16 Thursday Jul 2015
Posted in Scotland
14 Tuesday Jul 2015
Posted in Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, Hs2 petitions
Tags
One of the central planks of the anti Hs2 campaign was the idea that Hs2 could be stopped by bogging it down during the petitioning process. The ‘logic’ ran that if the timetable was dragged out the project would be cancelled by a new Government, such as UKIP (yeah, right..!) or the costs would force a rethink. The Hs2 antis duly stuck in a few thousand carbon-copy petitions & smugly thought ‘job done’.
It was never going to work.
The Hs2 Petitioning Committee have always made it clear that they weren’t going to let the will of Parliament & democratically elected MP’s be subverted in this way. The Committee’s worked with Hs2 Ltd to ensure these template petitions can be dealt with swiftly – and how!
Now the Committee has published its autumn hearing timetables. This lists 720 petitions to be heard in September & another 300 in October
This leaves the anti Hs2 campaign in tatters. They’ve run out of ideas & have no new tactics to offer. Their campaign groups are dying & no doubt the end of the petitioning process will kill a few more off. The writing’s on the wall…
10 Friday Jul 2015
Posted in Uncategorized
We’re on our way to Scotland so blogging will be taking a bit of a back seat for the next few days. Expect the occasional update and, if the anti hs2 campaign comes out with anything stupid (a bit of a certainty, really) some lampoonery.
We’ve just spent the night in the old railway town of Tebay. It’s a fine example of how the railways brought prosperity to an area and what happened to many towns after the Beeching cuts which closed their stations. After Tebay closed in 1962 the towns population dropped from 1000 to 700 because families left & one of the two schools was forced to shut. That school became a youth hostel & is now the private B&B where I stayed the night.
08 Wednesday Jul 2015
In the crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week competition we seem to have to have one contender who’s determined to stay ahead of the pack. Yet again the award goes to Camden’s Peter Jones. Not content with having won the accolade last week & being involved in Camden’s debacle at the Hybrid Bill Committee yesterday, he’s come out with this absolute gem today.
So, how will Hs2 stop industrial action on the tube? Probably the same way that it won’t cure cancer or prevent anyone but a Brit winning Wimbledon – or any of the other things it’s not designed to do.
Honestly, what is it with these people?
I’ve a small favour to ask…
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07 Tuesday Jul 2015
Posted in Anti Hs2 mob, Euston, Hs2
Tags
The HS2 Euston Action Group gave their evidence to the Hs2 Hybrid Bill Committee today – and what a car crash it was too! Presented by Camden’s new MP, Keir Starmer, backed by former MP Frank Dobson & local anti group member Robert Latham, it was halting, incoherent & completely failed to make the case they wanted to – the abandonment of Euston as an Hs2 terminus in favour of halting the line at Old Oak Common.
Starmer was awful. He didn’t seem to understand the case he was trying to make and had no idea about the cross London connectivity issues that are solved by having both Hs2 stations. Put simply, Old Oak Common serves East & West London & Euston serves North & South London.
The Committee looked less than impressed, especially Sir Peter Bottomley who clearly has a far better grasp of the issues than Starmer. Dobson wasn’t much better. His cavalier approach to facts & reliance on supposition didn’t score him any points. As for Latham, he made no impression at all. In contrast Sir Peter Bottomley was excellent. He pointed out that the projections were that only 2 out of 5 Hs2 passengers were expected to use Old Oak Common with the rest using Euston. In his evidence the QC representing Hs2, Timothy Mould gave a far more impressive and informed performance forensically demolishing the antis argument brick by brick – as if it were the former Doric Arch at Euston!
Have a look at the session here;
http://parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/1a9f4ae3-c26d-4dda-979c-b62cc696f9c0
Once the transcript is out I’ll update this blog as Mould’s tour de force will be worth reading!
After the session was over, Starmer tweeted this;
All I can say is – if that shambles was a ‘good’ session it’s not difficult to see why the anti hs2 campaign’s got nowhere in over 5 years!
To be fair to Starmer, he has been put in an impossible situation. The idea of scrapping the Euston Hs2 terminus is so obviously a non-starter I suspect even he knows it’s going to be impossible to sell. He’s been put in that position through no fault of his own but by a crazy cocktail of a Council that’s become hostage to a vociferous minority and the actions of the previous MP, not to mention a few rather upset Labour luvvies. Admittedly, the original Hs1-Hs2 link plans didn’t help as they weren’t well thought out (which is why Higgins dropped them) but that’s history.
Somehow, I can’t see the Hs2 petitioning Committee being persuaded by today’s efforts….
UPDATE.
The transcript of evidence has been published here
07 Tuesday Jul 2015
Posted in 2005 London bombing, 7/7
Tags
Ten years ago today I was sitting at home in North London, editing pictures from the previous day when London had celebrated winning the 2012 Olympics. I’d been at Eurostar’s Waterloo terminal where the company had thrown a party to await the announcement. As both Paris & London were in the running they couldn’t lose either way. It was a euphoric moment and the feelings of elation were still with me as I went through the pictures.
The moment it was announced that London had won the 2012 Olympic bid…
Then I got a call on the landline from a friend who said “have you heard the news, there’s been a power failure on the tube” I knew nothing about it so I turned on the TV to see what was going on. It soon dawned on me that something terrible was unfolding. I tried ringing my wife but there was no way I could reach her by mobile phone. The fact mobiles were useless made things even more unsettling. How quickly we had come to rely on them…
I soon made the decision to grab my camera kit, jump on my bicycle & cycle into the centre to cover the story. What I saw that day shocked, saddened & also inspired me. With no tubes or buses running, London was eerily quiet – apart from the noise of helicopters & sirens. Many people had left work as offices had closed. Quite a few of them had made their way to pubs to watch the TV news, find out what the hell was happening & figure out how they were going to get home. The mood was sombre, but it was also defiant. I cycled between many of the sites & finally joined a group of journo’s who were gathered by the police cordon near Aldgate where we waited for updates from a police spokesperson. She had little to tell us. I decided to & see how people were managing to get home so I headed over to Fenchurch St station where I found thousands of people patiently queuing, waiting for their turn to get on a train & go home. There was no panic, no crying – just a sombre, defiant mood. That defiance is my overwhelming memory of that day & the days that followed. 52 people had been killed, London was bloody, but it was unbowed. It would not allow itself to be beaten. I’d always been proud to call London my home. That tragic day made me prouder still. Today (like so many people, Londoners and others) I will be remembering the people we lost that day – and also the living – who had their lives changed in such awful ways.
Kings Cross station was surrounded by ambulances,fire engines & members of the emergency services.
With no tubes & buses running, people made their way home as best they could. Thousands of people waited patiently outside Fenchurch St station. There was no fuss or panic, despite the obvious concern that such a crowd of people made an easy target.
My website contains a gallery of pictures from that euphoric & tragic 24 hours. You can find it here.
05 Sunday Jul 2015
Posted in Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, Mid Cheshire against Hs2
The anti Hs2 campaign has always tried to pretend more folks support it than really do. More often than not the media swallow their nonsense & talk about the ‘strong’ opposition to Hs2.
The daft thing is, it only takes a few minutes research for these ridiculous claims to be exposed – mostly by the anti Hs2 campaigners themselves! Here’s a great example. Step forward the ‘Mid Cheshire Against Hs2’ group. Regular readers will know about this bunch already, but for those not familiar with them, allow me to elucidate.
The Mid Cheshire group are one of only a handful of anti groups on the whole of the phase 2 route (both East to Leeds & West to Manchester). Famously, a few of them turned up at Sir David Higgins ‘Hs2 plus’ launch in Manchester where they pretended to be from the city. That’s because, embarrassingly for the anti Hs2 campaign – there’s not a single anti group in the whole of the city or larger Greater Manchester area of some 2.7 million souls! Here they are in all their ‘glory’..
Whilst they were there one of them was interviewed by the Manchester Evening News & made the laughable claim that the anti Hs2 campaign was bigger than the opposition to Margaret Thatcher’s poll tax. I kid you not! Here’s the MEN article.
Bigger than the poll tax eh? So, their annual meeting must have been packed to the rafters then…
Not according to the (barely legible) minutes of their AGM, which they’ve just published
Their minutes reveal that a grand total of 23 people attended. To put this in perspective, between 300-400,000 folks live in what’s loosely described as Mid-Cheshire. Bigger than the poll tax my arse…
Next time you hear certain sections of the media churn out the same lazy nonsense about ‘strong opposition’ to Hs2, feel free to point them in the direction of this blog.
UPDATE.
Not long after I published this blog and exposed the derisory turn out at the AGM, the minutes mysteriously disappeared from their website. Funny, that. None have ever appeared since. I wonder why?
03 Friday Jul 2015
Posted in Anti Hs2 mob, Economic illiteracy, Hs2, Peter Jones
Despite strong competition, this weeks award goes to Camden resident Peter Jones (who Tweets as Hs2DeadDuck) for this superb bit of financial illiteracy & economic nimbyism.
Quite how overcrowding & a lack of rail capacity can be solved by less public subsidy is a mystery. As for the idea that, rather then providing the means for increasing numbers of people to travel to & from work we should simply price them off the railways – it’s the sort of bonkers nonsense that the Taxpayers Alliance would be proud of! Come to think of it, the anti Hs2 campaign does increasingly resemble the TPA in that it’s anti public transport – having switched from just opposing Hs2 to being against Hs3 & any other modern rail investment.
Jones neatly ignores the fact that the reason most people travel at peak times is that they have to in order to get to work on time! They have no option. If they can’t get on a train then either they have to find another way to get to work, or find another job. Clearly, retired Camden Nimbys like Jones consider themselves first & foremost & damn the rest of the UK, its economy and its environment. It’s the classic ‘I’m alright Jack’ attitude.
Now, assuming the vast majority of folks wouldn’t be looking for lower paid jobs elsewhere, how will they get to work? By coach or car, obviously. Both of which are far more dangerous than rail travel – and far more polluting. There’s also the small matter of where they park in London.
So, in one fell swoop, Jones is proposing to get a few more people killed in the inevitable road accidents that would follow, further damage the environment with the pollution these vehicles will cause, cause gridlock on London’s roads – and see us have to build vast multi-storey car parks to accommodate the vehicles. No doubt many of them will have to be built in Camden as it’s outside the congestion charge zone!
There’s also the small matter of freight too. Without the paths for freight that Hs2 frees up on the WCML we’ll be seeing more HGVs on our motorways – and London’s roads. Of course, the problem won’t just be confined to London. Hs2 frees up commuter capacity at other major city stations like Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield & Manchester.
It’s absolutely bonkers but it very neatly illustrates the illogical mindset & ‘I’m alright Jack’ attitude that permeates the anti Hs2 campaign. These people try and hide their Nimbyism with a green figleaf, pretending they’re ‘environmentalists’ when it’s clear from what they claim they’re anything but. There’s only one thing they care about. Themselves.
UPDATE:
Jones is also a very good example of the abusive (& downright defamatory) nature & tactics of many of the anti Hs2 campaigners – as this tweet from last night shows.
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/
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Thank you!
01 Wednesday Jul 2015
Posted in Andy Burnham MP, Michael Dugher MP, Network Rail, PR nightmares, Transport, Twitter
A few commentators and I have observed over the years how politicians don’t understand social media. It seems that many of them think it’s a way to pontificate or score a few cheap points over your political opponents, nothing more. This is especially true of Twitter, where some of them put out all sorts of nonsense & forget that the electorate (many of whom are far better informed) have the right to reply and the unwary can end up getting their arse handed to them on a plate. When a politician decides to tweet, there’s normally no battle scarred Press Officer looking over their shoulder, ready to snatch the phone off them whilst shouting ‘Noooo…’!
The latest victim of this phenomenon is the man who fancies himself as the next Labour leader – Andy Burnham MP, who tweeted this earlier:
Such an uninformed cheap shot at both the Government and the rail industry wasn’t going to go unchallenged. Burnham had left an open goal & one of the first to reply was a rail industry & PR veteran, the ‘Fact Compiler’
In truth, it was an incredibly stupid thing for Burnham to tweet. For a start, there wasn’t ‘total chaos’. I’ve been travelling today & used both the East coast & Midland main lines – including Cross Country services. Apart from some delays, there’s been few real problems. And, believe me, if anyone’s going to suffer from speed restrictions or ‘chaos’ – it’s Cross Country. Their franchise stretches from Cornwall to Scotland! I was at Derby & the latest train I saw indicated was 10 minutes. Nor have I seen ‘chaos’ mentioned in other TOCs Twitter feeds – or on Facebook. What this shows is neither understanding of the railways nor commonsense when it comes to public relations. Needless to say, many other Tweeters (including myself) joined in and Burnham was left looking an idiot. However, he didn’t learn & unabashed, added to his woes with this untruthful & cheap jibe..
Of course, his problem is the fact that trans-pennine electrification & line upgrade hasn’t been cancelled at all, it’s merely been postponed whilst a bigger & more comprehensive scheme is designed. Burnham should know this. If he doesn’t, he’s very questionable Labour leadership material. That said, I’m not too surprised. His leadership campaign manager is Shadow Transport Minister Michael Dugher – also well known for making an arse of himself on social media. (see previous blogs like this).
My concern is this. Is this really the best the Labour party have to offer as future leaders? Can you imagine the likes of Blair, Brown (or even Milliband) making such schoolboy errors? If Burnham (and Dugher) really are the future Labour leadership then I can see only one result in the 2020 election – and it ain’t a Labour win. Having your arse handed to you on a plate via Twitter is one thing, but by voters at a general election?
01 Wednesday Jul 2015
Posted in Airports, Anti Hs2 mob, Heathrow 3rd runway, Hs2
Just as they were sobering up & realising last week’s furore over Network Rail wouldn’t stop Hs2 the anti campaign’s been dealt yet another blow by the Davies commission recommending building a third runway at Heathrow. This has exposed that for many hs2 antis, green issues were merely a figleaf to hide their nimbyism. After all, how can they oppose Hs2 on green grounds yet support building a 3.5km runway with all the associated pollution that will cause?
The truth is, many of those Chiltern Nimbys welcome Heathrow expansion. For them the airports only a short drive down the M40 in a ‘Chelsea tractor’ and they won’t have to put up with the noise, pollution & inconvenience.
So, can we expect the Hs2 anti’s to turn their fire on Heathrow, using the same ‘green’ arguments they trot out against Hs2 to condemn the environmental damage it will cause, or question why we need a 3rd runway if all the planes aren’t full? The immortal words of Jim Royle spring to mind…
