Category Archives: Politics

Has Copeland spoiled Labour’s Xmas spirit?

21 Wednesday Dec 2016

Posted by in Politics, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

The news that Labour MP Jamie Reed is to stand down in Copeland, his Lake District constituency in February 2017 has probably soured the mood at some Labour Xmas gatherings. Thrice elected Reed had a thin majority of just 2,564 over his Conservative challenger since the 2015 general election. UKIP came 3rd in the seat which encompasses the towns of Whitehaven and Keswick whilst extending down the Cumbrian coast as far as Millom. Although overwhelmingly rural nowadays, it used to be a big coal mining and industrial area. Unemployment is low at 4% but it has a large retired population at 19% which helps to explain the popularity of UKIP and why the area voted to leave the EU by 62%

Here’s a breakdown of the constituencies demographic from UK Polling report.

Reed has gone to join one of the areas main employers, British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL). Why has he gone now? It could well be because he knows his seat is at risk to the Tories under Jeremy Corbyn, who he’s always opposed as Labour leader. And there’s the rub for his party. Corbyn opposes both nuclear power and Trident. Who are the two biggest employers in the area? BNFL and BAE systems shipyard in nearby Barrow in Furness! You get the picture…

This could get to be a very interesting contest as all traditional bets are off after Brexit. But how will Brexit influence the result. No-one knows. The resurgent Lib-Dems have never done well in the area so have nothing to lose by standing on a Strong pro EU platform. They won’t win the seat but no-one else is offering anything to the folks who feel disenfranchised by Labour’s volte face to support Brexit. They’re looking for a home and a voice. And what about Bregetters? There’s growing evidence that this phenomenon exists now there’s no good economic news coming out of the result to leave the EU – nor is there likely to be, and the region did very well out of EU farming subsidies and other grants.

On the other side we have UKIP. If they haven’t gone bankrupt by then (they were due to pay 172,000 euros back to the EU today) will this week’s leader, Paul Nuttall throw his hat into the ring as their candidate?

In truth, I suspect the more likely result is that the Tories could wrest control, which would be a disaster for Corbyn as the constituency has been Labour since 1935. Copeland is a long way from Westminster and a world away from Corbyn’s North London constituency. If the Tories put up a strong local candidate things could get very interesting…

The big Brexit myth of an ‘undemocratic’ EU.

24 Tuesday May 2016

Posted by in Brexit, Politics

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

,

The bedrock of the Brexit campaign is the myth that the EU is “undemocratic”, so to “get our country back” (a nonsense phrase if ever there was one) we have to leave the EU. The lynch-pin of their argument is that European Commissioners aren’t elected – ergo the EU is ‘undemocratic’.

This argument falls for a whole host of reasons. Firstly, the European Commission is the equivalent of the British Civil Service. Have you ever voted for a civil servant? Of course not. We elect the people who direct the Civil Servants and the EU is exactly the same. Here’s a diagram of how EU democracy and oversight works.

EU make laws

 

As you can see, no legislation can become law unless the elected MEPs agree. If they don’t the legislation is sent back to the commission where it’s either redrafted in the light of MEPs objections or it’s binned. The Commission cannot pass laws themselves. So, there’s genuine democratic oversight.

There’s another thing. Brexiteers are either incredibly ignorant of how Parliamentary democracy works in the UK, or they’re deliberately ignoring it. Here’s why. Have you ever heard of the 3rd Marquess of Salisbury? Or the 2nd Earl of Liverpool? As they’ve been dead for years you probably haven’t. OK, let’s try someone more modern. Lord Young? He served in Margaret Thatcher’s government. No? OK, let’s try someone bang up to date. Lord Adonis? He was Transport Minister in the last Labour Government. He’s now head of the Infrastructure Commission.

So, what do they all have in common? None of them were elected. In office they were unelected members of the House of Lords. Not only that but two of them actually served as Prime Ministers! All of them have done the very thing that gives the Brexiteers an attack of the vapours – despite being unelected they were responsible for making laws. Plus, let’s face it, you can’t get more politically powerful in the UK than by becoming Prime Minister.

Nor are these coves unique. You might have heard of another one, he’s one of our most famous Prime Ministers. His name? Benjamin Disraeli.

Oh, another thing. Who invited Disraeli to be Prime Minister and form a Government? None other than Queen Victoria. Now, just who elected her?

The Brexit camp claims that the EU is undemocratic are baseless. In fact, as history shows, by their own definition, the EU is more democratic than the UK!

Financial spin & contradictions from the anti Hs2 mob.

25 Wednesday Nov 2015

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

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

, ,

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

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

funding envelope

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

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

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

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

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

Jeremy Corbyn dashes the anti Hs2 mobs hope he was their saviour

19 Wednesday Aug 2015

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, Jeremy Corbyn, Politics

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , ,

Members of the anti Hs2 mob are rather like folks who are waiting for a messiah – always hoping someone, sometime, will turn up to save them. The last false prophets were UKIP who the antis worshipped as the party who would kill off Hs2. It was never going to happen & everyone else could see through them, but that’s faith for you. Both UKIP & the anti hs2 mob would much rather you forgot this risible claim:

ukip

Since UKIP were shown to have feet of clay the antis have been scrabbling around for another saviour. This time they latched upon Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn. This was because an article published in the Guardian reported that Corbyn was due to deliver a speech condemning Hs2 & announcing his decision to oppose it (they even carried quotes from a draft of the speech).

However, when the speech was delivered & the report appeared, all reference to Hs2 had mysteriously disappeared. In many ways this wasn’t a surprise as Corbyn was in danger of walking headlong into a Tory trap. I blogged about it all here.

Then, yesterday, Corbyn published this on the rail network & his plans for renationalisation. In the report’s bullet points was this:

“Stimulate the economy by increasing investment in new high speed rail, creating jobs and connecting more towns and cities”

https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/jeremyforlabour/pages/153/attachments/original/1439891675/Railways_JeremyCorbyn.pdf?1439891675

Clearly, some folks have been having words in Jeremy’s shell-like…

Whilst there’s no explicit mention of Hs2 – does anyone seriously think Corbyn would now oppose building hs2 in favour of going back to the drawing board, setting back plans by decades? Not only would this leave us with rail gridlock, it would put in jeopardy massive regeneration schemes in Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester & other Labour strongholds, costing thousands of jobs. Also, note Corbyn talks of increasing (not diverting) spending on High Speed rail.

As Corbyn is hands down favourite to win the Labour Leadership there’s now no chance that the Hs2 Hybrid Bill won’t pass its 3rd reading.

So, it looks like the anti Hs2 mobs search for the messiah continues, with time running out. Corbyn is not the messiah, he’s just a very naughty boy for leading the anti Hs2 mob on!

Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week – No 6

20 Saturday Jun 2015

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, Politics

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

As the anti Hs2 mobs social media campaign descends into farce its getting harder to single out one Tweeter as their whole campaign is reliant on the mad, bad and er,’eccentric’ who think ranting on Twitter actually changes anything.

But one Peter Deeley has managed to impress with his splenetic ranting & ability to live on another planet to ordinary people. Here’s a selection of his tweets;

Deely 1

In three tweets he manages to use just about every anti Hs2 campaign cliche (cost, corruption the NHS & polls). But there’s more…

Deely 3

Like most of the dwindling band of anti Hs2 folks, he can’t get his head around the fact they’ve got nowhere, so he clings onto their cherished belief they’re somehow a ‘majority’ & wraps himself in their Linus blanket, the opinion poll. His problem is, opinion polls don’t elect Governments, voters do – and the majority of voters aren’t really bothered about Hs2.

So, let’s have a look at the facts which Mr Deeley doesn’t mention.

He’s the Chair of a defunct anti Hs2 ‘action’ group who called themselves SNAG (South Northants Against Hs2). His problem is, South Northants is anything but against Hs2 & his group has effectively ceased to exist! Here’s a link to their website.

A browse through it reveals that they’ve not published meetings of any minutes since the 3rd March 2011. Nor have they held any events (or have any planned). Their ‘latest news’ is over a year old. They haven’t exactly got their finger on the pulse of the political scene either..

SNAG politics

Philip Hammond left Transport way back in October 2011 & Theresa Villiers became the Minister for Northern Ireland in September 2012!

SNAG as an ‘action’ group has sunk without trace leaving Mr Deeley clinging to the lifebelt that Twitter offers him as a way of keeping his moribund campaign afloat. He’s had his day in front of Hs2 Hybrid Bill Committee (for all the good he did – see here).

With this level of opposition to Hs2, is it any wonder the Transport Minister has been able to assert that the argument has been won? It’s more and more obvious that the campaign against Hs2 is all over – bar the tweeting..

2023 Update.

Poor Deeley has learned nothing in 8 years. He’s one of a tiny handful of Nimbys still tweeting about HS2 and still recycling the same straw-grasping he did in 2015 about opinion polls. But, since then there have been THREE general elections that have shown the futility of his claims as in each one voters have chosen to elect a party committed to building HS2 – and now it’s being built past Boddington. Construction of Phase 1 in Northants is in fill swing. Deeley never stopped a thing – and never will…

I’ve a small favour to ask…
If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course – although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab! – but the revenue from them helps me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

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

Thank you!

Parliament’s back to work & the HS2 Bill moves on

27 Wednesday May 2015

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, General election, Hs2, Hs2aa, Politics, StopHs2

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

Today’s Queen’s speech means Parliament is back at work & progress on the Hs2 Hybrid Bill will pick up where it left off – with a slight amendment. One of the Hybrid Bill members lost his seat at the election so a replacement will need to be found for the former Lib-Dem MP for Eastleigh, Mike Thornton. There’s speculation in some circles that his replacement will come from the SNP as they’ve replaced the Lib-Dems as the 3rd largest. We shall have to wait and see…

Continuity is also the name of the game over at the Department of Transport where Patrick McLaughlin remains in post as Transport Minister. This is good news for the rail industry and Hs2 as there’s no need to get a new Minister up to speed with what needs to be done.

Of course, all this is bad news for the anti Hs2 camp who don’t seem know which way to turn now their ‘great white hope’ (UKIP) has vanished in a cloud of voting papers – taking a huge chunk of the anti Hs2 tweeters with them. The anti Hs2 mobs Twitter campaign has descended into farce since the election. There are still a few blowhards hanging on from the old days who think ranting on the internet changes anything but many of them are isolated individuals with no backing, or what can be charitably called ‘special people’. Here’s a typical example of the isolated Tweeter from that well known hotbed of anti hs2 activism. Err, Lisburn, in Northern Ireland (‘hotbed’? Are you sure this is right? Ed).

Busker

The folks who are noticeable by their absence nowadays are the supposed ‘action group’ network although this is hardly surprising. They’ve been in decline for years & really have nowhere to go anymore. The Hybrid Bill petitioning process has drawn any sting they might have thought they had – and the election results have shown they’ve no political clout (even at a local council level). Their public rallies have been abandoned as an embarrassment as so few folks turn up. So there’s little reason for their existence any more.

I do genuinely feel sorry for the people who are affected by Hs2 & who’ve been gulled into thinking the anti campaign really could stop Hs2. They’ve been given false hope & some of them have thrown away both time & money. The election results have shown that the scales have dropped from quite a few eyes. Sadly it’s too much to hope that the people who cynically exploit them (StopHs2 & Hs2aa) will suffer an outbreak of honesty, realism or contrition. However, the good news is that as their activist base dies a source of funding dries up too. As StopHs2 funds come predominantly from one man – it’s anyone’s guess when he’ll see sense & stops throwing his money away.

As another example of a campaign going nowhere fast I’ve updated the antis ‘scores on the doors’. These show their social media growth (or not!) on Facebook & Twitter.

Hs2

The usual caveats apply. Not all followers are supporters etc…

Looking through social media the anti’s sense of aggrieved bewilderment is obvious. Some of them had bought into their own hype so completely they still can’t admit what had really happened at the election. There’s complete denial over the implications of their general election no-show & risible ‘no votes for you with Hs2’campaign (which influenced no-one at all). What none of them will talk about or deal with is the awkward question of ‘how are we going to Stop Hs2 now’? Because the answer is staring them in the face. They can’t. At the risk of falling in the trap of Godwin’s law – I can only compare them to the last days of the Third Reich & the mentality inside the bunker as the Russians closed in, with UKIP in the role of General Felix Steiner’s Army Detachment.

No doubt there’ll still be media speculation & a fair bit of froth in the next few months as the Hs2 Hybrid Bill continues its course through Parliament but the position is clear. There’s no credible opposition to Hs2 & there’s even less of a credible alternative. Rail passenger growths continues apace as the economy picks up – and look out for some interesting statistics & comments to appear from Virgin Trains on their West Coast business.

More election dishonesty from Hs2aa.

03 Sunday May 2015

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, General election, Hs2, Hs2aa, Politics

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , ,

Having blown all their money (and that of a lot of taxpayers) on futile attempts to stop Hs2 in the courts the High Speed 2 Action Alliance (Hs2aa) is doing very little nowadays. However, it has produced a card to help support the ineffective ‘no votes for you with hs2’ campaign. It’s their usual mixture of spin & lies in the form of 5 loaded ‘questions’ that are supposedly meant to put MPs ‘on the spot’.

HS2_5QuestionsForAnyoneWhoWantsYourVote-724x1024

I’ve dissected each for the benefit of those MPs who might not know how to deal with these loaded questions.

1). 452 MPs have already answered this by passing the Hs2 Hybrid Bill with a massive majority! Contrast that thumping total to the 41 MPs who voted against the bill. As Hs2 remains the policy of all the major political parties & all those likely to form the next Government I don’t think this one will bother any MPs.

2). “Hs2’s absurdly high speed, faster than any other train operating in Europe” – claims Hs2aa. Like most of their other claims it’s load of deceitful rubbish. Hs2 is designed to allow trains to run at 400kph in the future when the technology allows. In the meantime, they’re expected to run at 360kph. In fact, that technology already exists and started running in Italy last week. TRENITALIA launched its new flagship high-speed train on April 25 -the Frecciarossa 1000. Also known as the Zefiro 300, this Bombardier built train has a design speed of 400kph;

Here’s the technical details of the train;
http://www.railway-technology.com/projects/frecciarossa-1000-very-high-speed-train/

Here’s an article on the launch of the Italian service;
http://www.railjournal.com/index.php/high-speed/trenitalia-launches-frecciarossa-1000.html?channel=

At the moment the Frecciarossa 1000 will be limited to speeds of 300kph. Sound familiar? Yes, it’s exactly what Hs2 have in mind. It’s worth remembering that Hs2 won’t be up & running until 2026 & who knows what speeds the next generation of high-speed trains will be capable of by then. So Hs2’s planned speed of 400kph is an eminently sensible choice that future-proofs the line – and Hs2aa are being dishonest with their claims (again).

3). ‘Adequate’ compensation. Ignoring the irony of Hs2aa (a group that’s lost dozens of court cases) talking about a lost court case, let’s remember one thing. That court case wasn’t about the amount of compensation, it was about the methodology of the compensation scheme. For some people, no level of compensation will ever be enough. In truth, the Hs2 compensation scheme is more generous than previous ones. No-one would want to see people compensated unfairly, but what all this is about is a cynical attempt to load more costs onto the Hs2 bill to make it seem unaffordable.

4). Cuts – yet another cynical ploy. We’re the 6th richest nation on the planet. The cost of Hs2 is spread over 18yrs at less than 0.17% of GDP (or around £2.5bn pa at the height of the projects spending). The idea that scrapping Hs2 will stop cuts elsewhere is nonsense. Where to cut is a political decision more than a financial one – and the different parties have different ideas on how & when to do it.

5). Hs2 ‘cuts £8.3bn of existing rail services’ This is Hs2aa’s biggest & boldest lie. I’m copying my original exposure of this to save you having to look for it.

“It is true that in the Economic Case analysis (table 9 on page 78) is a figure of £8.265 billion, labelled “classic line savings”. So what’s that all about? Well first, it refers to the full network in Phase 2, not Phase 1. Then, it’s a Present Value, that is, 60 year’s worth of annual sums all rolled into one. So the annual figure relevant to Phase 1 will be a lot – and I mean a lot – smaller.”

The cuts lie has also been nailed by the plans that have published to EXTEND rail services after Hs2 is built. As usual HS2aa ignore such inconvenient evidence as it shows them up for what they are, nothing but a deceitful bunch incapable of telling the truth.

So, next time somebody waves around Hs2aa’s ‘5 questions’ card, feel free to link to this.

The anti Hs2 campaign in the last week of the election.

02 Saturday May 2015

Posted by in General election, Hs2, Hs2aa, Politics, StopHs2

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

As we’re in the final week of the election campaign I though I’d take a look at how the anti Hs2 campaign’s going. The answer is – very badly indeed.

Their laughable ‘no votes for you with Hs2’ campaign has got absolutely nowhere. It’s not even persuaded individual politicians to backtrack on their support for Hs2 never mind the actual parties. Instead, all the major players (including the SNP) have restated their support for the Hs2 project in no uncertain terms. Take this example from Labour’s Shadow Chancellor, Ed Balls, who gave an interview to the Liverpool Echo;

Ed Balls

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/general-election-2015-ed-balls-9148898

Or this, from Labour leader Ed Miliband, who was talking to the Yorkskire Evening Post:

Ed Milliband

http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/latest-news/top-stories/labour-will-back-hs2-miliband-1-7194044

All political parties know that (in reality) the anti Hs2 campaign is tiny. It has little real support & commands fewer votes. To illustrate this fact here’s the latest antis social media ‘scores on the doors’. These are a record of the leading anti Hs2 groups & leaders following on social media (Twitter & Facebook). Note the usual caveat. Not everyone following them opposes Hs2. Some followers are pro’s there just to keep an eye on them!

Scores

To say the results are pathetic is an understatement. They started off from a ridiculously low base and have hardly made any progress since February.There’s been no election effect at all. To put their campaign numbers in perspective, the total number of UK parliamentary electors in 2013 was 46,139,900. I’d work out what % of the electorate is actually following StopHs2 or Hs2aa but I don’t have a calculator that works to that many zero’s!

That’s not all. The main players (Stophs2 & Hs2aa) have been almost absent from the fray. Having run out of money & with a shrinking activist base they’ve relied on both UKIP & the Greens to make all the running. Their problem is – both parties are slipping in the polls.

What will be interesting to watch is what happens to their campaign after the results of the election come in and it becomes obvious they’re a disaster for them.

Watch this space…

On the road again..

30 Thursday Apr 2015

Posted by in Politics, Railways, UKIP

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, ,

– well, rails really, but you know what I mean!

After a day at home I’m heading South on Grand Central’s 08:04 from Halifax to Kings Cross. I’m actually on my way to Norwich as Abellio Greater Anglia are showing off the first of their refurbished Mk3 sets to the press tomorrow. Norfolk’s county town isn’t the easiest place to get to from West Yorkshire so I’m heading down a day early & using the time to get pictures for my library. For once I’m not working over a bank holiday & I’m looking forward to having some quality time at home on my return.

Before I left this morning I remembered to get my postal ballot in for the general election. The list of candidates caused a wry smile. Despite the range of parties they all (bar one) had something in common. They all live in Yorkshire. The one that doesn’t is (yep, you’ve guessed it) the UKIP candidate, who actually lives in that well known Yorkshire town of Canterbury, Kent!

20150430_065014

I dunno, coming up here, taking our votes…

The latest scores on the anti Hs2 mobs doors.

23 Thursday Apr 2015

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, Hs2aa, Politics, Railways, Scores on the doors, StopHs2

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

It’s that time of month to look at the anti Hs2 campaign’s ‘progress’ when it come to getting their message out to all those imaginary millions who oppose Hs2 in the run up to the election. As there’s only 2 weeks to go – you’d think they’d be seeing support swell.

Of course not. It’s all a figment of their imaginations. I’ve shown the Twitter & Facebook followers with % increases or decreases and once again, the news for their campaign isn’t good..

Anti scores Capture

The usual caveat applies. Not everyone following them is a supporter. Many will be there just to see what they’re up to.

To put these numbers into perspective, in 2013 the total number of UK parliamentary electors was 46,139,900….