There’s an old philosophical question that’s really rather apt when it comes to the farcical ‘campaign’ against HS2. It’s “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” One could update it to the present day to ask “If an Hs2rebellion protest camp’s evicted and no-one was around to Livestream/video it, did it really happen”?
This question could have been posed today when an eviction took place today of the sole anti HS2 camp north of Warwickshire. Named ‘Camp Isla’ after someone’s canine friend, it really did seem to be a one man and his dog operation! Although it appears on Hs2Rebellion’s dwindling list of ‘protection’ camps, it hasn’t been any trouble for HS2 as nothing much has been happening – until today, when this appeared on the camp’s Facebook page.
This eviction must hold a special place in the annals as since this appeared, not a single video, livestream, photograph or any verifiable record of the event has appeared – despite the appeals for people to turn up to ‘protect’ the camp. This is all the more mysterious when one looks at some more claims made when the camp went from one man and his dog to group of people down a tunnel and folk festooning the trees! .
Needless to say, not of this has been supported by the slightest bit of evidence from anyone. I’ve little doubt an eviction has happened – but the rest strikes me as pure fantasy. Not one of them has a camera-phone? Well, that’s a first. Normally the internet is awash with long and boring livestreams recording every eviction.
Of course, the daft thing about all these Walter Mitty fantasies about tunnels etc, is they soon fall apart in the cold light of day. I suspect (and not for the first time) the ‘camp’ Facebook account will be kept alive to churn out messages of support, fictitious updates and claims of winning – but the reality will be very different. Mind you, the HS2Rebellion website is rather good at that too. Here’s the list of ‘protection’ camps they claim exist, with the reality added…
So, 8 camps. 3 of which no longer exist, 2 more which have been partly evicted and 2 more (Crackley and Denham) which are almost certainly redundant as there’s nothing left to ‘protect’ anymore! Some ‘winning’! Two other camps have never made the list as one (Leather Lane near Jones’ Hill woods) didn’t last a fortnight whilst the other on Wormwood Scrubs has no permanent site and has less than 5 regular occupants! In fact, if you added up the regular occupants of all these camps together I doubt you’d find more than a couple of dozen people.
Pitch this against the largest construction site in Europe with 10s of 1000s of workers over 300 worksites on a 140 mile long route and you can start to see the futility of all this. Mind you, so can many of the protesters, which is why so many of them have wandered off back to other causes to fight yet more lost battles for Extinction Rebellion and other groups – hence some of the Euston tunnel refugees appearing in Lichfield to spray paint on a factory supposedly supplying military equipment to Israel. Obviously, political activism (just like being a SPAD to the PM) makes you immune to Covid or the need to follow lockdown rules! Whilst XR and it’s friends might not think those rules apply they might find the new police, crime, sentencing and courts bill which passed second reading by 359 to 263 votes rather harder to ignore as provisions in it will criminalise some of their activities. Despite my own personal reservations about the bill I will be interested to see how quickly it becomes law and how it’s used in practice against groups like Extinction Rebellion and HS2Rebellion.
Of course, today happened on the same day that HS2 Ltd announced the start of work on what will be one of the most visible civil engineering projects on phase 1 – the 3.5km long Colne viaduct on the edge of London. Unlike ‘Camp Isla’, this won’t be a one man and his dog operation! The world’s moved on even if the remaining protesters haven’t. Poor ‘Isla’ is left barking up the wrong tree – in more ways than one…
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Having watched the abortive anti HS2 campaign for nearly 10 years now two words always spring to mind: Déjà vu – or in the expression made famous by the 1990s film – it’s another “Groundhog Day”…
After 11 years of failure those opposed to building our new high-speed railway haven’t learned a thing and keep repeating the same failed, stale tactics in an endless series of re-runs. Observing their campaign is like having a TV stuck on one of those cable channels that spew out endless repeats! I’ve lost count of the number of petitions launched, legal challenges threatened or boycotts demanded.
The latest ‘haven’t we been here before’? moment comes courtesy of Joe Rukin and StopHs2, the one man and his dog operation that’s been irrelevant for some time now. As Joe’s still not found a proper job after years of trying he’s desperate to try and keep the group running as it helps bring some money in.
So, Joe’s recycling the tried, tested (and failed) route of – yet another Judicial Review! You can find the full details in this rather rambling entry on the stophs2 website.
More Comical Ali than legal eagle, Joe Rukin videoed a call for help from the StopHS2 registered office and ‘nerve’ centre (his spare bedroom).
Over the years anti HS2 campaigners have tried dozens of JR’s. The late (unlamented) High Speed 2 Action Alliance launched a plethora of them, all but one failed and the one that didn’t was on a consultation that HS2 swiftly re-ran, so it was all rather pointless. It’s been the same with celebrity environmentalist Chris Packham who also tried and failed, achieving little more than parting a lot of fools from their money via Crowdfunding. Money that was then trousered by his grateful solicitors ‘Pay Day’ (you mean Leigh Day! Ed). As usual, the only people who benefit from any of these doomed legal cases are the Lawyers.
I’ve little doubt this latest attempt will result in the same outcome. Rukin is applying for permission to launch a Judicial Review, but the fact he’s appealing to others for evidence to back up his claims tell you all you need to know. The fact that he’s giving people so little time to gather this evidence doesn’t bode well either. His closing date is the 9th March (Tuesday).
Of course, what Rukin isn’t telling his supporters is what happened last time he applied for a Judicial Review. This was back in October last year – only then he didn’t bother with such a trivial thing as evidence – which is why his request was summarily thrown out at the first hurdle and he was landed with a legal bill of £4300!
I blogged about the debacle at the time, which you can find here.
For some mysterious reason you won’t find any mention of his October 2020 failure anywhere on the StopHs2 website or Facebook page. It’s been expunged from history, as if it never happened! I wonder why?
Perusing his latest request for help it looks like Rukin is trying to re-run the same failed case again, which suggests he’ll get short-shrift from the Judges who end up having to consider his request. As usual with Rukin, details of these things are scant, so there’s no information on who his legal advisors are (if he even has any) or when the hearing will be, so watch this space as I’ll report on the outcome of the judgement when it’s delivered – as I suspect Rukin will be as reticent as last time to announce another failure! Watch this space…
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I’ve always been amused by how little the ‘conservationists’ who’re opposed to HS2 actually know about the environment they’re supposedly so concerned about saving. In many cases this is because they’re using ‘green’ issues as a figleaf for the fact that really, they’re just Nimbys. Even the serial protesters of Extinction Rebellion (the ones who wander from cause to cause) seem to know bugger all about the natural world they’re allegedly trying to save. I had to chuckle at the fun and games at Denham, when the protesters claimed they were trying to save an ‘ancient’ Alder tree. A tree whose age kept increasing as the stories got wilder. First it was 400 years old, then 600. People who know anything about trees will know why I was giggling at the claims.
An even better one happened a couple of years ago after one of the local Buckinghamshire rags reported the moans of a local farmer who was complaining about Ragwort growing on land owned by HS2 as the plant could spread to his fields and ‘pollute’ his land, threatening his livestock who get upset tummies if Ragwort gets into their feed. Suitably outraged, some of the local Nimbys tried to get a group together via one of their Facebook pages with the intention of going out to pull up the ragwort! It took a real environmentalist to point out that would be illegal as Ragwort is a valuable native plant that’s a source of food for insects and butterflies!
It seems these people never learn, hence this weeks award. Step forward Caroline Thompson-Smith, the determined self-publicist and serial spreader of exaggerated nonsense who can normally be found at Calvert, near where she lives. Well, unless she’s breaking the Covid lockdown to travel to other protest camps, such as her spot of gratuitous self-publicity and filming at Euston the other month.
Caroline has produced another long video diatribe which has appeared on the HS2Rebellion Facebook page and features the latest failure of the protesters at the Poors Piece eviction near Calvert (but nowhere near HS2!). Here’s a screengrab.
Never let the truth get in the way of a good story eh, Caroline?
Her garbled story starts unravelling at 1’23” when she makes the claim that behind her contractors are felling Black Alder trees and that the Woodland Trust say the ‘Black Alder’ is one of the rarest trees in the UK with just 600 remaining, so HS2 contractors are felling 1% of the entire UK population! Wow – some claim! And a claim that rapidly unravels by 5’50” when Caroline forgets her original fairy story. Now it’s the Wildlife (not Woodland) Trust who claim the ‘Black Alder’ is rare. So rare the number has shrunk from 600 to 6 in the space of 4 minutes!
So, what’s the truth here? As usual, just a few minutes searching on Google and Caroline’s claims are in tatters. Here’s what the Woodland Trust REALLY say about the Black Alder. Yep, you’ve guessed it – the ‘black’ Alder is just another name for the Alder tree – and it’s also called the Common Alder – because it’s not rare at all! Nor is it a particularly long-lived species, which is why I was giggling last year at the claims about ‘ancient’ Alders!
There’s more on the Alder here from Wikipedia which reveals that the Alder is on the ‘least threatened’ list.
Of course some viewers of Caroline’s nonsense clearly just lap this stuff up. Gullible isn’t the word here. You could literally sell them anything. Listening to people like Caroline you’d think it was Genghis Khan and the Mongol hordes sweeping across the Chilterns, raping, pillaging and laying waste to the countryside in their wake – not a company building a railway who have to abide by legally-binding environmental protocols and laws and who are subject to strict oversight by a whole host of agencies.
Still, never let the truth get in the way of a good story, eh?
2023 update.
The Poors Piece eviction wasn’t stopped by Caroline or anyone else. The trees that had grown up along the course of E-W rail (not HS2 as the wood’s nowhere near) were removed and the rest of the wood remains intact – although polluted by the remains of the abandoned protest camp which was left to rot by its occupants.
Caroline continues to rant about HS2 but on a much reduced basis as it’s painfully obvious to all but the most blinkered that construction of HS2, the maintenance depot and E-W rail is unstoppable with the work at a very advanced stage that expands as each day passes.
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As the final curtain is about to fall on the pantomime that was the HS2 ‘rebellion’ tunnel fun at Euston, another pantomime has opened at Calvert in Buckinghamshire, where a rag-bag of Nimbys and activists have congregated at Poors Piece wood. But first let’s recap and chart each act in the pantomime.
The theatre curtain rose back in January when police and bailiffs moved in to clear the garden at the front of Euston station which had become a refuge for various Exinction Rebellion/Hs2Rebellion ‘activists’ and a cadre of homeless people who found shelter and security in numbers. As a PR stunt the anti HS2 protesters had dug tunnels under the gardens and 9 of them did white rabbit impressions just as soon as the eviction started. Whilst the rest of the rabble were quickly cleared from tents and trees the troglodytes in the tunnels refused to come out at first, but then departed in dribs and drabs over the days. The most famous occupant of the tunnels was ‘Swampy’, an old road protester from the 1990s who was down there with his young son. What most of the media who covered the story neglected to mention was that ‘Swampy’ was a serial failure who never managed to stop anything, but hey – at least he got publicity!
The description here is pure ‘Comical Ali’! A “hugely successful occupation”? This was as much use in trying to stop Hs2 as is Americans sending ‘thoughts and prayers’ to stop school shootings…
On Monday another serial failure (Larch Maxey) gave up after being cornered by bailiffs. Today (day 30) three more of the tunnellers (including ‘Swampy’ and son) gave up and came out of their own accord. According to Hs2 Rebellion the final (anonymous) troglodyte will give up tomorrow after 31 days, bringing the whole farce to an end. Why a farce? Because they never stopped anything! The big joke about the camp in Euston Gardens is that it’s not cost HS2 a single day in construction time because the gardens are nowhere near an active HS2 construction site! It was pure theatre, nothing more. The theatrics have continued with the protesters claiming the event as some kind of victory – although how having 9 protesters holed up in a tunnel where they can’t stop any work is a ‘victory’ is a mystery…
Several of the protesters evicted from Euston gardens later turned up at the abandoned Harvil Rd ‘protest’ camp in Uxbridge, only to be evicted again within days as that camp was cleared and demolished without them putting up a struggle.
All the remaining ‘protest’ camps are feeling the pinch at the moment as HS2 Ltd are ramping up construction and clearance work along the phase 1 route. At the recent National Rail Recovery Conference Hs2’s Chief Executive announced that the company now has 300 separate worksites in operation. Yet the protesters number less than a few dozen hard-core – which is why the same few faces keep popping up time and time again.
This has been true at the latest eviction at Poors Piece this week where another semi-abandoned camp (which had less then half a dozen regular occupants) had an influx of refugees from Euston and Harvil Rd in a desperate attempt to bolster numbers to attract some more publicity, because let’s be honest – they stand no chance of stopping the eviction, far less actually stopping HS2! The same farcical scenes have played out this week when all the protesters bravado and bluster soon came to nothing as tree-houses quickly fell to the bailiffs, police and HS2 workers who promptly moved in to begin clearing up the mess.
In a lovely touch of irony, some of the protesters from the nearby Wendover camp who turned up at Poors Piece for a day were disconsolate on their return to base as they found Hs2 had been busy clearing woodland uninterrupted whilst they’d been away!
The result of the Poors Piece eviction is beyond doubt and I’d be surprised if it lasted more than another couple of days, despite all the bluster and rhetoric from the protesters and a couple of local Nimbys who bolster the protest but who clearly have nothing better to do. In fact, I have a sneaking suspicion that these events are more about egos and publicity than being any serious attempt to stop Hs2. This protest is one of the first of the social media age and it’s becoming obvious that a cross-section of those involved are using the protests to boost their social media status as an ego-trip although a minority are more circumspect and use false names or identities.
In fact, the whole StopHs2 ‘campaign’ has changed direction in the past year. The original (Nimby based) groups like the High Speed 2 Action Alliance (who folded in 2016) and StopHs2 (aka the Joe Rukin show) have faded into the background. Now, the running is being made by a rag-bag of Extinction Rebellion devotees, self-publicists, some old road and fracking protesters and hippies – and a smattering of Nimbys. The real aim of the protests now seems to be to raise support for Extinction Rebellion (and make a few bob).
When Extinction Rebellion first appeared on the scene I was broadly sympathetic. I thought that by raising the profile of environmental issues and the desperate need to tackle climate-change, they might actually do some good. Then I watched in bemused amazement as they started to increasingly dumb things, like attacking public transport. That made me start to examine who they really were and it made me realise that they were just another hard-left (anti capitalist) group who used environmental issues and animal rights to further their political agenda – just like the far right in the shape of Britain First and the BNP have done (as well as the vote Leave campaign).
What a lot of this is really about is two things. Recruiting young people through manipulation and indoctrination – and also using social media tools to raise funds.
I’ve blogged about this before when I highlighted the split between some of the people allied to Extinction Rebellion and the ‘old school’ more anarchic protesters who don’t like XR’s command and control tactics – and stranglehold on the money! Over the past couple of years through various Crowdfund appeals and other donations pages six-figure sums have been raised to fund legal cases or to ‘support’ the protest camps (or even individual protesters!). There’s only one problem. No-one has a clue where the money really goes and no-one ever publishes any accounts! The money just disappears and no-one is held responsible for it. There are several example of this. Here’s one.
Over £42,000 raised. Where’s it gone? No-one knows. There’s no updates and there’s no accounts. There’s not even anyone named as being in charge. This is just one of many such fundraisers that go to prove the old adage that “a fool and their money are easily parted”.
Another example is ‘celebrity’ environmentalist Chris Packham, who ran a crowdfunder to raise money for his vanity legal cases against HS2. They were doomed to failure from the start but the money rolled in. Was all the money spent? Who knows. What happened to any surplus? Dunno – as it’s now a year on and Packham (to my knowledge) has never published any accounts or updates explaining what happened to the money. I wonder if the taxman knows either?
The more I dig into the anti HS2 ‘campaign’ the more it starts to look like a scam. Because, let’s face it – it doesn’t have a hope in hell of actually stopping HS2! How can this tiny bunch of protesters halt the largest construction project in Europe when they can’t even stop themselves being evicted? There’s so few of them now they’re doing little more than fire-fighting, stripping bare the remaining camps of people to try and put up a show at the latest one to be evicted.
Mind you, the Poors Piece eviction is showing another (unpleasant) side to these supposed ‘peaceful’ protesters…
Many of those drafted in to ‘defend’ the camp are young people from middle-class backgrounds who would normally be at college if it wasn’t for Covid. They’re a particularly foul-mouthed group who think nothing of hurling vitriolic personal abuse at anyone involved in the eviction – be it HS2 workers, bailiffs, police or the other emergency services. I’m going to take the gloves off now and say that hearing a bunch of self-entitled kids who’ve probably never done a days work in their lives telling anyone and everyone that they know everyone’s job better than them is a nauseating sight. Many of them throw an absolute strop when an adult has the temerity to say ‘no’ to them, but then that does rather reveal something about their backgrounds. Here’s a fine example.
Middle-Class kid who’s never done a proper day’s work in their life accuses working people of being ‘class traitor scum’. There’s a word for people like that…
There’s plenty more examples of this behaviour on the various videos the protesters stick on their Facebook pages. You can find some of them here. “Peaceful” people my arse! The level of delusion and disinformation coming from these people is weapons-grade. It seems the one thing Extinction Rebellion and the other anti HS2 groups are good at is indoctrination, because the nonsense they get people to spout (and believe) is incredible. Here’s an example from the person who was the founder of StopHS2. This appeared yesterday…
Oh, please…!
That so many of the protesters are (or were) college kids is a fatal weakness of the anti HS2 campaign – and especially now that the Government has mapped a way out of lockdown and return to normal with schools and colleges reopening! Many of these mouthy youths are going to find there’s other more pressing activities that will be taking up their time…
The more digging one does into these protests and the people behind them the more it becomes obvious that this is not really about HS2. It’s not even about the environment – or Climate Change – because if it was they’d be following the science and protesting about the new roads building programme. HS2 is being used by Extinction Rebellion as a tool to increase their influence and raise money – and a lot of fools are parting with it…
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I’ve always said that Extinction Rebellion and HS2Rebellion are anything but real environmentalists. Both organisations have jumped on the ‘green’ bandwagon to further a wider (anti-capitalist) agenda and nothing more – hence some of their mad tactics that do nothing to promote tackling climate change. Exactly the opposite in fact. One only has to look at the way XR have frequently disrupted public transport in the UK, even going as far as disrupting electric public transport by gluing themselves to trains on the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) or standing on the roofs of Underground trains!
HS2Rebellion are doing the same with High-Speed 2, opposing a green railway that is the only way we’ll have the rail capacity to get modal shift from road air to rail to cut our biggest source of Co2 emissions (transport) and meet our international obligations to tackle Climate Change.
Today, HS2Rebellion let the cat out of the bag by showing they either don’t understand the issues – or just don’t care. Their target was the news that Malaysia has cancelled the proposed High-Speed rail project between Kuala-Lumpur and Singapore and they used this (superficial) report on the BBC from a freelance journo based in Singapore. In the report it mentions that there are 30,000 local flights between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur per annum – as well as a 24 hour bus service. Here’s what XRebellion have to say on their Facebook page.
Yet again we have supposed ‘environmentalists’ playing along to the right-wing libertarian narrative about costs. This is bizarre. After all, aren’t they the ones who’re always telling us that there is no ‘Planet B’ and that the environment is priceless? Not if you’re intending to build High-Speed rail it seems (roads? No problem – carry on!).
What is it that these ‘environmentalists’ are deliberately ignoring? Simple, just how much carbon those different modes of transport generate. Take a look at this and compare domestic flights, buses and high-speed rail (mentioned as ‘Eurostar’ on this chart).
Here you have the blatant hypocrisy of XR and HS2Rebeliion exposed in black and white in one simple chart.
Over in the UK there’s a similar picture. The biggest market for domestic aviation is between Scotland and London’s airports. HS2 (like HS1 before it with flights to Brussels and Paris) will make severe inroads into that market by speeding up Anglo-Scottish services, as Chris Ogilvie often points out.
I have to declare an interest here. I know Malaysia (and Singapore) well. I’ve been travelling there since 1992 and maintain a keen interest in the areas political, economic and transport issues. In the past, I interviewed the then head of Malaysian Railways for the International Railway Journal and I maintain contacts inside both countries, which is why I know the BBC story isn’t the full story by any means. Even so, for ‘environmentalists’ to gloat over the failure to building a carbon-neutral alternative to 30,000 horribly polluting domestic flights a year (never mind all those 24 hour, 5 hour coach trips) is mad – but then, these people aren’t real environmentalists. What’s depressing is the number of genuine ‘green’ groups and people who’ve been taken in by them. We’ve now gone from saving the planet by any means to saving the planet – just as long as the price is right! This is why I’ve long maintained that the the UKs ‘green’ movement (or what passes for it) simply isn’t fit for purpose as they’ve become just another limb of the libertarian right. You have to ask, how (and why) did ‘greens’ suddenly start celebrating the failure of plans for high-speed rail networks whenever and wherever in the world they happen, and how on Earth can they still call themselves greens?
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There’s no ramble (or weather report) from me today! The pair of us have had a quite Sunday at home – hardly an unusual occurrence in these locked-down days. After all, it’s not as if we’ve got a flight to catch, is it? And a rolling blog about a walk along the canal would be a less than riveting read! So, I’m going to cut straight to the chase. Or in this case – the picture of the day.
I took this shot of pro Megawati students in Yogyakarta, Java, Indonesia in the last week of November 1998. Indonesia was in the throes of rediscovering democracy after years of dictatorship under President Suharto. Suharto had been forced to resign in the May of 1998 because of the Asian economic crisis, corruption and growing civil unrest – much of which was led by students like these.
Megawati Sukarnoputri was the daughter of Indonesia’s first President, Sukarno, who was deposed by Suharto in 1966. Born in Yogyakarta, she became the leader of the PDI party in the 1990s and won the Vice-Presidency in 1999, eventually becoming President in 2001 until she was decisively defeated in 2004.
Having travelled across Indonesia during the Suharto years in 1992 it was fascinating for me to return in 1998 and see the country regaining its democratic freedoms and learning how to express them. Demonstrations like this were commonplace but in Yogya especially as it had a large student population. Now, many years on, Indonesia is doing well, even if it has been a rocky road as corruption’s still a problem. Even so, within the next couple of decades they will overtake the UK’s economy – a job made easier by us declaring sanctions on ourselves with Brexit.
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Still smarting from his spanking in the courts, ‘celebrity’ conservationist Chris Packham has come up with another wheeze to try and stop HS2, the UK’s new high speed railway, of which phase 1 from North of Birmingham to London is already under construction. This time Packham hasn’t needed to persuade people to donate money for his expensive vanity project as he’s fallen back on an old StopHs2 favorite by starting a petition on the Government website! There’s a rag-bag of other names associated with the petition, but the only ones worthy of note are the veteran human rights lawyer Michael Mansfield QC (who lives near the route), plus Richard Walker, Managing Director of Iceland Foods, charity trustee and Ambassador for the Wildlife Trusts (by the way, that’s some of the same Wildlife Trusts that environmentalist George Monbiot flayed for ‘greenwashing’ road and housing projects in Buckinghamshire).
Packham and his friends have been busy since last week drumming up media support for the petition and exploiting his social media connections. So far, they’ve had quite a bit of success. As I write this, the petition has reached 47,000 signatures, nearly half-way to its target of 100,000 which it needs to hit by the closing date of 17th June 2021. On that performance, it stands a very good chance of being the very first anti HS2 petition to ever reach the magical 100,00 signatures.
There’s just one teeny, tiny problem that Packham and his fellow signatories aren’t admitting in their daft assertions and breathless bluster…
Parliament “must” vote! Really? Says who? No-one. Certainly not the Government petitions website, which points out that these petitions can’t make Parliament *do* anything, as they explain here.
So this may not be debated in June as there’s already been numerous debates (and primary legislation in the shape of 2 Hybrid Bills) already. Still, there’ll be a vote on repealing the HS2 Hybrid Bills AFTER the debate, won’t there?
Nope…
Oh, has Packham not mentioned that? How remiss of him!
You see, the petitions debates are held in Westminster Hall, not the main chamber of the House of Commons – and they’re just that – a debate. Or, to put it in simpler terms – it’s a talking shop! As the Westminster Hall website explains:
“Debates in Westminster Hall take place on ‘general debate’ motions expressed in neutral terms. These motions are worded ‘That this House has considered [a specific matter]’. Amendments to such motions cannot be tabled. Divisions (votes) cannot take place in Westminster Hall.”
So, in short, there’s no way on God’s green earth that the Government’s Parliamentary Managers – or Parliamentary process would allow this (or any other petition) to go to a division (vote) in the Commons. It’s a dead duck! Packham’s peddling the fiction that if 100,000 people sign this petition, MPs will stream into the House of Commons and (en-masse) vote to repeal both HS2 Hybrid Bills! It’s a fantasy that relies on the gullibility of people to have no idea how their Parliamentary democracy actually works.
So, let’s indulge ourselves in a flight of fancy just for one minute. What if there WAS a vote in the Commons on HS2? The Government would win it hands down – for several reasons…
Parliamentary mathematics.
HS2 has massive cross-party support and the Tories would almost certainly ‘whip’ their MPs to vote in favour. So, even in the even more ridiculous and fantastical scenario of everybody else’s MPs voting to oppose HS2 the Government have an 80 seat majority and can’t fail. But, as the only people who oppose HS2 are a handful of Plaid Cymru MPs and the solitary Green, that ain’t gonna happen – but then, neither’s the vote!
The number of MPs who oppose HS2 has fallen in recent years as many of those who did back in 2014 have lost their seats or simply left Parliament, so I refer you back to 1.
In short, this petition’s a complete waste of time. It’s just another myth that Packham’s peddling – like his Court case which was eviscerated as a waste of time with no chance of success by the Judges. This time he’s peddling the fantasy that MPs in Parliament would (if they could) vote to repeal the HS2 bill when they can’t – and wouldn’t.
Oh, there’s also the small matter that by the time this petition ends in June, two tunnel boring machines (TBMs) will already be several miles into their progress digging the Chiltern Tunnels and there’s going to be a lot of earthworks and new bridges being created along the 140 mile route of the line! This is not like pulling the plug in a computer system no-one’s ever seen, and if you think the Government will allow such a visible, physical monument to failure to be left behind you really do need to give your head a wobble! The only monument to failure you’ll be seeing here has Chris Packham’s name written all over it.
I have to say, it’s sad to see that the UK ‘Green’ movement has been hijacked by ‘conservationists’ with no thoughts for the science of climate change, whose only answer to any practical solution to tackle cutting carbon emissions is “but, Trees!” It’s this blinkered, ‘lose not one tree, not one blade of grass’ fundamentalism that’s making them part of the problem, not the solution, and it’s playing right into the oil/road lobby’s hands.
Oh, I take it back when I say this petition’s a ‘complete’ waste of time. It does have a couple of uses, but Packham won’t like either of them.
Firstly, these petitions come with a handy map showing which constituencies the people who’ve signed it live in. This will allow me to map the decline in signatures of people who live in areas HS2 passes through as I have a wealth of data from years and years of other failed petitions!
Secondly, it allows us to see what people acre about MORE than HS2! For example, here’s the top 10 active petitions at the moment.
In comparison to these, Packham and it friends have a mountain to climb. Oh, and that’s without mentioning that the petition to stop Brexit had over 6.1 MILLION signatures. That worked well…
Enjoy watching HS2 being built! If I have time tomorrow I’ll be blogging an update on progress with its construction.
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There’s been so much going on these past few days whilst we’ve been trying to prepare for a tiered Xmas I really haven’t had time to blog – despite a spleen that’s become so engorged on political stupidity that it really needs venting before it ruptures. Hopefully next week will allow time for some catharsis.
Fortunately, we took the view that Christmas was likely to be yet another shambles way back in November so we’d cancelled our plans to head down to Surrey and stay in West Yorkshire. That said, I can’t help feeling sorry for those people who believed in this farce of a Government and banked on being able to travel to have family gatherings in the five-day window before (yet again) Johnson did a U-turn. That window never made any sense as it seemed like an open invitation to spread Covid. I can’t help feeling that this Government has completely lost control of the pandemic now. Well, what little control it seemed to have anyway. Personally, I’m resigned to the fact we’ll have stricter lockdown conditions imposed in January after the festive fiasco where Covid is spread by people who’ve lost all faith in official advice and headed back to their families anyway. The fact this is going to screw many peoples businesses for the foreseeable seems to matter not. I’m fortunate in that I’m in a better position than many to weather the shitstorm on the horizon, but I do feel for those caught up in what’s coming. And, as if Covid wasn’t bad enough, on the 1st January the UK declares economic sanctions on itself with Brexit. After 4 years of lies about ‘taking back control’ and ‘they need us more than they we need them’ we’re now just 11 days away from the the shit hitting the fan without the faintest idea if there will be a deal or not – never mind what that deal will look like. Talk about a clownshow! How on earth did we end up like this?
So, Christmas is going to be an interesting one to say the least – and New Year even more so…Forget the pubs, Xmas parties and other social events, for many people it’s going to be an isolated or introspective Christmas with little to look forward to in the New Year – unless you’re on of those brainless Brexiters who’ll be letting off fireworks at midnight on December 31st to celebrate their new ‘freedom’.
Hmm, looking back at what I’ve just written it seems my spleens already leaked! OK, so here’s todays picture of the day as a bit of light relief. I’ve been busy scanning more foreign rail pictures and the latest batch were taken in Southern India back in January 1998. To say things have changed since then would be an understatement. I’m going to write a separate blog once I’ve got them all scanned as there’s a story to tell, but here’s the first one. I took this at Pondicherry, the former French enclave on the East coast of India on the 27th January 1998.
A metre gauge YDM4 class loco waits to leave the sleepy, single platform station with a train for Villapuram Junction on the main line to Madras (now known as Chennai). This scene has totally disappeared. The line’s now been converted to Broad Gauge and Pondy station has four modern platforms. It’s a reflection of how India has rebuilt much of its rail infrastructure over the past few decades.
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Just when I’m thinking the remaining anti HS2 protesters can’t make themselves any more ridiculous with their outlandish claims and piss-poor performances, they say “hold my beer” (shouldn’t that be ‘cheap cider’? Ed)…
The latest, almost Pythonesque, farce at Denham Country Park started in the early hours of Monday morning when the protesters erected a bamboo and rope tower in the river in order to stop contractors working for National Grid from running out a temporary bridge across it. Thinking themselves terribly cunning, they arranged for an old 1990s roads protest ‘star’ – Daniel Hooper, (better known as ‘Swampy’) – to perch in the structure as a way of attracting the media attention they desperately crave. Sadly for the protesters their plan wasn’t that ‘cunning’ at all. What they seemed to have overlooked is that ‘Swampy’ is famous for failing to stop anything. He failed at Twyford Down in the 90s and more recently at Jones’ Hill wood earlier this year. He maintained that record today!
Despite the protesters claims that they’d built the ‘beacon’ (as they pompously called it) in secrecy, the contractors and security staff just ‘happened’ to have a long reach elevated work platform on-hire on the opposite bank of the river. This morning contractors, security and police swooped and ‘Swampy’ was taken down and arrested by lunchtime – much to the obvious chagrin of the protesters who’d been boasting this stunt was going to ‘stop’ HS2! As usual, the event played out on social media. The protesters had shaken every bush and tree for miles to get bodies there and still only managed to attract a handful who posed no threat to the large numbers of security and police who were in attendance. The mix of middle-class Nimbys, crusty ‘eco-warriors’ and waifs and strays more interested in getting pissed on cheap cider was a sight to behold! Here’s a few screen-grabs from Twitter and Facebook to give you a flavour.
Early on HS2Rebellion posted this preposterous hostage to fortune…
So ‘impossible’ that Swampy had been taken down and nicked by 13:00 today and the bridge push continued without interruption! As for ‘secret’, well, HS2Rebellion do have a reputation amongst some other protesters for allegedly colluding with the police. Still, I’m sure it was pure co-incidence that the contractors had hired in a long-reach elevated platform and had it ready on the other side of the river!
Here’s where the protesters plans all started to go a bit ‘Pete Tong’ as the handy elevated platform swung into action!
It wasn’t long before two Officers descended from the cradle on ropes and soon had Swampy ejected from the ‘beacon’ and brought down into the waiting arms of their colleagues below. A few minutes later after removing Hooper’s possessions the ‘beacon’ was unceremoniously tipped on its side and removed, allowing the bridge push to continue this afternoon.
This one is particularly hilarious! This is almost Trumpian in its pretense that black is white and that this shambolic effort was actually a ‘victory’, but then ole ‘Boots’ is from the USA…
Regular readers may remember William from some of his previous hilarious utterances which earned him a place in my ‘crazy campaigner of the week’ feature. Quite how ‘Swampy’ fits into the description of “normal UK people” is another mystery.
If you want to grab some popcorn and watch the farce play out you can find it on the Denham ‘protection’ camp Facebook Page. I’d recommend doing it with the sound turned off/down as the commentaries range from the profane to the inane – along with lashings of propaganda. My ‘Bullshit bingo’ card filled up in a few minutes as all the buzz words were wheeled out in quick succession. “Ecocide”? Tick, “Illegal”? Check. “Assaulted”? Got it! “Polluting Aquifers”, Yep!
Meanwhile, just a few miles down the road, the final fleet of the 300 lorries bringing the two tunnel boring machines (TBMs) from Germany that would be digging the Chiltern tunnels had already arrived unopposed!
Somehow, I don’t think there’s going to be much carousing around the campfires in the remaining ‘protection’ camps tonight – unlike the worksite canteens where the HS2 contractors will be having a warm and looking forward to the overtime payments appearing in their pay-packets!
As more and more protesters give up and head off home or other causes (knowing this one’s lost) I wonder how much longer this farce will drag out? After all, there’s only going to be one outcome – despite what certain deluded Americans try and claim!
Meanwhile, 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 need all the help that we can get. Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website – https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/
Here we are folks – we’ve finally staggered into December – for better or worse. Although I’m afraid I’m not sure where the better is meant to be coming from. Well, unless you count the arrival of several Covid vaccines, but that’s not making things ‘better’. At best, it will restore things to a form of normalcy. Meanwhile, we have another iceberg looming on the horizon and getting ever closer. Brexit. Yep, we have 31 days left before we leave the transition period and few people (in or out of Government) have the faintest idea what happens now – as no-one who’s meant to be in charge on this side of the Channel seems to be willing to admit that Brexit is an absolute shit-show. Yet, in 31 days time, international treaties will assert themselves and all the bullshit and bluster of the Brexiters will be laid bare. Because, right now, it doesn’t matter what ‘deal’ Johnson and his cronies cobble together and present to the gullible public as a ‘victory’, the reality of what Brexit actually means will kick in from January 1st 2021 regardless – and it matters not a jot what the right-wing press bluff and bluster when it comes to our ‘demands’ of the EU. This is the real world that’s about to intrude – just as it did on the Orange shit-gibbon in the White House. On the bright side, I’m under no illusions what’s to come.
That said, have mixed feelings about the whole situation but for different reasons. Let’s face it, this is hardly a normal Xmas, is it? I suspect any people are torn over what to do and what advice to follow. If Dominic Cummings can sod off to Barnard Castle from London during lockdown, why can’t they bend the rules too?
Tempting as it may be – we won’t be bending any. Our Xmas will be in the four person bubble we’ve been maintaining for several months. Because we want this shit to end as soon as possible – and to all be in good health (with a clear conscience) when it does. Besides – we’re going to have to spend an awful lot of 2021 listening to people saying “this isn’t the Brexit I voted for!” which is going to require quite a bit of physical stamina and mental fortitude – as well as hiding anything sharp. If things were normal I’d be looking to having a flight booked to somewhere in Asia in December in order to escape Britain in January. Fate however, has decided to conjoin Covid and Brexit. Still, it’ll give me something to blog about – although I may need a spleen transplant by February! On the bright side, there’s going to be plenty to blog about and if (as I suspect it will) this is where I can do it.
OK, back to the season and the picture of the day, which has come together beautifully as the last batch of old slides I’ve been scanning for the archives are from Christmas in Melbourne Australia back in 1998 when Lynn and I stayed with Alison Barry and her family. The pair of us met Alison in India earlier that year and we all hit it off – as travellers sometimes do. So much so that when we arrived in Oz Alison invited us the join her and her family. We had a ball! The rest of our Aussie Oydessy are nest in the queue for scanning, but here’s the picture of Xmas lunch in the Southern Hemisphere with Alison, Lynn. Matt, Kim and Ken all those years ago. What a different world that seems now – for so many reasons…
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 need all the help that we can get. Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website – https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/
Paul Bigland 