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Paul Bigland

Category Archives: UK

Bonkers, truly bonkers!

04 Tuesday Apr 2017

Posted by Paul Bigland in Easter fairy stories, Politics, Teresa May, UK

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Easter fairy stories, Politics, Teresa May

If I didn’t know better I’d suggest someone has been spiking the Houses of Parliament’s water supply. Maybe the Russians infiltrated the pipes years ago? How else can you explain the surreal stupidity coming from some of our politicians nowadays.

As if the Gibralter debacle wasn’t enough we now have Teresa may adding to the farce. Remember that May refused to condemn Michael Howard’s threat to declare war on Spain. Instead, she’s found time in her hectic schedule of sucking up to the Saudi’s to condemn something far more important…

The National Trust’s Easter egg hunt…

Showing her usual grasp of the facts, she condemns the trust for ‘dropping’ the word ‘Easter’ from the event. There’s only one teeny-weeny problem. It’s not true – as a few minutes browsing the National Trust’s website would have demonstrated.  Amongst several pages of different events (all featuring the word ‘Easter’) There’s also this full page ad,

NT easter

This is basic level PR fact-checking. OK, OK – I know facts have fallen out of favour in this era of fake news, but come on! I can’t help but wonder how many EU countries are looking at this stuff and wetting themselves laughing at the ridiculous state of UK political posturing at the moment.

It’s bad enough that this is the annual staple of the far-right who trot the ‘Easter has been banned so as not to offend the Muslims’ every year. But this is the Prime Minister jumping on the bandwagon.

The philosopher Joseph de Maistre once said that “every nation gets the government it deserves”. So what they hell have we done that this bunch of useless incompetents is our just reward? And, yes, I’m looking at you too Corbyn…

FOOTNOTE.

This whole furore is put into perspective when one remembers that the founder of Cadbury’s – Richard Cadbury was a Quaker – and Quakers didn’t celebrate Easter – or Xmas. (see link)

 

The Brexit rhetoric gets darker

09 Thursday Mar 2017

Posted by Paul Bigland in Brexit, Politics, UK, Uncategorized

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Tags

Brexit, Politics, UK

Remember when the victorious Leave campaign and it’s leaders assured us that Brexit would be the start of a new golden age in trade with Europe? Then, we were told tha the EU was bound to give us a great deal as ‘they need us more than we need them’. Cast aside for a moment the two very obvious flaws in this logic (the UK is a far smaller market then the EU and why in the name of God would they give a better deal to a country that’s just left?) and remember the idiotic and false claims. Like the one the buffoon Boris made about sales of prosecco? Or when he swore that despite Brexit, we’d still have access to the single market?

johnson

How hollow all those claims sound now.

Or how about David Davis, when he put the cat amongst the pigeons by saying that it was ‘very improbable’ that we’d stay in the single market and got slapped down by the PM, Teresa May?

The truth was, there never was a plan for Brexit and those who campaigned for it routinely lied about the advantages of leaving. There were none. Now the chickens are coming home to roost. The fanciful claims about the super deals we’d get from the EU have been dropped in favour of a much darker rhetoric. Now, it’s “no deal is better than a bad one”

We’ve gone from soft Brexit to hard Brexit in a few short months. Now, we stand to lose all those thing Boris Johnson said we’d always have – access to the single market. The right to live, work and study in the EU, freedom of movement – everything. Not only that, but come the day we actually leave – there would be no trade deals in place. Of course, brexiters love to brush such concerns aside, pretending there’d be no serious consequences if that happened. Really? How about British airlines being unable to fly? Here’s what Ryanair’s Michael O’ Leary and some EU leaders pointed out

Hard Brexit will be bad, very bad. Don’t be under any illusions over that. But that’s exactly the path Teresa May’s government – aided and abetted by Jeremy Corbyn and Co, are leading us down.

We’ve been conned. There is no upside to Brexit for ordinary people. There never was.

The UKs suicide politics

09 Thursday Feb 2017

Posted by Paul Bigland in Brexit, Politics, UK

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Tags

Brexit, Politics, UK

Despite being thousands of miles away from the UK I’ve been keeping up with the latest Brexit madness back at home. And truly, madness it is. It seems like the majority of MPs have metamorphosed into a strange cross between lemmings and invertebrates as they  spinelessly vote for a course off action (Hard Brexit) that will see our country jump off an economic cliff. “But we’re respecting the will of the people” they cry.

Really?

Funny that, because one of the architects of the Leave campaign, Dominic Cummings, has admitted that they only reason leave won was because they lied to people. Remember that “£350m a week for the NHS” lie?. This piece from the London Economic makes fascinating reading.

So, when MPs say ‘respect the will of the people’, what they’re actually saying is “respect a non-binding referendum vote that was narrowly won by blatantly lying”. That is not democracy. Not by a long chalk. That’s the sort of ‘democracy’ that politicians acquiesced to in the 1930s – and we all know where that got us…

So why do so few MPs have the backbone to stand up and admit the truth? Nowadays, I have far more respect for Tory rebels like Anna Soubry than I do for many Labour MPs (including my own) who’ve rolled over, seemingly out of fear of losing their own seats. It won’t help them. The Labour bloodbath is inevitable – it’s just a question of which direction it comes from. I would have hoped I’d have seen a principled fight, going down with honour in the hope of coming back with it too. Instead, we’ve got ’50 shades of UKIP’.

To add further insult, we have Jeremy Corbyn, the serial rebel who’s defied the Labour whip more than any other Labour MP, insisting that ‘his’ MPs vote FOR article 50. Afterwards he had the gall to tweet this;

corbyn..PNG

No Jeremy. The ‘real’ fight started as soon as the referendum was called, but you bottled that one. Most of us suspect you bottled it because we know that you never wanted us to stay in the EU anyway as it doesn’t fit with your dogmatic socialist view of the world. Despite the fact the vast majority of Labour MPs & members were pro EU, you ignored the majority view you claim to espouse in favour of your own beliefs. If you hadn’t ,we wouldn’t be in this mess now. So, please, stick your hypocrisy where the sun doesn’t shine. You blew the chance to stick up for all the things you mention in that tweet, so don’t try it on now.

‘Take back control’ they said. Never has a slogan seemed more empty – especially in what are supposedly the corridors of power.

Tales from the Thames…

03 Sunday Apr 2016

Posted by Paul Bigland in Travel, UK

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Photography, Travel

Here’s a quick blog to apologise (yet again) for the recent lack of blogs. As I’ve mentioned previously, priority has gone to begin the time consuming process of scanning thousands of my old slides. You can see the fruits of my labour here. So far I’ve added several hundred – both rail and travel. You can take your pick from Greece, Tanzania & Zanzibar, Denmark, the UK or Brazil. Of course I’m still adding contemporary UK rail images (such as the launch of the two new rail franchises covering the North of England) plus various other bits and bobs. I’m typing this from a pub on the banks of the Thames in Oxfordshire which has led to Sunday’s picture of the day &  local history lesson as this is the view from the pub!

DG242191. 14th century bridge over the Thames at Newbridge. Oxfordshire. 3.4.16

Enter a caption

The ‘new’ bridge was built in the 14th century by monks on the order of Kings John. It was constructed in order to improve communications between the wool towns of the Cotswolds and Southern England. The bridge originally had 51 arches. Only 12 remain. It’s the 2nd oldest surviving bridge to cross the Thames.

I’ll be adding many more pictures (old and new) to my website over April, so feel free to drop in and take a look. Hopefully I’ll get time for some more blogging too…

Another day another venue.

19 Saturday Sep 2015

Posted by Paul Bigland in Airshows, Festivals, I love my job, Travel, UK

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Air shows. Travel.

Now the National Rail Awards is over the tuxedo is heading to the dry cleaners. I’ve swapped it for outdoor gear and binoculars as we’re off to the Duxford to watch the battle of Britain anniversary airshow. The highlight of the event will be the recreation of a ‘big wing’ by a mass formation of Spitfires and Hurricanes. So, expect my website to contain a different form of transport picture after this weekend! Admittedly,  a few rail pictures will probably sneak their way through too…

Image

Rail modernisation spells the death knell of the oil lamp & semaphores at Banbury

16 Monday Feb 2015

Tags

Banbury, Modernisation, Railways, Siemens

One of the last outposts of traditional semaphore signalling has heard its death knell today. Siemens Rail Automation has been awarded a £40 million contract by Network Rail to renew life-expired signalling equipment from Leamington Spa to Heyford. This will see the signals & signalboxes at Banbury North & South replaced by Siemens’ Trackguard Westlock computer-based interlocking. The modernization will mean improved headways between Banbury and Aynho Junction, as well as a rationalised layout at Banbury Station to improve operational flexibility and minimise on-going maintenance requirements.

The project is expected to take 22 months.

Banbury has long been an oasis of former GWR lower quadrant semaphore signals, although some were converted to upper quadrant by BR. Some of the signals were still illuminated by paraffin lamps, a practice dating back to the dawn of the railways. Here’s a selection of pictures showing what will disappear:

http://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/p638949268/h5af7f476#h5af7f476

http://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/p638949268/h5af7f44c#h5af7f44c

http://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/p5959592/h53571a28#h53571a28

 

 

 

 

Posted by Paul Bigland | Filed under Railways, Signalling, Transport, UK, Uncategorized

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Another day, another anti Hs2 shambles…

23 Friday Jan 2015

Posted by Paul Bigland in Hs2, Politics, Railways, Transport, UK

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Hs2, Politics, Railways, UK

Today Parliament debated Christopher Chope’s HS2 Funding Referendum Bill 2014-15. Well, when I say Parliament, I really mean the dozen MPs who actually turned up. This was yet another miserable performance by those few MPs opposed to Hs2. It featured a dwindling band of the usual suspects trotting out the same arguments that failed to stop the Hs2 Hybrid Bill last year. There were so few MPs in attendance the Commons chamber looked like the aftermath of an Ebola outbreak

Needless to say, anti Hs2 campaigners had spent days hyperventilating about the event, exhorting their supporters to bombard their local MPs with letters, emails & faxes urging them to turn up & vote for the bill. The fact only the usual anti Hs2 MPs turned up speaks volumes about both their influence and how seriously MPs take them (not a lot). The motion never stood a chance, even one of the anti’s ‘stars’, the dubiously coiffured Michael Fabricant MP admitted that. But such realism didn’t prevent StopHs2’s own Laurel & Hardy (Penny Gaines & Joe Rukin) performing an unintentional comedy double act on Twitter, ‘interpreting’ every comment that could possibly be spun as negative to Hs2.

Finally, after hours of pointless posturing the whole sorry event was put out of its misery when Christopher Chope withdrew the bill as it was crystal clear it would fail. Once again the anti Hs2 campaign has been shown to lack any credibility, political clout or real grassroots support. What was telling was that this was the last chance for Parliament to debate Hs2 before the election. Yet there was no new support for the anti Hs2 campaign. The anti Hs2 groups didn’t even bother to attempt to mount a demonstration outside Parliament to support the bill.

What a complete & utter shambles!

The anti Hs2 campaign, dying by degrees….

17 Saturday Jan 2015

Posted by Paul Bigland in Hs2, Railways, Transport, UK

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Hs2, Protest, Railways, UK

Ever since the High Speed 2 Hybrid Bill was passed by MPs with a whopping majority the campaign to oppose building the new high speed line has been dying. Not that you’d know this by reading the national & local media as investigative journalism is a sick bunny nowadays. Churnalism has replaced it and the anti campaign knows its endless press releases will be soon regurgitated without analysis by a media short of staff but with far more space to fill. Of course, the anti campaign also has a few high profile media friends who’re happy to help (but more of them another time).

So, it’s time someone cast a critical & factual eye to do some of the work most of the 4th estate can’t be bothered to anymore.

When the project was first announced back in 2009 it was clear that (like any other major building project) it would face some opposition. As it was Govt funded transport project it was obvious the usual suspects opposed to such spending, like the Taxpayers Alliance & Institute of Economic Affairs would object. What was less clear was what real grassroots opposition would form.

What’s been interesting is, despite exaggerated claims from some quarters the opposition, whilst often shrill, has been far smaller than on other projects like the M25, Heathrow expansion or even HS1. In fact, its core is around two areas, the Chilterns and Warwickshire. Not unexpectedly, the real opposition is located solely along the route & the vast majority is from people who are either affected by the route, or who claim to be as they want compensation. In short (although politicians are loathe to really admit this as they think it plays badly) it’s the good old British NIMBY problem.

Now, you could argue that there’s nothing wrong with wanting to protect your own turf. I have some sympathy with that view & I certainly have sympathy for those genuinely affected by Hs2 who face upheaval & disruption. But what’s become clear over the past few years is that the organised anti hs2 campaign has stooped to new levels in dishonesty, deceit & underhand tactics.

The main anti Hs2 players

The anti Hs2 campaign claims there are three. In reality there’s two as one (AGAHST) is so ineffectual, under resourced & with little meaningful involvement it’s dead in the water. That leaves the High Speed 2 Action Alliance (Hs2aa) and StopHs2. Supposedly, there’s meant to be a ‘network’ of over 90 local action groups. Most of these are moribund or no longer exist. So these claims remind me of Hitler in his bunker, directing imaginary Panzer divisions on a map. Hs2aa used to publish a list of these supposed groups on its website but after I dissected it on Twitter & highlighted the fact most were at best moribund (& some downright false) it mysteriously disappeared. StopHs2 is based in Warks. It’s essentially bankrolled by a local businessman & has shrunk in recent years. It’s ‘Chair’, Penny Gaines has decamped to Dorset, where her only involvement seems to be ‘interpreting’ on Twitter what various Committees examining Hs2 say. The other mouthpiece is professional agitator Joe Rukin whose latest stunt was to dress up his 9 year old son in his Scout uniform & get him to read a script to the Petitioning Committee.
There’s an interesting view on that in the Scotsman newspaper:

http://www.scotsman.com/news/fiona-mccade-childish-tactics-at-hs2-committee-1-3661674

Rukin has proved to be a bit of an own goal for the anti campaign as he’s just as much a self-publicist as he is a campaigner against Hs2. He’s also shown up their lack of support in a very ill-judged attempt to stand for Parliament during the 2010 election. In a supposed anti stronghold to boot! The result? He polled 0.8% of the vote.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/person/13621/joe-rukin

I’ll look at each of the three groups in greater detail in a later blog.

The tactics

Privately, those opposed to Hs2 admit amongst themselves that they had little real chance of stopping the project as it has cross party support and the need for extra rail capacity is impossible for them to realistically challenge. Their plans were threefold, to try & persuade MPs to vote down the Hybrid Bill, stop it with legal actions, or (as a last resort) try & drag out the Hybrid Bill petitioning process so that costs would rise and politicians would either lose interest or change their minds.

Needless to say, none of this has gone to plan – at all…

After several years of debate & despite outrageous claims & tactics from antis the Hs2 Hybrid Bill passed its 2nd reading with a massive majority of 452 votes to 41 against. So much for trying to lie to MPs then…

Legal actions were equally unsuccessful. Various elements of the anti campaign banded together to bring 22 different actions, from Judicial Reviews to appeals to the Supreme court. They lost all but the most minor one, which didn’t stop Hs2 anyway, but sent the compensation scheme back to the drawing board! These legal actions have all but bankrupted Hs2aa, which is fading away now its headbanging tactics have failed. I wonder if this long list of failed court cases is a record?

Petitioning the Hybrid Bill Ctte has been a failure too. Although a record 1925 petitions were received the penny dropped a few months later when the members of the Committee were appointed & soon began to tackle the petitions with gusto. Ably abetted by Committee members such as Sir Peter Bottomley MP (who is a pleasure to watch, as he’s firm, fair & doesn’t stand any nonsense) the Committee Chair, Robert Syms MP, has made it clear his intention is to ensure the Hybrid Bill is clear to receive Royal Assent by December 2016. So, another anti failure then…

Public failings versus fantasies on social media

A main plank of the anti’s campaign has been the use of social media. This has been both a blessing and a curse. The blessing is it allowed them to pretend they were far more numerous than they really are. The downside is that social media can’t be controlled & their use of it has exposed them as a bewildered bunch many of whom are totally divorced from reality. It’s also allowed them to be tracked & shows that many of them who say they’re against Hs2 out of environmental reasons are in fact, just Nimbys personally affected by the route who’re hiding behind a green figleaf. It’s also shown some of them to be the most outrageous liars who’ll say anything if they think it will stop Hs2 (it hasn’t). If you want to see these fantasists in action, just follow the #hs2 hashtag on Twitter.

Away from Social media their public gatherings have shown how few of them there really are. They used to hold yearly demonstrations outside Parliament but each one was supported by a dwindling number of people. I first documented one 3 years ago. They tried to claim there was 500 people attending, although photographs make it obvious there’s less. In 2013 they (unwisely) drew attention to the fact I was there taking pictures, the whole crowd booed me at the organisers request and one very silly woman did this:

http://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/p898759480/h3ab789cc#h3ab789cc

Of course, the moral of the story is; never, ever flick the V’s at a photojournalist!
By the time the Hybrid Bill debate came around on 28th April 2014 their numbers had plummeted. Whilst 452 MPs voted yes, there were less than 90 anti demonstrators outside. A ratio of 4.5 to 1!

http://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/p898759480/h38d91d0d#h38d91d0d

For a local campaign that would be a lousy turnout. For a supposed national campaign it was an absolute disaster. Far more folks demonstrated against Hs1! How on earth they can keep a straight face when some of them say their campaign is both growing & ‘relentless’ I’ll never know, but self delusion has always featured heavily in their campaign. So, where are all these voters who are supposedly ready to bring down any party that supports Hs2 & will sweep UKIP to power? They exist only in their imaginations. A further admission of failure has been the cancellation of their other annual event. In summer the anti groups would organise a gathering at Stafford Showground where they’d swap campaign tactics & pretend they were getting somewhere. The numbers weren’t great, with only a few hundred in attendance and in 2014 the event was cancelled. Ones’ not been arranged for 2015 either.

The cavalry fail to arrive…

By 2011 it was clear the anti campaign was flagging. ‘Action’ groups like these were falling by the wayside:

http://wldstophs2.com/latest-updates/
http://againsths2.blogspot.co.uk/

The campaign’s organisers were praying that the announcement of phase 2 of the route would reinvigorate their campaign & lead to a plethora of new groups & activists joining it. Their hopes were misplaced. After the announcement & despite the length of the route only a handful of new groups were formed (all of them on the route) but significantly, none from major cities along it. This led to further demoralisation within the campaign & further exposed the fact it was overwhelmingly a ‘nimby’ issue. A classic example was when Sir David Higgins launched his ‘Hs2 plus’ report in Manchester in 2014. Only a handful of demonstrators were outside. Also significantly, not a single one was from Manchester, they were all from a Mid Cheshire group masquerading as residents of the city!

http://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/p898759480/h78c7e78#h78c7e78

Once again, reality failed to match up to the hype. Here’s a little gem of a report from the Manchester Evening News, who covered the event:

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/hs2-battle-against-london-centric-waste-6254219

Honestly, you get 12 people outside, none from the population of 2.7m folks and you seriously try & compare the anti Hs2 campaign to the poll tax demonstrations? How deluded can you get? This is Sid & Doris Bonkers territory here…

What next for the anti Hs2 campaign?

Oblivion really. All their tactics have failed. They’re skint and their activist base is dying. Now reality has dawned most of the few remaining activist groups they have are concentrating on mitigation & trying to get the best for their communities. There’s still a few who cling on, like old Japanese soldiers who can’t accept the war is over, but what are they going to do apart from rant on Twitter? They’re too few in numbers & spread across too many constituencies to have any real political clout. Despite 5 years of campaigning they’ve failed to break the political consensus and all three parties likely to form a Govet in 2015 still back the project. Some still cling to the belief that UKIP will ride to their rescue, but there’s more chance of Lord Lucan being found riding Shergar than UKIP getting into power or wielding real influence. If I was UKIP I’d be rather pissed off at the anti Hs2 campaigners. They claimed to have more votes to offer then they really have, hence UKIPs failure to get a single Cllr elected in Warks (supposedly an anti Hs2 ‘stronghold’) and more recently, the fact the Lib Dems beat UKIP in a real anti hs2 stronghold (Aylesbury Vale) where the party won two seats! It’s doubtful that the anti Hs2 campaign would have managed to get this far if UKIP hadn’t latched on to it as a cynical ploy to steal votes. Let’s not forget that the party proposed to build not 1 but 3 high speed lines in its 2010 manifesto. The two groups suit each other really. Both tend to be elderly, afraid of the future & prone to telling porkies, so you can see there’s a natural fit. I’ll write more on UKIP & the anti Hs2 mob in another blog.

It’s looking like the anti Hs2 campaign will go down in history, but not for the reasons the antis would like. It’s one of the first campaigns waged on social media & it’s been an object lesson in how NOT to do it! They handicapped themselves from the start. There were too many amateurs telling too many lies & attracting too many extremists. The supposed ‘professionals’ got caught up in these lies & found them too hard to resist. This has set the tone for the whole sorry campaign.
History will not judge them well…

UPDATE (10th March 2015)

Oh dear! At today’s Hs2 Committee hearing, Denham Against Hs2 Chairman Frank Partridge  let the cat out of the bag about the number of Hs2 ‘Action’ groups. The likes of Hs2aa are still pretending there are over 90. Frank admitted to the Committee that the real number is ’40 to 50′ – around half the numbers claimed! More proof (if it were needed) that the campaign’s been exaggerating the size of its activist base.

Labour let loose a dog of war in Transport.

04 Sunday Jan 2015

Posted by Paul Bigland in Michael Dugher MP, Railways, Transport, UK

≈ 2 Comments

The new Shadow Secretary of State for Transport, Michael Dugher MP was appointed on the 5th of November 2014, since then he’s wasted no time in single-handedly destroying the good work of the Labour Transport team & the goodwill they’ve generated both in the media & amongst the transport industry.

Warning bells began to sound in December when Durgher announced the end of a non-existent ‘war’ on motorists & pronounced himself ‘pro car’

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/labour-car-war-over–new-4730050

He also rubbished previous Labour Transport Ministers as ‘trainspotters’ . So, that would be Lord Adonis then, who finally broke down Labour’s previous resistance to modernising the railways through electrification. Under the Blair/Brown Govt the railways wired a laughable 9 miles from Crewe to Kidsgrove. In contrast, Adonis announced a program to electrify some of our main rail arteries, such as the Great Western main line and the line from Manchester to Liverpool:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8164070.stm

Not content with grandstanding over the ‘war’ on motorists Dugher continued to demolish Labour Transports credibility at Xmas when he jumped in with both feet to attack another easy target, Network Rail boss Mark Carne. Admittedly, Network Rail had made his job easy through failing to complete engineering work at Kings Cross on time. However, did Dugher have anything positive to say or solutions to offer? No. Instead he launched an attack on Carne over his bonus then attempted a clumsy attack on Transport Minister Patrick McLoughlin MP, alleging that he’d allowed Network Rail to shut down much of the rail network. The problem is, NR hadn’t & the last thing anyone wants (including Labour) is a Transport Minister micromanaging the railways. Still, why let the facts get in the way of grandstanding eh?

Dugher conveniently ignored Labour Transports own August 2014 policy document which says “we know that ministers sitting in Whitehall do not know best how to run the nation’s trains” (until Dugher wants to try & score cheap political points, obviously!)

http://labourlist.org/2014/08/a-fair-deal-for-passengers-and-taxpayers/

The fake apoplexy continued when Durgher announced on Twitter that his ‘blood boiled’ when Network Rail explained they carried out engineering work at Christmas because half as many passengers travelled during the holiday season. So, if NR shouldn’t carry out work when it inconveniences less folk when should they? Despite many people asking Dugher this question, no answer was forthcoming. In fact, Dugher is short of answers to anything. He’s happy to rubbish the coalition, Network Rail & the rail industry as a whole, but he’s nothing positive to offer in the way of alternatives. It’s all very well saying you’ll freeze fares, but if you can’t say how you’ll balance the books if you do…

As if this wasn’t enough, Dugher went into overdrive when the annual increases took effect, neatly ignoring the fact that the increases are due to Labour party policy! In 2007 Labour produced a White Paper in which they announced their intention to raise ticket prices so that passengers were paying more towards the cost of running the railways & taxpayers less. This policy was continued by the coalition after 2010. So, for Dugher to chastise the Coalition for continuing with a Labour policy is a bare faced cheek!

By now the alarm bells were going off with a number of rail industry observers, including myself and the Editor of RAIL magazine, Nigel Harris. Along with many rail workers disturbed by Dugher’s attacks on the rail industry, we engaged with him on Twitter. (see @MichaelDugherMP).His reaction was bizarre in the extreme. Rather than discuss with people he refused to answer most questions & lived up to his ‘attack dog’ reputation by labelling anyone who asked him awkward questions as ‘trolls’ & threatened to block them, then tried to shut Nigel Harris up by threatening him with a ‘yellow card’

His contempt for both rail industry insiders, commentators (and also the electorate) has been quite amazing. Dugher seems quite happy to dish it out, but won’t tolerate anyone who questions his nonsense. I can’t provide copies of his tweets to illustrate this because I’m one of the people he’s blocked. Needless to say, his tactics have backfired. The questions (and those asking them) aren’t going to go away (exactly the opposite). Concern at Dughers ‘bull in a china shop’ approach to his portfolio is widening & I doubt this will be my last post on the subject.

This article from the Telegraph illustrates that Dugher has a reputation for shooting himself in the foot:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10460752/Labour-Partys-attack-dog-Michael-Dugher-barks-up-the-wrong-tree-again.html

What’s worrying is that he’s been entrusted with an important Shadow ministerial post. His political masters don’t seem to realise that his type of politics is why so many people are abandoning the mainstream parties. Many of us are sick of political dogfights. We want politicians with vision & answers. The question is, how much damage will this attack dog do before Labour realise their mistake & muzzle him?

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