Category Archives: Uncategorized

Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week No 18..

04 Monday Jan 2016

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

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

The first award of 2016 goes to one Nicholas J Batty for this (just posted) supremely idiotic tweet where he forgot to check the calender before typing;

BattyBS

What happens when you click on the petition link?You get a petition that closed on the 7th August 2014 after gathering 124 signatures!

The appropriately named Mr Batty appears to be a classic Walter Mitty personality as anyone browsing his details will find. He has a long history of preposterous personal claims. The anti Hs2 campaign does seem to attract an awful lot of people like him.  Still, a man who can claim the anti Hs2 campaign is both “relentless” and “expanding” whilst posting rubbish like this obviously lives in a special place the rest of us don’t.

Meanwhile, the active anti Hs2 flood petition has just passed the 1700 mark in 7 days. Anyone proficient in either maths or the way these polls work will know that means it doesn’t have a snowballs chance in hell of hitting the 100,000 in 6 months that it needs.

2023 update.

The petition died a death after 6 months having collected a paltry 8,116 signatures. Funnily enough, the overwhelming majority came from constituencies along the HS2 route with no history of flooding – what a co-incidence!

It took several more years before HS2 antis finally twigged that all these petitions did was expose their Nimbyism due to the fact the maps displayed with the petitions showed where the majority of people signing them lived – this neatly displaying the routes of HS2! They were always fun to number-crunch as the other drawback for antis was they also exposed how few of them there were. When their ‘strongholds’ couldn’t get more than 2% of constituents to sign you knew their claims of ‘overwhelming support’ where pure bluster.

The last petition they tried was in 2021. Started by celebrity conservationist (but clueless environmentalist) Chris Packham is got 155,000 signatures. Still a piss-poor amount but enough to take it over the 100,000 needed for a debate. That was when the fun started!

HS2 antis were cock-a-hoop. Now there’s be a vote in Parliament that would stop HS2! It was complete bollocks of course. I’d been pointing out the small print in these petitions for years but either they’d never read it or had deliberately ignored it. Here’s a classic example from Sebastian Sandys, the man who called himself their ‘Parliamentary liaison team’. Someone who should surely have known how these things worked, no? No – as I exposed in this blog.

When the petition was debated in a committee room (not in Parliament) by the handful of MPs who bothered to turn up and there was no vote at the end the penny finally dropped with some of the antis. It was a complete waste of time. I doubt we’ll see them trying futile stunts like this again. Their petitions are history, as is the ‘batty bricklayer’ who’s disappeared completely…

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

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

Thank you!

The anti Hs2 mob never learn…

02 Saturday Jan 2016

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

,

After 6 years of failure at everything they’ve tried and in the final year of their disastrous campaign you’d have thought the anti hs2 mob may have grown both older – and wiser. It wasn’t to be.

Instead we see the same failed tactics trotted out time and time again. The latest is yet another attempt at a petition. Like before, it’s a futile attempt to link flood spending with Hs2 and the tired and trite idea that (despite us being the 5th richest country on the planet) we can only afford one thing at a time so everything has to be either/or.

Here’s a link to the petition, which wants to divert hs2 funding to flood defences. I’ve blogged about the intellectual fallacy (and environmental disaster) that spending billions on turning our river defences into sterile flood drains would be here. Instead let’s have a look what the petition really tells us about the anti Hs2 mobs level of support

The beauty of the Government petitions website is that it allows you to see which constituencies the people signing it live in. This gives you both a geographical spread and the ability to identify clusters. In other words, it allows you to get an idea of the level of support for the anti Hs2 campaign in their supposed heartlands – and the news is not good! I’m not going to do a full analysis now as there’s only 632 signatures and the petition runs until June, but feel free to do your own. Take a look at the constituencies with the most votes, then compare them to a map of the ones Hs2 passes through…

Compare this petition to the huge success of recent petitions on keeping Jeremy Clarkson on Top Gear and the massive petition that wanted to get Donald Trump banned from the UK. Each gathered huge numbers of signatures in a matter of days.

This is yet another lesson in how social media and the internet is such a double-edged sword for campaigners. It’s a lesson the anti Hs2 campaign resolutely refused to learn.

My last blog of 2015

31 Thursday Dec 2015

Posted by in New Year, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Which is to say one thing – Thanks for dropping by!

When I started blogging at the beginning of this year I really didn’t know what to expect. Would I be wasting my time? Would anyone bother reading it? It seems I needn’t have worried. As I type this 31,888 people have viewed 63,413 pages. On my travels I’ve met many folks (from politicians to railway staff) who’ve commented on my blog & said how much they’ve enjoyed it. That sort of feedback makes it all worthwhile. The focus has been very much on the Hs2 project in 2015 but I expect that to change in 2016 as the Stophs2 campaign finally collapses. Instead I’ll be adding more travel and transport pieces to keep you entertained.

So, here’s wishing you all a very happy New Year.

Paul

2015 ends with a whimper for the stop Hs2 campaign.

31 Thursday Dec 2015

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, StopHs2, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

I can’t imagine it’s going to be the sound of party poppers & champagne corks we’ll be hearing from the anti Hs2 campaign offices today, because (let’s face it) they’ve had a bloody awful year and next year will only be worse. 2016 will see the end of their campaign as the phase 1 Hybrid Bill will complete its journey through Parliament and gain Royal Assent. After that, they have nowhere left to turn. All the major political parties remain solidly behind the project and by the time of the next general election in 2020 Hs2 will have been under construction for nearly 3 years.

The signs that the anti Hs2 campaign was collapsing have been evident for some time. They failed to bog down progress of the Hybrid Bill, then were dealt a huge blow by the result of the General Election – which laid bare the fact their political clout was negligible. In the latter part of the year Bucks Country Council Leader Martin Tett made it clear the anti Hs2 51M alliance of local council’s was redundant. Not that 51m will be missed. Their website hadn’t been updated since June 2011 and they only managed 16 Tweets through the whole of 2015!

This left just two main groups opposing Hs2 – Kenilworth based StopHs2 and the Highspeed 2 Action Alliance (Hs2aa) in the Chilterns. Many of the smaller ‘action’ groups that came under the Hs2aa banner had already faded away. Now it seems its HS2aa’s turn. Nothing has been seen or heard from them since December 7th – which suggests their legal case at the UN which was heard just before Xmas hasn’t gone well…

Having retreated to be almost a purely social media based campaign, things aren’t going well there either. Here’s the final “scores on the doors” for 2015. They show a campaign that’s not only stalled but has actually gone into reverse again in some cases.

stats 4

I won’t bore you with the usual caveats as I’m sure you know them off by heart now. The only person who is doing well is AGAHST’s former Comm’s person Deanne Dukhan. The irony is, she’s done it by not tweeting about Hs2!

The only question now seems to be how long the remaining anti hs2 groups can hang on into 2016. Will StopHs2’s financier (Warks businessman Joe Elliott) finally pull the plug? After all, once the Parliamentary process is finished, what’s the point of the StopHs2 campaign?

More floods of nonsense from the anti Hs2 mob.

30 Wednesday Dec 2015

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, Uncategorized

≈ 8 Comments

Talk about the gift that keeps on giving…

The anti Hs2 mob are working themselves up into a right royal tizzy about flooding East of Leeds on the route that Hs2 will take into the city. Their common refrain is that this flooding proves the route is untenable. After all, who knew a flood plain would flood? Well, everybody but the anti Hs2 mob it seems. Here’s a selection of their tweets.

Davies flood

Cutler floods

Brown fllod

Appleyard flood

The last tweet with the drone view is the most interesting – and the most telling. What the anti Hs2 mob don’t say is that Hs2 will be passing through the flooded area on a 2335m long viaduct which will be between 11 and 4 metres above ground level. Plus, see that narrow (unflooded) strip of land to the right of Woodlesford lock? That’s where the new viaduct will go – off into the distance.

Once again, the anti Hs2 campaign have managed to shoot themselves in the foot – this time with both barrels.

Still, don’t take my word for it. Here’s the drawings from Hs2 Ltd!

hs2 fllod map

If you want to examine the actual map in greater detail (which includes elevations etc) click on this link.

Unsurprisingly, the anti Hs2 mob refuse to answer a simple question. How would such a viaduct be “submerged under floods”?

Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week No 17.

24 Thursday Dec 2015

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Bigotry, Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week, Hs2, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

Jacques Cousteau would be proud of this weeks anti Hs2 mob winner. Like him, they’re not afraid to plumb new depths. This week the award goes to one John Mitchell of Culcheth who hides behind the wonderfully ironic Twitter name of “John Sensible”, for it is he who has come up with the ludicrous claim that it’s “unchristian” to want to build Hs2 – and I kid you not. Here’s some of his ludicrous tweets on the matter;

Sensible christian 2

sensible christian

Such distasteful claims only go to show how desperate & divorced from reality the anti hs2 mob are as it becomes clear their campaign’s failed. But it also shows many of them have become indivisible from UKIP – who jumped on the anti Hs2 bandwagon after the 2010 election in the hope there’d be votes in it. Anti Hs2 campaigners have never been afraid to use homophobia, racism, threats or intimidation. Now they show they’re not afraid to play the religious card either.

Here’s another of today’s examples, from UKIP fan Trevor Forrester which also manages to combine religion and racism.

Forrester

The sooner their whole distasteful campaign is put out of its misery the better. The good news is that – at the rate decent folks are turning their backs on it – that won’t be long…

2023 Update.

Moaning about Cameron was an abject failure, as was targetting the next FOUR Tory PMs (May, Johnson, Truss and Sunak) – or the leaders of HM Opposition for that matter. As for UKIP, they never got anywhere as a party. Forrester is still as bigoted as ever,  and still posts the same xenophobic rubbish rehashed but he’s turned his attention to the new bigots in town, the Reform Party although he rarely tweets about HS2 now. His Twitter bio is a full-house in right-wing BS Bingo. 

The ‘human oxymoron’ Jon Sensible is one of the few who still thinks him posting nonsense on Twitter will somehow stop HS2, which just goes to prove that some people never learn…

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!

Another fact-free rant from Simon Heffer

20 Sunday Dec 2015

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, Simon Heffer, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

It’s not hard to see why members of the fourth estate are often held in low esteem when you read unmitigated fact-free nonsense from the likes of Simon Heffer. The man has long opposed Hs2 & uses his Telegraph column to try & rubbish the project as a way of attacking his bete noir, Rime Minister David Cameron. Like another of the projects opponents (Simon Jenkins in the Guardian) he never lets the facts get in the way of his diatribes.

Take yesterday’s Telegraph article as an example.

Amongst the ridiculous claims is this gem about Hs2; ” It has no connections to the existing network; no connections to a possibly expanded Heathrow”

This will come as news to the people of places like Crewe, which is getting a new Hs2 station precisely because of those connections! Or the fact that the East Midlands station will be at Toton because of the connectivity it will be able to offer. London-centric Heffer has even managed to ignore the fact there will be a major interchange at Old Oak Common which will allow folks to easily reach Heathrow.

Oh, and what about the fleet of classic compatible trains that will run off the new Hs2 line to directly serve stations across the network such as York, Newcastle, Wigan, Warringon, Preston, Carlisle and Glasgow? These will start running as soon as phase 1 opens in 2026.

Heffer then thunders that building Hs2 is “undemocratic” as the legislation hasn’t yet been passed. He studiously ignores the fact that the Hs2 Preparation Bill (allowing, as its name suggests, preparation work to begin) gained Royal Assent as far back as November 2013. He also refuses to acknowledge that the Hs2 Hybrid Bill’s 2nd reading had a stonking majority of 411, is going through the democratic process now – and still has the support of all the major political parties! It will receive Royal Assent next year and there’s no way a dying number of anti Hs2 protesters or dyspeptic right-wing newspaper columnists can stop it.

Sheffield upsets the anti Hs2 mob…

17 Thursday Dec 2015

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Sheffield, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

For years the anti Hs2 campaign has peddled the lie that no-one wants Hs2. To reinforce the claim they search out & share any newspaper clickbait poll they can find so they that can rig it to give a result in their favour. They then parade these as ‘evidence’ that the UK universally rejects Hs2.

So, you can imagine their consternation when the Sheffield Star (with the backing of the City Council) not only supports Hs2 but also starts a campaign to get the station moved from Meadowhall into the city centre! You can find it here.

Such heresy couldn’t go unchallenged, so the Hs2 antis jumped in with both feet. In this case the feet belonged to Stop Hs2 Campaign Manager Joe Rukin & the unpleasant and libelous Camden Nimby, Peter Jones. Here’s a selection of their tweets.

DD Sheff 1

Rukin Sheff1

 

Bonkers, isn’t it? Why Warwickshire based Rukin or Camden Nimby Jones think the good burghers and residents of Sheffield will be swayed by their ranting is beyond rational thought, but then the anti Hs2 campaign and common sense have always been strangers. Their campaign is as mad as a box of frogs nowadays as any sensible people deserted it a long time ago.

Meanwhile, the rest of the anti Hs2 campaign continues to unravel. The Hs2 Hybrid Bill committee have gone into overdrive with the intention of seeing off the remaining petitions early in the new year. Hs2aa have gone strangely quiet, considering their final legal action should have been heard over the past couple of days. Nothing has been heard from them for 10 days now and to add to their woes their website has been hacked again!

hs2aa

One can only wonder how far into 2016 the increasingly shambolic anti Hs2 campaign organisations will limp along.

Getting into the Xmas spirit

16 Wednesday Dec 2015

Posted by in Great Western Railway, Modern Railways, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Many years ago, when I first turned freelance & ditched my job in housing I had a cartoon over my desk at home. It was of a chap wearing a paper hat, clutching a glass of wine and standing in front of a mirror. He was talking to himself, saying “the only problem with working from home is the office Xmas party is crap”. It really tickled me as it summed up the situation many freelances find themselves in this time of year.

I’m reminded of this because I’m currently on my way to an office party with a difference. Modern Railways magazine Editor Jim Abbott has invited me to join himself and other regular contributors to the magazine on their Xmas bash aboard a Great Western Railways train from London to Bristol. Our little gathering has very kindly been arranged by GWR MD Mark Hopwood & his staff, who are hosting us for the second year running.

I’ll be back in London again tomorrow to join both railway and media colleagues at the annual Railway Carol Service at St Mary’s Somers Town, Eversholt St  (which in aid of the Transport Benevolent Fund). It starts at 12:30, should any of you want to join us.

Maybe the Xmas party season isn’t so bad after all…