. It creates new journey opportunities, but also serves the places people already want to go. It helps smaller places as well as big cities. It connects better with local public transport networks. It creates the capacity the rail network needs, in a way that can be delivered. And crucially, it brings benefit up to 10 years sooner.“
He just can’t help himself. 10 years ‘sooner’? Jon Stone of the Independent speared that lie by quoting from the actual report.
Grant Shapps pants are also on fire. He claims this in the IRP;
“Our plans go above and beyond the initial ambitions of HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail by delivering benefits for communities no matter their size, right across the North and Midlands, up to 10 to 15 years earlier“.
So, Johnson’s and Shapps raison d’être for cancelling the Eastern leg of HS2 and carving-up Northern Powerhouse Rail falls at the first hurdle. It’s exposed by the very report Johnson’s (ghost) written the forward for – but that’s no surprise as it runs to 162 pages and there’s no way on God’s green earth that Johnson (a man notorious for having no interest in or attention to detail) will have ever read it. This is not his work. In fact, when you read the report (and I have been doing). It becomes obvious how it’s been butchered and interfered with politically. So much of it is either contradictory or makes no sense. This is not about delivering projects ‘faster’, this is about saving a few quid in the short-term, and reneging on promises whilst dressing it up as something bigger, shinier and better. Johnson’s complained that building HS rail is ‘grindingly slow’ but deliberately ignores that much of the reason for this lies at his door! How many times has the project been delayed by Government reviews?
There’s so much nonsense at so many levels in all this, but I’ll start with the political.
Johnson’s wrecked political consensus for no good reason whatsoever
To find things that all the major political parties agree on is rare. HS2 was one of them. It’s had the agreement of all three major parties (and the SNP) since inception in 2009. It’s survived four Governments and four Prime Ministers. For Johnson to tear that up and make it a party-political issue is a sign of supreme ineptitude. There was no reason to do it. The reaction from Northern MPs of all parties (including his own) as well as other political leaders, businesses and the media shows just what a dumb political miscalculation this was. And all for what? The reaction of the media in the North has been equally savage, with the Sheffield Telegraph pulling no punches…
The result of his decision (or rather, going along with whatever some advisors have written for him) is to trash the Governments reputation in yet another area. Forget ‘levelling up’ the North-South divide. This policy paper lays out the fact there’s not only no levelling up, there’s now a new divide – an East-West divide. London, Birmingham, Crewe and Manchester and the rest of the West coast get and benefit from HS2. The East? The East can get stuffed! Derbyshire, Yorkshire and the North-East are part of that new divide. They don’t even get any crumbs for the ‘Northern Powerhouse’ table. HS2 East ends in the East Midlands. After that, all anyone else can expect is upgraded lines which will severely limit capacity to enable higher-speed (but not HS2 speed) trains to run on them – with all the consequent damage to local, regional and freight services this will entail. Even the new ‘Northern Powerhouse Rail’ lines Johnson promised so often won’t get to Leeds. Instead, we’re told the only new line will be from Manchester to ‘East of the Standedge Tunnel’ which is just over the border into West Yorkshire!
Politically, the question now is will Labour be smart enough to capitalise on Johnson’s obvious betrayal on his commitments to ‘levelling up’ the North-South divide (never mind creating a new East-West one) and threaten to claw back the so-called ‘red wall’ seats Labour lost under the disastrous leadership of Jeremy Corbyn? After all, Johnson’s left them an open goal…
The reaction from political leaders and the media right across the areas that would have benefitted from HS2 and NPR has been pretty damning (and ‘damning’s a word I hate using as it’s often a journalistic cliche, but not in this case). The political fallout from these decisions is not going to go away. Johnson’s managed to upset Northern politicians of all political colours – including his own.
Johnson’s financial sleight of hand.
In typical ‘look over there’ tactics. Johnson has spun the cuts he’s making to HS2 and NPR as “the biggest ever public investment in Britain’s rail network”. £96bn is quoted. Now, ignoring the fact more than this has been invested in the railways since privatisation by successive Governments, this figure disguises the fact that if Johnson had kept his promises to deliver HS2 and NPR in full, the Govt would be spending £185bn (as it claims in the report preamble), so we’re £89bn short of what Johnson had originally promised. As Louise Gittins, Interim Chair of Transport for the North pointed out, saying “Our statutory advice asked for an over £40 billion network but the Government has decided to provide even less than half of that.”
Dressing up cuts to rail spending in the North as a ‘win’ is classic Johnson. In fact, we don’t even know exactly how much will really be spent or what will actually be delivered as many projects that were expected to go ahead (like the HS2 Golborne link North of Warrington) have now been placed ‘under review’.
Johnson’s new East-West divide
This graphic from the Press Association show just how much of HS2 has been cut and how Johnson’s now built a new East-West divide.
Some opponents of HS2 on the Eastern leg have been celebrating the mothballing of the route, blissfully unaware that the route hasn’t been completely cancelled. In fact, the route will be ‘safeguarded’, meaning the blight they’ve suffered will continue.
Outright porkies.
The government also used the rail plan to recommit to transpennine electrification and the electrification of the midland mainline – projects which it had previously announced and then cancelled, only to re-announce. So, this isn’t new money, this is money that should already have been spent. The report also seems very confused about this, as this section shows.
Eh? Whoever rewrote the report is clearly unaware that Kettering is already electrified and that the wires are already being extended to Market Harborough. Oh, and Leicester, Loughborough, Grantham, Newark, Retford and Doncaster and Wakefield would have seen a lot of released capacity from the Eastern leg of HS2 – which has been canned! As for Dewsbury and Huddersfield – they were already set to benefit from the Trans-Pennine route upgrade which is delivering 4 tracking an electrification. Stalybridge? That was due to be electrified as part of Northern Powerhouse Rail – but it was postponed by the then Transport Minister, Chris Grayling. So, this whole section is complete cobblers – a blatant untruth in fact because cancelling the Eastern leg of HS2 will guarantee many of these places see a worse service. HS2E was meant to release capacity on the East Coast and Midland Main Lines as well as at the notorious bottleneck at Leeds station.
This is hardly the only porkie. Transport Minister Grant Shapps has also been spinning like a top and got called out for it by Matt on Twitter.
Sticking Nottingham on this map is particularly disengenuous. Yes, (in theory) it will gain direct HS2 services that will run on the classic network from East Midlands Parkway, but its services Northwards will suffer due to the capacity HS2 East would have provided vanishing. Plus, HS2 East would have massively cut journey times between Nottingham and Birmingham. These times will now be extended as Toton’s been scrapped and passengers will have to travel to East Midlands Parkway to get to Birmingham.
It’s no surprise that Shapps is trying to spin. Remember this load of bull?
That claim aged well…
Yorkshire’s stuffed.
The biggest loser in all this is Yorkshire. Leeds was meant to have gained a brand-new HS2 station that would have relieved that notorious bottleneck that’s the existing station. There was meant to be a dedicated high-speed line all the way to Birmingham (scrapped as far as East Midland Parkway) plus a spur to Church Fenton to take HS2 trains onto York, freeing up capacity on the ECML between York and London. That’s been canned too. Instead, we’re meant to be getting an ‘upgraded’ East Coast Main Line. There’s only one teeny problem.
The whole raison d’être of a dedicated high-speed line was the fact it added capacity to existing lines by taking high-speed, non-stop intercity trains OFF the existing lines. Now, we’re being told the ECML will be upgraded to 140mph to allow the existing trains to be speeded up. This does the OPPOSITE of adding capacity! It means some stopping services will have to be cut to make space for them. Even replacing some sections of four-tracking isn’t going to be able to prevent this – and you still have the bottleneck at Doncaster to contend with!
So, instead of getting a network of HS lines across Yorkshire and a brand new HS2 station in Leeds, Yorkshire gets;
“a study to look at the best way to take HS2 trains to Leeds, including capacity at Leeds Station”.
Whoopty do…
Bradford. Shafted again.
Another big loser from the Government’s climb-down on NPR is Bradford. Forget all the ideas of a new station or new line. All Bradford gets is the promise of electrification of the line to Leeds and faster, non-stop services to that city. No mention of how these new services are going to fit into the already congested Leeds station now it’s not going to have capacity released by HS2. Instead there’s just more vague promises, as Shapps says in is forward;
“IRP provides £100m to to look at the most effective way to run HS2 trains to Leeds, including understanding the most optimal solution for Leeds station capacity.
We already knew the answer to that, Shapps, but you’ve gone and scrapped it…
Right, let’s have a look at what the Executive summary tells us. It claims the Govt will build three new ‘high-speed lines’. Really? One has been on the drawing board for years – the HS2 line from Crewe to Manchester, so it’s hardly ‘new’, just a reannouncement. Oh, and they’re not even planning to build all of it either. The vital Golborne link which will bypass the WCML bottleneck at Warrington is yet another project that’s ‘under review’.
The second is the rump of HS2 East, from Birmingham to East Midlands Parkway. This is also only ‘new’ in the sense it’s not been built, despite having been announced years ago.
The only really ‘new’ bit is this.
“On Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR), we will build a new high speed line between Warrington, Manchester and Yorkshire”.
But even this is being dishonest, because much of the line isn’t new at all, as the report admits;
“we have chosen the first, a mix of newbuild line and upgrade via Huddersfield, and extended our commitment to Liverpool (giving 40 miles of new high speed line), and York. NPR trains will use fully electrified, expanded and upgraded conventional lines between Liverpool and Warrington, and from the east of Standedge tunnels to Leeds.
The truth is, much of this is plans to reuse the former freight line from Ditton East Jn near Widnes to Warrington Bank Quay (where the low level station would be reopened) then Eastwards, one assumes over the former line to Manchester that was closed back in the early 1980s. Quite how this will be reconfigured and rebuilt as a ‘high’ speed line is a very good question! As always, the devil’s in the detail. Well. it would be if there was any!
It’s the same with the next claims, such as;
“We will fully electrify and upgrade the Transpennine Main Line between Manchester, Leeds and York”
Really? How?
The report says;
“Previous plans involved only partial electrification of the route, partial digital signalling, one section of four-tracking and very limited freight improvements. Recognising that the Transpennine Route Upgrade (TRU) will now be significantly expanded to enable NPR, it will be managed as the first phase of NPR. We will now electrify the whole route, install full digital signalling, and add longer sections of three and four-tracking to allow fast trains to overtake stopping services, leading to an initial increase in through passenger services of 20% compared with the preCOVID-19 situation, with further additional services running once the new link to Manchester Piccadilly is in place. We will improve clearances for freight, allowing increased goods operation and taking thousands of lorries a month off the M62. This first phase will allow electric services between Liverpool and Newcastle, result in significant improvements to local services all along the line, and reduce journey times from Manchester to Leeds from 55 now to 33 minutes. Once the newbuild high speed line between the Standedge area and Manchester Piccadilly opens, under later NPR phases, it will further reduce the journey to 33 minutes and increase seat capacity by over 300%”.
So, no new line to Leeds, just a rebuilding (part of which was already going ahead) of the existing Trans-Pennine line via the Colne Valley via Huddersfield. In fact, the ONLY new section of line will be from East of Manchester Piccadilly through to the Marsden area just East of the existing Standedge tunnel – and that’s all we know – as there’s no details.
So, how’s this going to be gauge-enhanced for freight? OK, avoiding the existing Standedge tunnel is good, but there’s another elephant in the room here that’s not being mentioned. The original TRU plans ended at Huddersfield, as did the electrification. Why? Well, there’s two pairs of rather awkward tunnels immediately to the West of the station, the Huddersfield and Gladholt tunnels. You can see them here.
The Huddersfield tunnels. Note the original tunnel on the left is a much smaller bore? Wiring and gauge-clearing these might prove to be ‘interesting’ (as well as expensive and disruptive). Behind the camera is a 2nd pair of tunnels with the same problems. Forget a new line from Leeds to Manchester, a ‘revamp’ of this Victorian infrastructure is all we get In Yorkshire as the new line ends as it crosses the border from Greater Manchester!
This morning the final two useless anti HS2 protesters came out of the pointless Wendover tunnel. Oh, you didn’t know that three had given up earlier in the week? Neither did the rest of the world as it received no media attention – much to the chagrin of HS2rebellion and the rest of the protesters! The world’s moved on and the fact a tiny bunch of people were holed up in a tunnel that wasn’t even on the route of HS2 so couldn’t possibly stop any work wasn’t in any way newsworthy.
Now the final two, a lad who calls himself ‘Satchel’ plus the much better known but equally useless ‘Swampy’ have given up after being cornered by the bailiffs.
So much for all the bluster about staying underground for months! They made 28 (pointless) days, whilst the whole eviction took 32. Whilst they’ve played troglodyte the former camp above their heads has been demolished and gradually cleared by bailiffs – which has beeb a major task due to the massive amounts of crap these supposed ‘environmentalists’ have dumped on the site. It was a shit-tip, as these pictures from inside the camp show.
Of course, it was only a matter of time before the inevitable happened and those underground were forced to give up.
And the sum total of what they’ve achieved is? Zip. Nada. Nothing. Sweet FA.
Not a single days work building HS2 has been lost because of the stupid actions. At the end they didn’t even get the media attention they craved as no-one from the mainstream news agencies could be bothered with them. This whole (non)event ended with a whimper. The protesters weren’t even arrested as it’s not a crime to seal yourself in a tunnel where you couldn’t possibly get in the way of HS2 construction (as the court case against the Euston protesters established). Criminally stupid, yes, but not illegal. Of course, the protesters are trying to claim this as some sort of ‘victory’, but it’s obvious to anyone with half a brain it’s anything but!
So that’s it. No ‘protection’ camps survive on the phase 1 route of HS2, every single one (and there were only a handful) ended in failure.
The fat lady’s sung….
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/
Apologies for the lack of a blog yesterday but Wednesday turned out to be extremely hectic. As usual, plans kept changing due to ‘events’. I had to miss the last day of the railfreight conference as there was just too may things going on at once. I really could’ve done to clone myself. I kept getting phone-calls from agencies who’d spotted that I was in town and wanted to book me for other COP26 events. Us photographers were much in demand, which made a pleasant change after 2020!
Whilst I was at Glasgow Central I got t a tip-off that the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson was arriving by train and would be visiting (albeit very briefly) the Battery and Hydrogen trains on his way through the station. Needless to say, this turned into the usual security hoo-ha involving police sniffer dogs and heightened security, but I managed to be in the right place at the right time and get the shots I needed. Including this one…
Apart from the fun and games I also travelled on the Hydroflex and the D-Train, pictures of all these events will appear on my Zenfolio website by the weekend.
Today *should* be less frantic. I’m working on the Hydroflex again covering events taking place on the train, after which I get to go home, although I’ll be just as busy there editing and writing up my experiences. I’ll add more to this blog later in the day, hopefully from the Hydroflex, but if not, certainly from my train back South…
17:00.
17:00.
Phew! Yet another busy day. I’m writing this from my Southbound Pendolino as I head home. Part of me is glad it’s all over as it’s been a frantic time and there’s oh, so many pictures to edit and words to write, another part is going to miss the buzz as (from a railway perspective) it’s been brilliant and very positive couple of weeks. On a personal level, I’ve had a great time catching up with old friends (and making some new ones) as well as getting to know Glasgow far better thanks to Peter who took me to places I’ve never explored before. I’ve also enjoyed the camaraderie, which is something that Covid had put the mockers on for the past year. My only hope now is that COP26 actually delivers on the changes we need…
My Pendolino’s busy but not overly so. I’ve managed to bag a table on which to set up the mobile office in order to edit pictures and get then out to a client in time for a press release. Opposite me is a chap who’s been at COP26 who’s on his way back to London. He’s as knackered as I am and is snoring gently as he catches up on some much needed sleep! Sadly, the great weather we enjoyed in Glasgow didn’t last more than a few dozen miles outside the city. We’re forging our way South through the dark and rain.
18:25.
I’m back to kicking my heels in Preston, waiting from my connection home. The Glasgow train arrived 14 minutes late due to being trapoed behind late running trains but that’s actually worked to my advantage as I’d nearly an hour to wait here anyway.
Having been away in the in the land of Saltire liveried trains for so long it seems odd to see Northern trains bland blue and white again.
19:00.
On the last leg home care of a 3-car Northern Class 195, which is busy but not unbearably so – and not as packed as my Southbound Pendolino! As COP26 is drawing to a close thousands of people are departing the city. Many of them by rail. Well, unless you’re an idiot Green Party Council Leader from Brighton who decided to take an internal flight from Gatwick as the trains were “too unreliable”. The other irony? He opposes us building HS2! Oh, he was at COP26 to lecture others on cutting carbon emissions too. I hope Greta kicked his sorry arse…
22:40.
Right, I’m home, fed and watered and about to spend the rest of the evening away from screens to catch up with my other half as it’s our 4th wedding anniversary today! Goodnight!
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/
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/
Apologies for a lack of a blog yesterday, but as it was my birthday other matters took precedence. I won’t go into much detail about the day other than to say I received some lovely presents, had a convivial day with t’other half (and a lovely lunch with the in-laws) and was blown away with the amount of birthday wishes I received via social media – which was very humbling. So thank you – one and all.
Today it’s been back to the grindstone – although at a less than frenetic pace. I’ve mostly been housekeeping and preparing for the next few days away. I’d half-hoped to get out and tick another job of the list but the weather’s really not been up to it. A weather front has swept in from the West which brought quite a bit of rain later in the day – just when I had some free time, but that’s the law of Sod for you. I still managed to get a walk in as I needed to pick up some ingredients for tonight’s meal as I was on cooking duty. Mind you, that’s something I really don’t mind as I enjoy it and find it therapeutic. Not that I’m going to be cooking again for a while…
Tomorrow I head up to Scotland for several days as I have a series of jobs to do around the railways and COP26. It won’t be my only visit either. I’m really looking forward to my time North of the border, the events that are planned – and the chance to catch up with several old friends. I’ll be rolling blogging over the next few days so you should get a flavour of what’s going on as Scotland prepares to host this most important summit.
That said, I can’t help but feel a sense of despair and disbelief at the antics in Westminster as expressed through the budget. We’re days away from a crucial event that’s highlighting the fact Governments really need to step up to the plate and tackle climate change. So, what does our Chancellor do? Announce that he’s going to cut Airline Passenger Duty on internal flights. The flights that are THE most polluting! Christ on an effing bike – the rest of the world must be looking at us and thinking – are they for real? Here’s a graph that illustrates the problem.
Oh, and let’s not even go there when it comes to the Government umming and aahing over building HS2 (the greenest form of UK transport) at the same time…
Right, now I’ve got that off my chest, here’s today’s picture, which is a little different – just so that you don’t get bored. When I cook I like to prepare ingredients in advance. We have a wonderful array of bowls and dishes that we’ve picked up in Thailand and Vietnam that help me do this, so here’s tonight’s seafood risotto in kit form…
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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I woke up to the news this morning that HS2 contractors, police and bailiffs had begun the long-awaited eviction of the last anti HS2 squatters camp remaining on phase 1, the risibly named “active resistance” camp outside of Wendover, Buckinghamshire.
As it’s situated alongside the busy A413 road the operation’s begun on a Sunday in order to lessen the disturbance to locals (most of whom will only be too glad to see the back of the squatters). It’s difficult to say at this stage how few people are still occupying the camp but the numbers are small – as can be judged from the absence of comments and livestreamed videos from inside the camp compared to previous evictions. As news of the eviction has spread on social media a few more people have attended but as they can’t get into the camp they’re doing little other than creating a nuisance to traffic!
Events are unfolding on the HS2 Rebellion Facebook page where some videos are being posted, but they make it clear that the squatters and their few friends watching outside are vastly outnumbered. A large number of the familiar faces who were the ‘hard-core’ of the protesters are noticeably absent. Currently, the bailiffs are repossessing areas of the woods and erecting fencing. There’s very little in the way of confrontations as even the squatters seem to have realised the futility of their actions. The numbers watching the videos are also markedly down from previous events, which suggests many of the keyboard warriors and armchair activists have lost interest as the result is only going to go one way. None of the livestreams have had viewers above double-figures! Mind you, as the one’s on the Rebellion FB page are from fantasist and liar Mark Keir (the Walter Mirtty type who claimed to have watched the Roald Dahl tree being cut down in Jones’ Hill Woods) that’s hardly surprising. His commentary’s so away with the fairies you’re better watching the videos with the sound off!
I’ll keep you informed of how things progress as it could be several days before the farce is finally over.Whenever that is, it can’t change the fact that the ‘rebellion’ against HS2 was always more bluster than fact. It took little more than a year for the protests to collapse in ignominy. Now the fat lady’s singing…
UPDATE: Sunday evening.
It’s only day 1 of the eviction and already some of the handful of squatters have been removed. One left of their own accord as they were feeling ‘unwell’ and another two were removed from a bathtub up a tree! I mean, seriously? a bathtub up a tree? The camp has been established for two years and if that’s the best they can come up with. Needless to say, the bailiffs soon pulled the plug on them!
The farce will continue tomorrow and for a few days hence. However long it takes doesn’t really matter as (like the Euston tunnels) this camp isn’t stopping construction of HS2 in the slightest. Oh, if you are tempted to watch any of the videos on Facebook, I would seriously recommend turning the sound down if the commentator is Mark Keir! He’s made a tedious ass of himself as usual today, at one point claiming ‘victory’ because a cherry-picker was being moved so (according to him) the eviction was over for the day – only for said cherry-picker to then pluck the pair from the bathtub! Keir reminds me of the old adage – “How do you know when he’s lying? His lips move”!
Just how away with the fairies these people are is demonstrated by this earlier tweet from an old face. “Boots” (aka William) – the ‘eco-warrior’ who’s recently flown back to the UK from one of his regular jaunts to Spain.
Apart from the fact you can file this under ‘it never happened’ the idea that these people (who have minimal supplies as the donations have been running out) can hold out for ‘months’ is hilarious! You just know this tweet isn’t going to age well…
So, turn down the sound (you won’t learn anything factual) and pull up the popcorn as the eviction unfolds over the next few days…
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Over the past few days the media has been covering the story of the trial of seven HS2 ‘rebellion’ protesters who were arrested after being evicted from the tunnels they’d dug under Euston Square gardens earlier this year. After the eviction which lasted over a month the Metropolitan police charged the protesters with aggravated trespass.
Yesterday, at Highbury Magistrates court District judge Susan Williams dismissed the charges against the seven, leaving HS2 ‘Rebellion’ in boastful mood – as this post on their Facebook page demonstrates.
“Victory” for the tunnellers? Really? Why? What did they stop?…
So why did District judge Susan Williams dismiss the charges? Well, the answer’s rather embarrassing for HS2rebellion and the hopeless protesters. It’s because whatever they did in Euston Gardens they were never going to stop HS2 being built as the gardens weren’t an active HS2 worksite. Put simply, you can’t ‘stop’ what isn’t happening! This article in the Guardian newspaper sheds more light.
Laughably, Daniel Hooper (better known as ‘Swampy’) is quoted as saying. “Our plan is to stop HS2”, completely ignoring the fact he couldn’t possibly do so by digging a tunnel under Euston Gardens, which is why the Judge dismissed the case. Even Baldrick can come up with a better plan than this! But this is typical HS2Rebellion and their through the looking glass world. It’s very Orwellian,1984 truthspeak – ‘failure is victory’…
Ironically, I’d been highlighting the fact these protesters were useless as they were nowhere near an active HS2 worksite right from the start of the protest and in blogs like this one from February, before the farce came to an end.
Of course, HS2 Ltd were disappointed that the charges (brought by the Metropolitan Police) were thrown out of court as the whole fiasco is estimated to have cost £3.5m. After all, Just think how many trees that could have planted? I’d suggest that the police need to work more closely with lawyers in future to ensure that any charges levelled are appropriate and stand a chance of sticking in court. Even so, this was no ‘victory’ for the protesters Their raison d’être is to stop HS2, but yet again they’ve proved themselves to be abject failures – and now their day is done…
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I see that HS2rebellion have finally updated their map of protest camps along the route. Well, sort of! It’s no more truthful than their last one, but at least they’ve tacitly admitted their efforts to stop HS2 have been a complete waste of time. Their camp map has gone from this (with my annotations) which listed 10 camps…
to this, which lists just four.
As usual, there’s just one teeny problem. This is ‘map’ is as exaggerated as their last one, because two of these camps no longer exist! The Wormwood Scrubs squatter camp was demolished and the people living in it moved on last month. The Jones’ Hill woods camp is also deserted. Having stopped nothing and serving no useful purpose because the trees they were supposedly ‘protecting’ have been felled, the occupants (like serial pork pie teller Mark Keir) have scattered to the four winds. Most have simply given up and gone home.
This leaves just two, sparsely occupied camps. The sole remaining camp left on HS2 phase 1 – the risibly named Wendover ‘active resistance’ camp (whose only stunt in weeks was to block an old woman’s driveway) – and the utterly pointless Bluebell wood camp which is on the phase 2a route to Crewe where the main civils work won’t start until 2024, leaving the few occupants twiddling their thumbs for the next couple of years (or until they get bored and go home, which is more likely). Of course, the Wendover camp is living on borrowed time. It will be evicted any time now, bringing an end to the hopeless ‘rebellion’ which is going to survive in name only. Just like its predecessors including ‘StopHs2’ it’s a become little more than a couple of social media accounts that recycle any media articles critical of HS2 as a way of pretending they’re actually doing something other than still begging for money from gullible people via Crowdfunders.
This lack of action from the remaining squatter camps hasn’t gone unnoticed – even from their supporters, as this rather waspish comment that was posted on the Bluebell camps Facebook page shows!
Feel the burn!
I predict that the end of HS2 ‘rebellion’ is nigh. They’ve had a lousy summer, a time at which they could be expected to be at their busiest. Instead they’ve been anything but. Now Autumn’s upon us and all too soon winter will arrive. The ‘glamour’ of living in woodlands when it’s clear you’re wasting your time soon wanes – especially when the donations that funded you have dried up. Cold, hunger and the realisation that you’ve been useless really isn’t good for morale. Add to that the fact the work to build HS2 has ramped up and proved to be unstoppable and you have to think, what’s the point?
Stop HS2 is dead. It’s all over bar the bluster now…
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/
Paul Bigland 