The senseless murder of Jo Cox MP

16 Thursday Jun 2016

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After a lovely day with community rail friends in Glossop, Dawn & I were shocked beyond measure to hear of the brutal & senseless murder of Jo Cox, the MP for Batley & Spen. We knew Jo. We met her at the founding meeting of the friends of Batley station just before she was elected as an MP. She was bright, friendly, committed & compassionate. She knew how to make things happen and she did it with both winning ways and good humour. It was obvious from that first meeting with her that she had a great political future ahead of her and that Batley (and politics in general) would benefit from her being in Westminster. Instead, she’s been killed in a senseless, politically motivated murder. I’ve written before about how the present political campaign has opened Pandora’s box & released a terribly poisonous mix of resentments. This is obviously part of that mix. I always thought the UK was better than this. Today, I’m really not so sure. All I can hope is that this tragedy makes some people stop and think about the direction this country may be heading. It’s time to reject the divisive folk & the philosophy that talks of its fellow citizens as traitors & accuses them of treason before it’s too late. These fools have just deprived both us and Batley of a compassionate and caring MP and her husband & children of a wife and mother. It’s not too late to step back from the abyss…

The big Brexit myth of an ‘undemocratic’ EU.

24 Tuesday May 2016

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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!

The Brexit debate is a depressing insight into humanity

20 Friday May 2016

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I’m on the train to London & finally found a spare moment to blog. Today’s chosen subject is the referendum on the UK staying in the European Union (or Brexit for short).

I’m unashamedly pro the UK staying in staying in and I’ve been voicing that opinion loudly on social media. Of course, that’s made me a target for the the Brexit camp – and what a depressing insight into humanity that is.

Social media has become the modern refuge for the old green ink brigade as it’s given them a voice they never had before. Most newspapers & magazines (unless they were desperately short of copy for the letters page) would normally spike the most extreme rants, deluded nonsense and Walter Mitty fantasies. Plus, they wouldn’t risk publishing the full fledged racism for fear of falling foul of the  law. In contrast, the internet is far more of a free for all, which is what appeals to these characters. What also attracts them in their droves  is Brexit. Why our membership of the European Union attracts such extremists would make an interesting study into the human psyche – because there’s plenty of material to study!

These people are easy to find because they find you! All you have to do is tweet something in support of remaining in the EU using a hashtag like #Brexit or #StrongerIn. Within minutes you’ll have some anonymous creature with a name like “nocash no dash”, “Una Discamus” or “Roddytherobot” (they’re all genuine examples by the way) bombarding you with paranoid nonsense and made-up ‘facts’ about the EU. I do wonder why if the Brexit argument is so strong these people have to hide behind fake identities and spend all their time lying. Here’s another (genuine) example.

Millar

An American ‘survivalist’?  God help us…

One thing they all seem to have in common is an unhealthy obsession with Hitler and Nazi Germany. The irony here is that they love to label the EU as a ‘fascist’ state & compare it to the third Reich. Of course, the EU is so ‘fascist’ and we’re so controlled by it that, err, we’re able to hold a referendum on leaving!

Apart from attracting those with an unhealthy obsession with fascism, Brexit also seems to attract the Walter Mittys. Here’s a prime example.

Haseler

This one bombarded a few of us with a stream of Tweets along these lines, so I spent a few minutes on Google and found this. As soon as I posted the link Haseler blocked the folk he’d been bombarding and ran away!

All this would be funny were it not for one thing. Many of these ‘characters’ will be real people and a lot of them will actually have a vote in the referendum. Paranoid nonsense, Walter Mitty fantasies or not – they could help propel us out of the EU and wreck the future of the UK. They don’t just exist on social media either. The other day I had a depressing ‘discussion’ with one such individual who’d swallowed all the newspaper garbage and genuinely believed Tony Blair had sold a UK warship to a secret EU navy (I know, I know – but try telling them..)

That is why I’m no fan of referendums – especially on complex issues such as membership of the EU. Our future could be decided on by the paranoid, the ignorant or the plain delusional!

This is why I’m appealing to all right-minded people to make damned sure they get out and vote in the referendum and leave nothing to chance. I’m also appealing to younger people (who are less likely to vote). After all, the future is yours – but you could find it’s set for you by a bunch of fearful old people who’re more likely to vote than you are, and once we’re out, there’s no going back…

The anti Hs2 mob live on another planet…

08 Sunday May 2016

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, House of Lords, Hs2, Hs2 petitions, StopHs2

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When is applying the long-established rules of Locus Standi (The right or capacity to bring an action or to appear in a court) and the letter of the law “undemocratic”, “dictatorial” or trying to “over-rule 750 year history of representation”?

Never – unless you live in the weird parallel universe inhabited by Andrew Gilligan and the rest of the anti Hs2 mob!

As I predicted in my last blog, the petitions to the House of Lords are facing far more Locus Standi challenges than the earlier petitions to the Commons. 414 of the 821 are subject to challenge. This has provoked squeals of outrage from stophs2 campaigners and the usual fact-free rubbish from Andrew Gilligan (see here) and Joe Rukin (here).

Of course, what they all neglect to say it that whilst this is the Govt and Hs2 Ltd bringing the challenges, it’s up to the House of Lords Committee to judge if those challenges should be allowed. The Committee is Chaired by Lord Walker of Guestingthorpe, who just happens to be a QC with a long history of senior judicial appointments which include being a High Court judge, Justice of Appeal, Lord of Appeal and Justice of the Supreme Court of the UK. With such an august legal mind Chairing the Committee it’s going to be almost impossible for Hs2 antis to get away with screaming ‘foul’ on this one – hence their anger.

StopHs2 campaigners know this was their very last throw of the dice. Yet again, they’d hoped they could bog-down the process of the bill with repetitive petitions only this time, they weren’t going to be allowed to get away with it. The Govt and Hs2 Ltd had been very generous in the commons by challenging so few petitioners. In their final report the House of Commons Ctte had this to say about Locus Standi;

audience

So, what’s happened shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. The Govt and Hs2 Ltd are simply exercising their legal right to challenge petitioners standing and a very senior and experienced legal mind is chairing the Committee that will rule on their validity.  Expect the majority of the challenges to succeed.

 

You can’t hide the tumbleweeds…

06 Friday May 2016

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The past few months have been awful for the Stop Hs2 campaign. It’s been rendered pointless by Parliament voting through the Hs2 bill with a stonking majority. Its woes have increased as the bill continues to make solid progress towards Royal Assent. The bill also passed 2nd reading in the House of Lords. Now the Lords has chosen the members of the Committee to hear the 827 petitions. As expected, HS2 antis have stuck in as many petitions as they can, hoping the tactics that failed in the Commons will achieve something in the Lords. The composition of the HoL Ctte (it’s chaired by a QC) makes this far less likely as the committee will be no pushover. They’re expected to be far tighter on procedure than the Commons so expect far more Locus Standi challenges.

Meanwhile, the organised anti Hs2 campaign has fallen apart. In 2010 there were four main groups opposing Hs2, this has been reduced to two (Hs2aa & Stophs2) but only the latter is still active. Apparently skint and demoralised, Hs2aa have retreated into representing the Nimby interests of their Directors. Hs2aa have tried the fact by blaming their lack of action on a serious denial of service attack which had taken their website down for a couple of months.

hs2aa

Silence them? What they neglect to mention is they still had two other options with which to continue their campaign: Their Facebook page and their Twitter account. So, what’s happened? Nothing. Neither account has seen any action since March 6th!

hs2aa FB.

The truth is, most Hs2 antis have given up, even on social media – which has been their main campaigning tool for years.

This is yet another lesson in the pitfalls of social media for other campaigning groups to learn. Social media is a mirror on your soul. It can reflect your strengths but it can also expose your weakness. You can’t hide the tumbleweeds…

 

 

 

Time for a few words…

27 Wednesday Apr 2016

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I’m sitting on a Grand Central train which is taking me back to London for the second time this week, so I thought I’d snatch a few minutes away from work to scribble a few words.

I’ve very much been back on the road this past week, so even slide scanning has had to take a bit of a back seat as slide scanners aren’t the most portable bits of kit, then again – neither are slides!

Last week saw me spending Wednesday conducting a series of interviews for a book. This involved one on-board a train to Wakefield before I hot-footed it across the Pennines to Longsight depot in Manchester, then moving on to Preston for the final interview in the trilogy. Sadly, my journey home was delayed at Blackburn due to some poor soul threatening to commit suicide on the line. This time, the outcome was a happy one. I wasn’t so lucky on Thursday when I had to travel to Oakham for the funeral of Ray “Matey” Towell. The outward journey was fine. I started from Huddersfield with a trip along the Penistone line in absolutely glorious weather. Even the fact that the trip was done on a Pacer couldn’t take the shine off things. For once, I eschewed keyboard swiping on my laptop to soak up the scenery – and the sunshine. The onward trip from Sheffield was to Leicester was done on something a little more comfortable as EMT provided a Class 222 Meridian. Because they’re fitted with power points I had no excuse to avoid knuckling down to do some picture editing. I’d planned to get the train for the final leg to Oakham but a few minutes browsing social media informed me that a number of the ‘brothers’ (oh, and a solitary sister) were converging on the town with the idea of sharing a charabanc. Thus, I found myself with Messers Pridmore, Brennan-Brown, Morris, Hughes and Howard for a laughter filled trip to a place we’d all really rather not have been going…

That said, Ray’s funeral was a fitting send off for such a popular character. Around 160 people filled All Saints church to celebrate his life. There was laughter and tears in equal measure as memories were shared and poems read. Afterwards, most of us adjourned to a local hostelry. After all, it’s what Ray would have wanted.

Time conspired against me as I couldn’t stay for more than a few minutes thanks to a prior engagement in York, so after a swift half and a few farewells I legged it to the station for a train to Peterborough and an onward connection to York. That’s when it all started to go wrong for the second day in a row. A glance at the Peterborough information screens told me that the East Coast timetable was in disarray thanks to a suicide at Stevenage. My train was going to be late but i’d no idea how long I’d have to hang around. VTEC staff were doing their best to keep passengers informed but some questions they really had no answers for. For me, time was of the essence as I was volunteering at the Railway Benefit Fund spring ball that evening. The ETA of my train began to slip as news came of further delays due to what we were told was a trespass incident near the suicide site – exactly what no-one needed*

In the end my train arrived 50 minutes late. Having left myself some recovery time I still managed to arrive before the event started – although I had to change into my tuxedo in the NRM toilets rather than at the hotel (my partner, Dawn was also a volunteer, so she’d carried it with her)! The fun of the ball made up for the days more sombre & sober events. Everybody there had a wonderful time with the added glow that we’d raised thousand of pounds for the RBF.

After a weekend of work and walking around home I was back on the road on Monday when I headed back to London to add to my picture library before attending a Eurostar community event in the evening (more of which later). Yesterday was a little different as I joined the ACoRP team on a visit to my old home town (Southport) to ‘recce’ the venue for the 2016 ACoRP community rail awards and discuss arrangements with the venues staff. We also selected the menus for the evening and tested what would be on offer (I know – it’s a tough job!) We can confidently say that those attending won’t be disappointed…

Today I’m back on Grand Central as I’m due to shoot portraits of the new Senior Management Team of a well-known railway company in London. This evening I’ve an engagement in Huddersfield and tomorrow I finally have a day at home -but only the one. After that Dawn and I head up to Scotland for a long weekend with a bunch of friends that will involve archery, quad-biking and driving tanks. Oh, and maybe the occasional libation..

*Earlier this week I was chatting to one of the crew from the train which suffered the suicide. I’m not going to name names but I think this is a good illustration of the random nature of these tragic events and how fate can deal the cards. The Train Manager is the only one from his depot to have suffered a suicide. In fact, he’s had two. After the latest incident he was on the empty stock returning to depot up North to be checked out and cleaned up. On their way the driver spotted someone lying in the four foot ahead of them. Thankfully for all concerned this person ‘chickened out’ at the last moment and moved onto another track – thus preventing the train (and some of the crew) having two suicides in one day.

Tales from the Thames…

03 Sunday Apr 2016

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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…

That’s all folks!

24 Thursday Mar 2016

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, Hs2aa, StopHs2, Twitter (and how not to use it)

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Well, the end of the stop Hs2 campaign, not this blog!

As I mentioned yesterday, the Hs2 Hybrid bill sailed through Parliament yesterday by 399 votes to 42. That’s a stonking cross-party majority of 357, or – to put it another way – 61.38% of the UKs 650MPs voted to build Hs2 and only 6.46% to stop it.  Such a large political consensus lays bare the claim that Hs2 is a Tory ‘vanity project’ (or a Labour one for that matter). The vote has also exposed UKIP, who never even bothered to turn up and vote (no change there then, Ed). The result is a final humiliation for the Stop Hs2 campaign as they only gained one extra vote since the 2nd reading of the bill back in 2014. It effectively kills their campaign.

The antis reaction has been to claim that the decision was somehow rushed as the debate in the Commons didn’t last longer. It’s a ridiculous claim when you consider that we’ve been talking about Hs2 since 2009! There’s been numerous debates in both the Commons and the Lords – plus hundreds of hours of discussions during the petitioning process. If this is “rushing” things, no wonder the rest of the world has left us far behind when it comes to modern infrastructure. I’ll bet the Chinese (who’ve built thousands of kilometres of high speed line since 2009) will be having a right old laugh at this!

Needless to say, the StopHs2 campaign is in complete denial. If you want to see how badly, check out the comments on the StopHs2 Facebook page. The amazing thing is, everyone but the antis could see what was coming. Their campaign’s only success has been in lying to itself. It’s consistently lied about the need for Hs2, the level of opposition to Hs2 and that the vast majority of those who object to Hs2 are in fact, Nimbys who live in the way of the route! Some are still refusing to accept the truth. They’re taking to Twitter to condemn MPs as “traitors” who’ve let them down. They make empty threats that MPs will “pay” through the ballot box – which shows both denial and amnesia – as they’ve obviously blanked out what an ineffective disaster their “no votes for you with Hs2” campaign was before the election. In fact, as their votes are concentrated in constituencies of MPs who opposed Hs2 all this would do would be to shoot themselves in both feet!

How much longer the anti Hs2 campaign can keep going now is a good question. Hs2aa have been conspicuous by their absence these past few weeks. Not a peep was heard from them at all yesterday. StopHs2 managed a few desultory tweets & a moan on the website but that was it. There was no demonstration outside Parliament, no full page adverts in the newspapers, just a few dozen people moaning on Twitter. Their campaign has nowhere else to go. It’s exhausted the political route, failed on the legal front and run out of money. It’s bereft of ideas and it’s activist base is dwindling daily. In short – it’s finished.

All that’s left now is for the House of Lords to carry out their scrutiny of the bill. Whether this will cause the Hs2 timetable to slip slightly or not is a matter of conjecture. What isn’t open to doubt is that Hs2 will receive Royal Assent. In the meantime the Hs2 project team will be getting on with preparing for spades in the ground sometime in 2017.

In the meantime, I’ll look forward to blogging less about the campaign to stop Hs2 and more about building Hs2. Watch this space…

 

 

Hs2’s big day…

23 Wednesday Mar 2016

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This afternoon the Hs2 Phase 1 Hybrid Bill will pass 3rd reading in the House of Commons which effectively means Parliament grants the project planning permission. The bill still has to pass through the House of Lords but they cannot stop the bill becoming law.

To all intents and purposes, today puts an end to the Stop Hs2 campaign as it’s now exhausted the political process. Whilst their campaign may stagger on for a few months until the Lords petitioning is over there’s really nowhere for them to go. The past 6 years have shown that their claims of being a national, grass-roots campaign were false. The heart of their campaign has always been nimbyism – especially from the Chilterns (and to a lesser extent Warwickshire). They never made a political breakthrough and made the fundamental error of trying to stop the project rather than gain support for getting the best financial and environmental mitigation possible. It’s also been a terribly dishonest campaign which hasn’t covered anyone involved with it in glory. A good example of that was yesterdays disgusting attempt to use the victims of the Brussels bombings against Hs2 when their corpses were still warm (see here).

What’s interesting to see is the way the Stop Hs2 campaign is going out with a whimper. Looking at them you’d hardly think today was so important. They’re too weak to organise a demonstration outside Parliament as the last time they tried that (for 2nd reading) less than 100 turned up. They’re too skint to put adverts in the newspapers so they’ve relied on social media – but even that’s a flop. There’s no attempt to make a big splash or get Hs2 trending. Instead there’s just a few lone people tweeting their opposition or making desperate, last minute pleas to their MPs. None of it shows a campaign with any vigour, purpose or determination. To add to the pathetic feeling one of the two surviving anti groups (Hs2aa) appears to have given up on social media, which it’s not used since the 6th March. It’s posted an appeal to MPs on its website but hasn’t noticed it’s website is blocked by most internet browsers as an “attack page”!

I only hope that people living on the next phases of Hs2 who will are genuinely  affected learn from the mistakes the Stophs2 campaigns made and concentrate on getting the best from the project instead. My advice to them would be to ditch the political opportunists who want to exploit you (like UKIP and local campaigners who are only in it for the attention it brings them) and work through the established local political framework to engage with the project. You have a lot of legal protections through environmental and other laws.

What the past 6 years have taught us is that vital national infrastructure shouldn’t be delayed by Victorian political processes such as Hybrid Bills, which allow a vociferous minority to add costs and delays. The good news is that the lessons appear to have been learned. The new infrastructure Commission and an overhaul of the Hybrid Bill process will (hopefully) prevent infrastructure being used as a political football both by politicians and local opposition. Hs2 has in some ways been a remarkable story. The project has maintained the political consensus around it through two general elections and a coalition Government – no mean feat!

I’m working in London today but I hope to catch up with some of the debate this afternoon and blog about the result of the vote later.

UPDATE (21:17).

Well, I didn’t manage to catch any of the debate, but I did see the result. The Hs2 bill passed 3rd reading with a stonking 357 majority. The final vote was 399 to 42. That means only 1 extra MP voted against Hs2 than they did during the second reading back in 2014. What amused me was all the fuss UKIP made about Hs2. Remember this ludicrous claim?

Farage Hs2

Yet, when it came to the crunch, their solitary MP didn’t even vote!

I’ll blog more tomorrow. In the meantime, let’s all enjoy the fact Parliament has spoken with a very loud voice – and that voice has said “build Hs2”.

 

No better than vultures…

22 Tuesday Mar 2016

Posted by in Hs2, Peter Jones, StopHs2, Twitter (and how not to use it)

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Whilst the rest of the world looks on with shock and sadness as the terrorist incidents in Brussels unfold, the vultures of the Stop Hs2 campaign have moved in to exploit the still-warm bodies of the dead.

Within minutes of it being announced that Eurostar services between Brussels & London had been suspended, anti Hs2 campaigners were cynically exploiting the news to scaremonger about Hs2 in the UK. Here’s the tweets.

OOT terror
jones terror

Time & time again the anti Hs2 mob have proved they’re no better than ambulance-chasers, exploiting the news of any rail crash or transport related incident to try scaremonger. It highlights their desperation and lack of morality as well as complete idiocy. The idea we shouldn’t build anything out of fear has always been a strong feature in their campaign, but this time they haven’t even waited until the dead are cold.

What a thoroughly despicable campaign they run.