Tag Archives: Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week

Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week. No 27.

30 Sunday Aug 2020

Posted by in Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week, Euston, Hs2, Rail Investment

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Normally I nominate a particular individual who’s displayed Darwin awards levels of stupidity, but this week’s award is a collective one that goes to all those involved with Hs2Rebellion and their latest stupid stunt at Euston, where they claim to have set up their 6th ‘protection’ camp. Here’s the nonsense posted by HS2 Rebellion on their Facebook page.

Anyone who knows anything about the Euston station area and the plans for HS2 will spot the rather obvious flaw in their plans…

This tiny bunch, which includes serial muppet Larch Maxey, whose record of failing to stop anything dates back to 1995 and the motorway around Burnley in Lancashire. But then this is the man who was flummoxed by a pair of electronic doors which he’s failed to superglue himself to, so it’s hardly surprising he’s made yet another hilarious gaffe.

Their problem? The trees they’ve climbed may be at Euston, but they’re on the North-Eastern side – which is outside the boundary and worksites of Hs2! They could sit up there until doomsday – it won’t affect HS2 in the slightest! Here’s a look at the area.

The gardens the HS2Rebellion protesters are in are the ones shown in green, opposite blue coloured Stage B2 of the Euston station redevelopment – which is entirely Network Rail’s responsibility. Only Stage a and B1 are part of the HS2 redevelopment, so whilst their tree-hugging might give them some interesting views of the work on HS2, it ain’t going to stop a thing! Not that the Hs2 stage nearest to them isn’t due to start until 2026 – which is an awfully long time to be sat up a tree, waiting…

You have to laugh as this isn’t the first time HS2rebellion have set up ‘protection’ camps that don’t protect anything that’s actually under threat. Poors Piece at Calvert is another example.

These farcical events won’t stop Hs2 in the slightest, they merely illustrate how inept the remaining anti Hs2 protesters are. Many of the original protesters have had their wings clipped by injunctions or through bail conditions set after them being arrested for futile stunts.

Now the nesting season is coming to an end we can expect to see Hs2’s contractors begin to remove the final small areas of woodland that need to be cleared to begin construction of the railway. This will leave the protesters not up a tree – but certainly up shit creek! I don’t expect the protests to survive such a PR failure. Their rhetoric’s become increasingly shrill and out of touch with reality over the past few weeks as they’ve suffered failure after failure – whilst claiming they’re ‘winning’.

Watch the farce become even more pronounced before winter sets in…

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Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week. No 26.

20 Monday Jul 2020

Posted by in Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week, Hs2

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Yes, it’s back! Despite the fact the campaign against Hs2 has been as pointless as giving away condoms in a convent and most of the old guard of Nimbys and other locals have bowed to the inevitable now its obvious HS2’s being built we’ve had members of Extinction Rebellion move in to provide some comedy gold.

Extinction Rebellion have left a very large hostage to fortune with their slogan ‘Tell the truth”. Here’s an example, with serial porkie teller Chris Packham (exposed in this blog for having pants on fire) holding up their slogan here.

packham

Of course, such a slogan is hypocritical is the extreme as XR members have lied through their teeth about HS2 ever since they became involved. Here’s one classic example. Step forward ‘William’, a American in the UK who calls himself ‘Boots on the ground News’ on Twitter.

william

 

Rather laughably, William claims that “The truth always surfaces” as part of his bio. Well, yes. It often does. But not in the way he meant…

You see, the man is just another of those odd fantasists who’re often drawn to groups like Extinction Rebellion and the campaign against HS2. We’ve seen them in action for years and I’ve documented many of them and their tenuous relationship with reality (and facts) over the years.

Here’s just a few of his recent howlers.

boots lies. 1

Eh? I’m sure I’m not alone in reading this and thinking – ‘hang on, I remember the summer of 1976 and standpipes and water bowsers in the streets – I’ve not seen or heard a dicky-bird about any anywhere in 2020’? Of course, in my neck of the woods (West Yorkshire) I’ve also seen a lot of nearly full reservoirs over the weekend, and earlier in the year I remember the damage caused to my local town. Not by drought – but by floods!

DG339636. Sowerby Bridge floods. 9.2.2020.crop

Oh, the UK metrological office would care to differ too. Here’s a couple of quotes.

“This winter (December, January, February) has been the 5th wettest winter on record (data back to 1862) for the UK as a whole as well as the 5th mildest.”

And…

“Is this due to Climate Change?

Met Office records show there is a recent trend of increasing rainfall on seasonal and annual timescales. Since 1998, we have seen six of the ten wettest years on record. However, rainfall patterns in the UK have always shown a large range of natural variation, which makes it more difficult to unambiguously identify long term trends linked to climate change. However, wetter winters have been observed and is consistent with what we expect to happen in the future with continued climate change.” You can find the rest of what the Met Office has to say here. And Spring? The pictures far more mixed, and more complex.

And what of June? The Met office reports that “Rainfall was 144% of average”! I’m sure those people across the country who were caught up in June rainstorms and flash floods will be as surprised as me to know it never happened! So, the assertion that this is ‘greatest drought the UK has ever seen’? Utter bollocks. The man must have been been getting his weather advice from the Daily Express!

Then there’s these recent classics. It seems that teenage ‘tree protectors’ have the uncanny ability to travel through time and space, allowing them to be in two places simultaneously. Take a look.

windfall. Crackley

On the 18th young ‘Windfall’ lives up a tree in Crackley woods eh? Hang on a minute, on the same day she’s supposedly up a tree in Cubbington woods!

Cubbington windfall

Clearly, it was such a rush to get between the two sites (they are over 6 miles apart) she never had time to change her red top!

woods

I could go on (and on) but as his twitter feed is so full of twaddle, lies and scaremongering I’d be here all night. The fact these people are now the backbone of the ‘campaign’ against HS2 should tell you all you need to know.

Sadly, the UK ‘green’ movement seems to be full of clowns like this. Whilst their European counterparts are helping to cut Co2 emissions by encouraging the modal shift from air/road to rail to tackle climate change, these muppets are trying to sabotage building the rail capacity we need to be able to follow their lead. The good thing is they’re so bloody useless they’ve not stopped a thing!  My only concerns are twofold. The damage they’re doing to the reputation to the wider green movement, and the facts they’re filling the heads of young people like these misguided but well-meaning protesters with lies. They deserve better.

“Tell the truth”? The immortal words of ‘Jim Royle’ spring to mind…

jim royle

It would be good to see more people challenge the likes of @bearwitness2019 over the crap they fill impressionable young minds with. Feel free…

 

 

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Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week. No 23.

04 Monday Nov 2019

Posted by in Brexit, Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week, Hs2, Politics

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I didn’t expect to be bringing this back twice in a week, but then we’re in general election mode which has thrown up all sorts of nonsense, not least from the anti HS2 camp who’re really making me laugh!

The latest exponent of this craziness is one Peter Deeley, an ardent Brexiter (funny how so often being pro Brexit and anti Hs2 goes together, Ed). Deeley is a former Parish Councillor in Boddington which is in the Daventry constituency. You can find him on Twitter as @PDeeley. He’s always been one of those who’re opposed to HS2 who never lets fact get in the way of fiction, especially when it come to claiming how many people actually oppose HS2! If you believed his rambling tweets, the whole country’s united in opposition to HS2! Here’s one of the latest examples, as Deeley tries (and fails) to get people to retweet him.

This was yesterday. Since then, Deeley’s been on a continuous and tedious loop with the same basic tweet and getting nowhere fast as no-one’s interested. But how can this be? Deeley claims there’s “hundreds of thousands” of potential Tory voters willing to switch allegiance because of HS2!

Really? Where?

Well, not in his own constituency for a start! Here’s how many in Daventry signed the last StopHs2 petition which finished last week.

Just 100 signatures, or 0.101% of the 99,130 constituents in Daventry. So where are these ‘hundreds of thousands’ then? They exist only in Deeley’s fevered imagination! That ridiculous petition only got 24,079 signatures, nowhere near ‘hundreds of thousands’. Nor have their been any sign of all these people in a single election since 2010. This is the stupidity of these people, it’s pure bluster and it’s so easy to disprove you have to wonder what the hell’s the point? Who do they think they’re fooling other than themselves?

Of course, there’s the usual hypocrisy at large here. Whilst claiming he’d vote Tory if Johnson releases the Oakervee report, Deeley’s not clever enough not to have let the cat out of the bag in his own Twitter feed. His intention’s always been to support the Brexit party, no matter what.

There’s a double irony here. The MP for Daventry is one Chris Heaton-Harris, a Brexit zealot and member of the European Research Group and former group Chair! But then when have these Brexiters ever made sense?

Talking of Farage and the Brexit party, it’s a great shame the man has declared that he’s not going to stand in any constituency in this election as we’ll be deprived of the pleasure of seeing him beaten for the eighth time. Of course, the Brexit party are only Farage’s latest vehicle for his ego, and it’s certainly the strangest. It’s very much his party as it has no national executive or structure, everything is in his control, right down to him charging folk £100 a head for the chance to get on the list of candidates. To say the whole process is bent and the antithesis of democracy is an understatement, but then it’s typical that the people who bang on about the EU being ‘undemocratic’ are the biggest hypocrites.

These are the people that fantasists like Deeley are in bed with. Is it any wonder no-one takes these StopHs2 keyboard warriors seriously anymore?

Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week – N0 20

17 Friday Mar 2017

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, MAPA

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It’s a long time since I’ve highlighted one of these but I couldn’t resist this one!

Step forward Stephen Leary, a member of MAPA (Measham, Appleby, Packington, Austrey  HS2 Action) in Leicestershire. This group seems to represent about 1% of the local population. I’m being generous here as that’s roughly how many turned up to their inaugural meeting. Leary is the self-appointed keeper of their Twitter feed, and he’s hilarious! Check out @MeashamHS2Actio to see. The group claim that their aim is to “To make a coordinated response across the villages to HS2 issues affecting our communities” and to “To collect information and research the case against the HS2 Measham Re-Route”. But Leary spends most of his time retweeting any old rubbish that opposes the whole concept of Hs2 – 95% of which has absolutely nothing to do with or relevance to Measham and communities or the phase of Hs2 they’re part of (2b). Leary also seems rather obsessed with the number of views his tweets get, hence tweets like this.

Leary. 17.3.17

Quite what Crewe, which is on a completely different leg of Hs2 to Measham has to do with “our communities” is a mystery – as is how advertising that the number of folk engaging with your tweets is tiny will persuade anyone to take you seriously! Still, I’m sure the people who follow him (hardly any of whom live in the Measham area) will be inundating the Phase 2 Hybrid Committee with petitions to get the Leicestershire route of Hs2 changed. Or perhaps not. Here’s some of his 70 followers…

leary followers

 

I’m sure they’ve both been terribly busy drafting responses to the consultation- as were all the Chiltern Nimbys who follow him…

I can’t help laughing at a campaign this inept. They’re spending all their time re-running the same tactics that failed to stop Hs2 phase 1 – as if it’s suddenly going to work second time around. The way they’ve woefully misunderstood how social media works is rather amusing too. A few folk shouting at each other on Twitter was never going to change anything. Leary has added his own unique contribution by not understanding how hashtags work, which means his  multiple tweets are reminiscent of the comedian Norman Collier. His routine was based around someone talking into an intermittent microphone!

MAPA may well have a short life. The consultation that closed on March 9th will soon reveal whether local residents back or oppose the route change. If the result is that more people support the change than oppose it, then MAPA is irrelevant.

Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week No 18..

04 Monday Jan 2016

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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. I’ll do an update on this petition and the embarassment its providing for the StopHs2 campaign in a couple of weeks, when it’s clear it’s fading away.

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

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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…

Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week. No 16

01 Tuesday Dec 2015

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Although the week has only just begun I think it’s going to be hard to beat this lunacy from the Twitter account of the Mid Cheshire anti Hs2 group.

Admittedly, they have a lot of form for spouting complete nonsense. After all, it was one of their members who claimed that the anti Hs2 campaign was bigger than the 1990s poll tax demonstrations (stop sniggering at the back!). I doubted they’d be able to top that but I have to say the anti Hs2 mob always seem to be able to exceed my expectations. Take a look at this..

Mid ches

So, there you have it. Don’t cure rail gridlock, don’t build a catalyst for massive regeneration in our major cities. Don’t create tens of thousands of jobs that will up-skill the workforce (who will then pay tax back to the government) – simply bung every ‘poor’ person in the UK £20,000 of taxpayers money, gratis – job done.

Quite what they’d been ingesting when they came up with this stunning idea is open to conjecture….

For some reason only a couple of other antis latched on to the idea, presumably because anyone with half a brain stopped and thought – “what the actual f***!”

With this level of intellect, grasp of economics and understanding of politics powering the anti Hs2 campaign, what could possibly go wrong?

Crazy (& obnoxious) anti hs2 campaigner of the week No15

14 Saturday Nov 2015

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week, Paris terror attack, Peter Jones

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As the anti Hs2 campaign continues to implode and gets more desperate by the week it’s become harder to single out a single campaigner for the weekly award. Nowadays, crazy sums up their whole campaign.

That changed today when Peter Jones, the obnoxious and libelous Camden campaigner came out with something so utterly crass and blinkered that it takes your breath away.

Like many people, I’ve spent the past 12 hours watching with horror as the tragic events unfolded in Paris. This morning it became clear just how awful the scale of the terrorist attack had been. Along with people worldwide I was moved to show solidarity with Paris and the people caught up by displaying a symbol drawn up by a young man who then shared it on social media. That symbol has since gone viral. You can read about it here – although I’m sure many of you will have already seen it.

Enter Peter Jones, who posted this on Twitter this morning (hence my reply);

dd fuckwit

Since then this has been retweeted by several other anti Hs2 campaigners. As their campaign’s collapsed cheap insults have become Jones’ and the anti hs2 mobs stock in trade. Typically, each time you think they couldn’t sink any lower they manage to dig another basement level. One can only hope that their increasingly extreme and unpleasant campaign isn’t digging basement levels but its own grave…

UPDATE:

To cement his title to the crown, Jones has added ambulance-chasing to his list of odious accomplishments. To compound French woes there has been a rail accident today. A high-speed test train has derailed on a yet to be opened TGV line, killing five of the technicians aboard. Jones triumphantly & sickly uses this incident in a crude attempt to scaremonger & smear high speed rail in general & Hs2 in particular, then pretends a 2014 incident in which a TER service hit a TGV was a second accident today!

TGV 1

TGV2

Note there’s not a single drop of sympathy anywhere for the dead and injured, or their families, just triumphalism. Jones and his fellow travellers in the anti Hs2 campaign are beneath contempt.

16 November UPDATE

Here’s proof (where any more needed) from this evening that Jones is a brass-necked hypocrite of the first water who has the cheek to accuse me of exploiting tragedy!

DD hypocrisy

Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week: No 14

29 Tuesday Sep 2015

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Despite the fact it’s only Tuesday there seems little chance anyone will come out with anything as supremely idiotic as the Hs2 Action Alliance have managed to do with this tweet!

Hs2aa hypocrisy

Devoid of all fact & knowledge of the steel industry, it’s a superb example of the intellectual bankruptcy of the anti Hs2 campaign.

The Thai owned Redcar plant is our last steelworks? That will come as a shock to Indian owned Tata Steel and their workers who are busy making steel at Scunthorpe in North Lincolnshire and Port Talbot in South Wales. Not to mention their plants in Tostre, Llanwern, Shotton, Rotherham, Stocksbridge, Motherwell and Teeside…

Contrary to popular belief these new rails were NOT made by TATA Steel in Scunthorpe apparently, as according to Hs2aa the plant doesn't exist!

Contrary to popular belief these new rails were NOT made by TATA Steel in Scunthorpe apparently, as according to Hs2aa the plant doesn’t exist!

Then again, what do a few privileged Chiltern Nimbys (because that’s who Hs2aa are) know about the steel industry? Or anywhere outside their own little bubble in Bucks for that matter.

Roping in Redcar to their campaign to Stophs2 is breathtakingly hypocritical of them as one of the reasons the plant is being mothballed is a lack of orders for the steel it produces. A situation that would be vastly improved when the construction of Hs2 begins as the project will be using enormous quantities of steel products. If you really want to help UK steel producers, the last thing you want to do is cancel the largest construction project in the UK & Europe.

Their other claim that “Osborne offers £11bn to China” is equally idiotic & dishonest. China hasn’t been offered anything more than the opportunity to bid for Hs2 contracts – just like everyone else. There’s no guarantees the Chinese will even bid – never mind win. There’s also the inconvenient fact EU rules forbid what Hs2aa claim . But hey, why let the facts get in the way of a bit of good old fashioned scaremongering eh?

What this rubbish shows is how desperate anti Hs2 campaigners have become. All pretense of reasoned argument has been dropped in a last ditch attempt to lash out at a project they know they can’t stop. Still, they will provide one useful lesson for future campaigners. Don’t run a media campaign that’s based on bullshit.

Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week: No 13

26 Saturday Sep 2015

Posted by in Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week, Hs2, StopHs2

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This weeks award goes to StopHs2 Chair Penny Gaines for an absolutely bonkers & delusional tweet she’s just posted from the Green party conference in Bournemouth!

elepahnt

If a disinterested passer-by is what Penny thinks is “attracting attention” it’s no wonder the anti Hs2 campaign’s in such dire straits. Notice the complete absence of any Stophs2 protesters. We’re assured (by them) that their campaign’s unstoppable & going from strength to strength – so where is everybody?

With support like this, is it any wonder politicians are ignoring them?