Tag Archives: Politics

The political circus rolls on.

24 Friday May 2019

Posted by in Brexit, Politics

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

,

We woke up this morning to the news that Prime Minister Teresa May has announced she’s standing down on the 7th June, triggering a new leadership election. Her successor will be voted for by the Tory party membership, which (according to the Bow group) has an average age of 72. God help us all, the next leader of the country is going to be decided on by a bunch of retired septuagenarians who will be overwhelmingly white and wealthy – and almost certainly readers of those propaganda sheets, the Daily Mail and Telegraph! We are fucked. Deeply, deeply, fucked.

How deeply we’re fucked can be seen when you realise who the current favourite is, none other than that lying imbecile, Boris Johnson, a man who only has one interest and loyalty in life: himself.

So, our country is about to be led by a man twice sacked for lying and who’s proved himself both lazy and incompetent. A man who was an awful, part time mayor of London that wasted millions on water cannon and garden bridges whilst dreaming up even more vainglorious schemes such as the ‘Boris Island’ airport in the Thames. A man who trashed the UK’s reputation abroad when he was made Foreign Secretary. A man who no foreign leader takes seriously and who who has a history of making racist comments. A man who was one of the prime architects of the whole Brexit shambles. a man without honour or decency, who once helped an old friend arrange for a fellow journalist to be beaten up. This man will likely be our next Prime Minister and crash us out of the EU in yet another of his jolly japes.

God help us all. If only a general election could save us from this as the opposition has a fantastic and charismatic leader who the country can turn to. Oh, wait, Labour’s led by ‘magic Grandad’ Jeremy Corbyn and his coterie of hard leftists like Seamus Milne and John McDonnell.

See? I told you we were fucked.

 

The age of (un)reason.

20 Monday May 2019

Posted by in Musings, Politics

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

,

I often wonder, when did dumb become the new cool? When did it become fashionable to parade ignorance, bigotry and intolerance – or just plain stupidity? I wonder this partly in reaction to the shambles this country has turned into since the 2016 Brexit referendum and partly because of my own personal experiences, travels and increasing age – which gives me more years to look back over then I really care to. I’m not entirely sure where I’m going with this blog, there’s no conclusion at the end of it, merely a series of thoughts

The answer (of course) is complex, although plenty of folk would like you to believe it’s simple, depending on their own prejudices. Normally it’s because they’ve someone to blame for it. It’s the EU, or foreigners, or immigrants. Or it might be ‘political correctness’, or a lack of ‘discipline’, or whatever their favourite tabloid newspaper repeatedly tells them it is.

I’m not looking to apportion blame. I’m just trying to make sense of it all.

I can’t work out when we slipped from a country that valued knowledge to one that spurns it. When did we move from a society that celebrated a thirst for learning to one that’s elevated the right to hold an opinion, no matter how wrong-headed or plain stupid above all else. It’s a phrase you’ll often hear on social media or in pubs. “I’m entitled to my opinion” they’ll say, without once questioning how bonkers, bigoted, fact-free or plain bat-shit crazy it is – and woe betide if you do. Especially if you use pesky little things like facts, reason and (never, ever use) logic.

I suppose, thinking back it’s always been like this in a way. Only now, most of us have this little device in our pocket that allows us to access levels of information we could only have dreamed about 30 years ago.

I can’t remember where I saw it, but someone once wrote a piece on how would you explain a mobile phone to Shakespeare.

“I hold in my hand a machine that allows me to access the sum of human knowledge. I use it for looking at pictures of kittens and getting into arguments with strangers”.

There’s no doubt that some of our interaction has been coarsened by use of things like Facebook and Twitter and yes, I admit that includes me too at times! But it can also be a fabulous tool for good. What I can’t understand are the folk who insist on parading their ignorance on social media then double-down on it when presented with facts.

Which leads me back to Brexit and politics. We now gave a political class that lies through its teeth as a matter of course. Nigel Farage is a classic example. Sadly, much of the media seem to collude in this. How often do you see/hear a politician challenged for outright lying?

Eschewing logic for emotion seems to be partly to blame too. It’s that abrogation of all control. That almost anything is excusable because you were annoyed or worked up and it’s actually the fault of whatever (or whoever) annoyed you in the first place – not the fact you can’t control your words, or deeds. It’s the age old excuse of the abuser: you made them do it. Only now we see it writ large in reactionary politics.

I find it hard to understand because I’ve always loved logic. ‘Star Trek’s’ Mr Spock and Arthur Conan Doyle’s ‘Sherlock Holmes’ were early influences on me, as was a love of literature and an interest in science. Nowadays it seems, emotion and opinion trumps logic and reason and the world is a sadder and more dangerous place for it…

This age of (un)reason frightens me as it’s fertile ground for fascism. Fascists have simple solutions plus people to blame for problems and they’re on the rise in Britain. Brexit has made fascism and the xenophobia that goes with it respectable again. Now the ‘liberal elite’ are the enemy. You know, liberals, people who can think, reason and balance arguments, so are immune to the siren calls of the fascists. But who are the ‘elite’? Why, folk like ‘man of the people’ Farage and the dodgy millionaires and media moguls who fund or prosleytise his views for their own ends. The parallels with 1930s Germany are real.

By nature I’m an optimist. I have to admit the past years have taken their toll on my store of such. Now I seriously wonder what the future holds in store…

HS2 news.

18 Saturday May 2019

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Harvil Rd Hs2 protest, Hs2, Politics, Rail Investment, StopHs2

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , ,

I’ve not had time to blog about HS2 or the doomed stop Hs2 campaign recently as I’ve been too busy and the news has been anything but positive for the antis. Yes, they’ve had two high profile events in the past week, but one of them was an excruciating failure and the other (which wasn’t much better) will make no difference at all.

The first ‘big’ event was the Taxpayers Alliance releasing a ‘report’ into what they claimed were viable alternatives to HS2. Who did they get to launch the report? David Davis MP, formerly the Brexit Minister until he resigned – just as he has from so many positions before! Why on earth they though the man who Dominic Cummings, former Campaign Director of Vote Leave famously described as thick as “thick as mince, lazy as a toad and vain as Narcissus” would add credibility is a mystery! At the launch, Davis described the plans as worked out in “exquisite” detail. His problem? Many of them were worked out on the back of a fag packet! As usual, Davis was just making stuff up. Then again, so were the TPA, so maybe that was his attraction?

Not only were some of the schemes mentioned sketchy to say the least, the TPA had lifted many of them without permission, leaving their original proposers spitting blood! It got worse. The High Speed Rail Industry Leaders put out a waspish press release which pointed out that the TPA couldn’t even add up! Here’s what they said. Feel the burn!

HSRIL statement

Things got even worse for the TPA when it became clear Northern leaders were having none of their nonsense either. Here’s what Henri Murison, director of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, had to say in the Chronicle!

“Northern business and civic leaders all agree we need HS2, Northern Powerhouse Rail and more investment in key road and mass transit schemes for city regions.

Why should hard pressed taxpayers in the North, who pay double the amount of road tax and fuel duty than those living in London, be forced to make a choice between them after decades of underinvestment here?

This half-baked plan is an embarrassment to the Tax Payers Alliance because the sums don’t add up.” He added: “Northerners are not going to stand for cancelling HS2 in order to pay for a list of schemes decided by a bunch of Westminster bubble types trying to impress Tory leadership candidates”.

Another burn delivered!

Of course, it’s no co-incidence that most of the Tory opposition to Hs2 comes from the same Brexity right-wing fringe that David Davis et al inhabit. Much of it is centred on the address of those secretive lobby groups the TPA and IEA: 55 Tufton St.

The next embarrassment came with the release of the House of Lords Economic Committee report into Hs2. It was a wishy-washy, piss-poor bit of work that had clearly decided what it was going to say before they’d even bothered taking evidence. They tried to cast doubts on Hs2, mostly by trotting out the same old stuff the last Lords Committee had (see this earlier blog). Their tactic of trying to play off Northern rail investment against Hs2 is straight out of the IEA/TPA playbook. But that’s hardly surprising as the collusion is obvious, as is the prominence of Brexiters on the Ctte, like Lord Lamont and the Chair of the Committee, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean.

The morning the report was published, Alistair Darling (aka Lord Darling of Roulanish)was trotted out to on the TV to say that more investment is needed in the North – but Hs2 isn’t it. As usual he was given a free ride by the media, none of whom seemed to know his history. I’ll sum it up thus “Man who cancelled major investment in the North calls for major investment in the North”. Hypocritical, no? As Labour Transport Minister and later Chancellor of the Exchequer Darling created the very problem he was complaining about. It was he who pulled money from the Liverpool and Leeds tram schemes at the last moment (Liverpool had even gone out and bought the tramway rails in readiness!). He also stopped the ‘big bang’ expansion of the Manchester tram network. As Transport Minister he oversaw electrification of a piddling 9 miles of UK railway, the section from Crewe to Kidsgrove, and that was it.

The report has not gone down well. The British Chambers of Commerce were less than impressed. Their spokesman said this:

BCC

Worse was to come as others digested the report. Nottingham MP and Chair of the Transport Select Committee spotted a faux-pas straight away, tweeting this;

greenwood

Both Transport for West Midlands (TfWM) and the West Midlands Rail Executive (WMRE) piled in too, issuing this well informed and highly critical statement. The Nottingham Post followed up on Lilian’s point, observing that the Lords hadn’t mentioned Toton once! The absence of mentions of the Midlands is hardly surprising when you think about it. The region gets in the way of the Lords trying to play the Northern narrative. I’ve little doubt that this report will be as unsuccessful at stopping Hs2 as the last one, which it’s destined to sit alongside on the Lords library shelves, gathering dust.

On Thursday afternoon I listened to Labour’s Shadow Transport Minister make his keynote speech at the Railtex trade fair. he made it crystal clear that neither the TPA or Lords had changed the party’s stance on Hs2 and they remained solidly behind the project.

DG323493crop

The week got even worse for stophs2 when the latest YouGov opinion poll came out, as it blew out of the water their oft-repeated claim that the country ‘overwhelmingly’ opposes HS2. They often trot out figures claiming 80-90% of folk don’t want it. Here’s the reality.

YouGov May 2019

Note the figure for London where more folks support than oppose Hs2! This will cause consternation amongst the remaining Camden Nimbys. The reality is that a huge amount of work putting the case for Hs2 is now being made by regional political and business leaders across the country. Add to that the fact the economic impact of 1000s of Hs2 related jobs is being felt and you can start to understand why opinions will shift in favour of Hs2. There’s also a lot more positive publicity around the project and there’s an awful lot more to come. The fact work on the ground has started means that what was seen as a vague concept for so many years is now being seen as something that’s tangible.

There’s two other pieces of bad news for Hs2 antis. The two new petitions they’ve started on the Government website are both bombing. They both close in October but they’ve already run out of steam. The one started by the Bucks Herald has a measly 8521 signatures after a month, whilst the one StopHs2 started has just scraped past the 16,000 mark today. It’s only been going 20 days but its already falling well below the daily average it needs to succeed. It’s doomed.

stophs2 petition

The final piece of bad news for Hs2 antis is that the High Court has extended the scope of the injunction governing the (ineffectual) protests at the Harvil Rd site. This will cramp their style even futher.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A history of stop Hs2 petitions and their failures.

04 Saturday May 2019

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, Hs2 petitions, Politics, Railways, StopHs2

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

There’s been a real embarrassment of riches recently. We’ve had not one, but three petitions on the Government website about trying to stop Hs2! The first one closed on the 24th April, having received just 16,356 signatures. I’ve not had the time to crunch the numbers on it yet, but the map makes it very obvious where the most signatures came from, and yes – it was from a tiny bunch of Nimbys on the route! It’s easy to trace where phase 1 of HS2 is going on here!

map 1

Just before that petition closed, the Editor of the Bucks Herald started another, which runs until the 17th October (see this blog). After just 16 days it’s already run out of steam and underperforming on its daily target. At the time of writing it’s received just 7,802 signatures. Let’s have a look at what the signature map tells us, shall we?

map 2

My, what a surprise – it’s almost identical to the first! The constituencies Hs2 phase 1 are clearly visible, along with a couple that Phase 2 passes through! So much for the idea those opposed to Hs2 aren’t Nimbys! Now, lets have a look at the very latest petition which was started by Joe Rukin of StopHs2 six days ago. So far it’s not reached ‘peak Nimby’ and it’s been touted by some environmental groups and celebrities like Chris Packham. Now, on that basis you expect it would have far greater coverage, wouldn’t you? Let’s have a look at the map then…

map 3.PNG

Well, well, well, it’s almost identical to the other two! The only major difference is the numbers of constituencies (in grey) where no-one’s signed it! Yet again, the route of Hs2 Phase 1 sticks out like a sore thumb!

Bear in mind that 6.5 million people live in the constituencies that Hs2 passes through. So, if all these people are against the project, why are the numbers of signatures so small? Even the last doomed petition which closed in 2018 didn’t make it to 30,000 signatures (link).

Just for a bit of fun, let’s have a look at the map for the 2018 petition. Can you guess what it’ll look like?

map 6

Well, blow me down with a feather! Spot the route of HS2!

The only question now about the two active petitions is what number they’ll fail at. Rooting through some archives I came across an even earlier petition, started by Rukin back in 2012. That closed on the 4th August after getting a measly 26,262 signatures!

map 5

These petitions do make me laugh, all they ever do is expose the fact the Stop Hs2 ‘campaign’ is (in reality) driven by a tiny bunch of people living close to the route of the line. Despite all their claims about the ‘majority’ of the UK opposing Hs2 they can never get more than a few thousand signatures on a petition, but they never learn…

HS2: the story the BBC managed to miss.

18 Thursday Apr 2019

Posted by in Hs2, Politics, Railways, The BBC

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

This morning the BBC has reported that Hs2 Ltd have spent £600m buying up properties on the route of the new railway. As is usual with a lot of BBC reporting nowadays, their superficial reporting only tells half the story. Here’s a link to the piece by the BBC’s Dan Rhodes, which has the headline “More than 900 properties worth nearly £600m have been bought by the company responsible for delivering High Speed Rail 2 (HS2), figures show.”

The piece contains all the usual predictable stuff, an interview with someone who claims “we was robbed” because their home was allegedly undervalued and a few comments from those opposed to Hs2 to satisfy the BBC’s unhealthy obsession with ‘balance’. But Rhodes fails to mention several things. One is that this process has been going on since 2011 (although that’s obvious from the chart he uses) and in that time Hs2 has actually made tens of millions for the taxpayer by renting out the properties it’s bought – as the Times reported way back in December 2016.

FT

Imagine what that figure must be now, several years on!

Another thing that Rhodes fails to mention is that many of the homes purchased aren’t scheduled for demolition, they will be resold at a later date – at a profit, to people who really aren’t bothered about living near a railway, just like all those people who buy new homes on old railway goods yards right next to railway stations!

The other thing that has escaped Rhodes attention is there’s another story here. That of a dying anti Hs2 campaign. Let’s look at the chart.

homes bought

The anti Hs2 campaign has always been strongest in the Chilterns and one or two other locations on the phase 1 route. Essentially, it’s always been a Nimby based protest (with a few political types trying to exploit the issue for their own ends). But those Nimbys have been bought out in their hundreds – and not just on phase 1. By buying them out, Hs2 has poured weedkiller on the grassroots of the campaign which is running out of people and money. As a consequence, many local Stophs2 ‘action’ groups have shut up shop. This is reflected on their social media presence as people stop Tweeting or posting on Facebook as Hs2’s no longer their concern. As each month passes, more are bought out and move on and the lifeblood of the campaign drains away, never to return…

Forget the bluster of the few remaining activists who claim opposition to Hs2 is ‘growing’, the real numbers tell a very different story!

 

Juggling…

09 Tuesday Apr 2019

Posted by in Brexit, Musings, Photography, Politics, Railways

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

After yesterday’s travels today’s been spent at home to catch up on the huge volume of pictures that I’ve taken or scanned over the past week. That’s the only downside to pictures – they have to be edited and labelled and grouped before being transferred to my website. It’s a surprisingly time-consuming process that’s not helped by me trying to be more active this week as scanning all these old slides means I’m sitting around on my backside for much of the day, developing corns on my bum rather then getting some exercise.

There’s also the temptation to pay too much attention to social media and the latest news of the country completely losing the plot over Brexit. OK, I take that back. The country lost the plot ages ago. Now we’re completely through the looking glass! Having jst about exhausted their list of people to blame for the failure of Brexit (other than themselves), Brexiters have come up with an absolute stunner. The Queen’s to blame! No, that wasn’t a typo – They. Are. Calling. The. Queen. A. Traitor! Why? Because yesterday she signed the bill delaying Brexit beyond April 11th that was passed by err, Parliament…

Now remember, these are the people who’re always bleating about ‘democracy’ and ‘Sovereignty’, two concepts that most of them clearly know zip about! If it wasn’t so tragic (and dangerous) it would be a superb comic moment. As it is, the satirical website ‘The Poke’ has poked fun at them – and very effectively too (link) – aided and abetted by furious readers of the Daily Mail! Some of the comments on the Mail’s website make me seriously question the sanity of their readers, never mind their intelligence…

So, another month and another date we should have left the EU passes. Anyone with half a brain can see what an utter shambles this is. The UK’s a laughing stock around the world. Now the EU’s having to save us from ourselves and (hopefully) set a much extended date for article 50 whilst we try and sort ourselves out – which is going to be no easy task because the lunatics (of all political shades) are still in charge of the asylum and haven’t got a clue what to do. Even some of the hardline Brexit supporters (well, those one’s who haven’t been lobotomised) are starting to think – hence Peter Oborne’s volte face here.

The wrangling and the humiliation continues in Brussels, where Teresa May is, yet again, making a fool of herself and the country with EU leaders. Luckily for us, they seem to care more about the UK than she does, and seem poised to insist on a year long extension of article 50 in the hope it’ll give us chance to sort out our own mess. We shall see…

Right, it’s time for me to return to scanning a few more old slides. Here’s one from the latest batch, taken at Warrington Bank Quay station on the 20th June 1995.

04994. 87017. Working to Preston. Warrington Bank Quay. 20.6.95crop

Class 87 No 87017 ‘Iron Duke’ calls at Warrington Bank Quay whilst working a Euston to Preston service in BR days – long before Pendolino’s were even though about.

You can find the rest of the old slide scans as well as all the new pictures by following this link to my Zenfolio website. It’ll take you to the ‘recents’ section and show you which galleries have been updated.

Midweek miscellany

03 Wednesday Apr 2019

Posted by in Brexit, Musings, Politics, Railways

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

Today’s been one of those mixed days, full of promise that never quite lived up to expectations. I was up early in order to edit another batch of old slides that I’d scanned the pervious evening. Whilst I kept one eye on them the other eye was on the weather forecast, which was all over the shop! Whilst the thermometer genuinely hovered around zero we were promised anything from snow to lightning storms by the weather reports. Sadly, neither arrived, despite my constant trips from my office to keep a watchful eye out across the Calder Valley from the bedroom. The camera bag and I stayed in the warm, whilst my mind was cast back 20 years as I looked at pictures where many of them I hadn’t seen since I took them.

All in all, it’s been a productive day as it wasn’t just about scanning slides. My email inbox is now several pages lighter whilst my diary’s put on weight. The most bitterly frustrating thing is not to know how to reply to a press invite to an event in Austria at the end of April. Neither I nor some of my UK colleagues have a clue how to respond due to the Brexit shambles as our status as accredited EU journalists is up in the air. Will we need work permits? We haven’t got a clue and no-one can tell us. We’re just another group caught up in the infernal Brexit mess that shows every sign of ending badly for the UK.

I’m so utterly pissed-off with those of my fellow citizens who see this all as some jingoistic game that we’ll ‘win’ purely because we’re British, so obviously ‘superior’.  After all, didn’t we ‘win’ two world wars? The political and economic illiteracy is frightening, as is the hubris. Part of me has got to the stage where I really can’t blame the other EU members for wanting to say “oh, just f**k off then” in order that we get the reality check we richly deserve and Parliament desperately needs. Because, whatever Brexiters claim, we’ve not taken back control – unless you think deciding when to blow your own brains out is ‘control’. The EU’s in the driving seat now and will be for the discernible future. Very soon the penny’s going to start to drop that we’re the supplicants. Not only that, but we’ll be the country at the mercy of everyone else as our weakness will be obvious to everyone but the jingoists. And the really dumb thing? This is just the start of our problems. The ‘divorce’ from the EU should have been the easy bit! Now we’ve got to negotiate a new relationship, which isn’t easy when you’re the ones who’ve just shat in the bed…

OK, enough of this political and economic omnishambles for now. Here’s one of the latest batch of slides I’ve been scanning. This is Barnetby (Lincs) on the 3rd August 1999.

06999. 56063. 6D66. Immingham - Doncaster Enterprise. Barnetby. 3.8.99crop

This is classic ‘old railway’ despite the change of traction power from steam to diesel. Class No 56063 heads West past the impressive array of old semaphore signals at Barnetby East with 6D66, an Immingham – Doncaster ‘Enterprise’ mixed freight working. The semaphores and signalbox lasted until December 2015 when they were finally replaced with modern colour-light signalling controlled from York ROC.

Tonight I finished the last of the slides from the 1999 album I have to hand. They’ll appear on my Zenfolio site tomorrow. Next I step back in time to 1995…

Welcome to life in a failed state.

01 Monday Apr 2019

Posted by in Brexit, Politics

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

,

I really don’t know whether I should laugh or cry at the news that Parliament is so screwed up that it’s not managed to find a way out of the absolute shit-show that’s Brexit tonight. Saying that the lunatics have taken over the asylum doesn’t do it justice as the lunatics have been in charge ever since the result of the Brexit referendum back in 2016. We’re ruled by a significant part of Parliament and the Lords that has absolute shit for brains – and that’s not a party political point. I’m an equal opportunities cynic so I can see MPs (and Lords) from all parties who fit that bill. Some of our elected members – and also Lords appointees – have completely lost the plot. Right now I could really let rip at the cakeism and venal opportunism that infects our Governing bodies. None of them are thinking about what’s best for the country. Instead we’ve been caught up in a perfect storm. We’ve got a Tory party who’ve let an internal brawl over Europe spill into the streets via a flawed and corrupt referendum – and at the same time we have the weakest and most dogmatic Labour leadership in living memory. All of them are playing politics. None of them are doing what’s best for the country. Instead, they’re pretending they can make Unicorns exist. It doesn’t matter if it’s a blue or a red one – all you have to do is believe – and vote for them!

Looking at this utter shambles, and how an old and out of touch (but arrogant) democracy can be so easily reduced to this would actually be a salutary lesson – if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s my country and that of some 66 million other souls. We’re not a banana republic, but that’s what we’re reducing ourselves to. Right now I can’t help thinking that the best thing the EU can do is cut us adrift in the hope that will (eventually) allow common-sense to intrude on a county that clearly is in desperate need of a reality check.

What the events of the past few years have shown is that our political system and the old allegiances are broken. We have nutters to the left of us as well as to the right. all are driven by dogma, not what’s best for the country – and that’s what needs fixing. The old joke that you could stick a red/blue rosette on a pig (depending on the constituency) and it would get elected has come back to haunt us.

Meanwhile, if I were you – I’d keep stockpiling those tinned goods…

 

The Brexit shambles goes on, and on and…

27 Wednesday Mar 2019

Posted by in Brexit, Down memory lane, London, Politics, Railways

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

I’m losing the will to live…

Right now I’m sat at home in front of the laptop, scanning more old slides and listening to the live debate on Brexit in Parliament, where MPs are playing a political game of ‘It’s a Knockout’, gradually showing support (or not) for various propositions which included crashing out of the EU and a second referendum. The result was that disaster wasn’t averted, it was merely delayed. No resolution had a majority to pass so all failed. Instead, they can be graded by the number of votes.

The problem is that we can see that, despite everything that’s happened over the past few years, there’s still a significant number of MPs who are away with the fairies – or should that be Unicorns? A subtext of all these machinations has been that some of the main Brexit players on the Tory side are ditching all their (claimed) principles for two reasons. Either they see Brexit slipping away from them (and their hope of financial enrichment) or they’re manoeuvring to bid for the role of Prime Minister now that it’s painfully obvious that Teresa May is a ‘dead man walking’. Yes, I mean you Jacob Rees Mogg and Boris Johnson!

The only thing to come out of today is that the Brexit can has officially been kicked down the road – for what it’s worth. Now we have to wait until Monday to find out what Parliament mat decide to do. The one ray of hope is that the motion for a second referendum received the highest number of votes and may yet pass – although my personal preference is for Parliament just to revoke article 50 and save us all from the bloody hassle and uncertainty!

After seeing how useless some MPs of all parties are at sticking up for the best interests of the country and their constituents there’s a task of Augean stables proportions needed here. Voters need to stop voting for pigs just because of the colour of the rosettes pinned to them. Instead they need to ditch the old tribal allegiances and vote for candidates who genuinely want to serve their country instead of themselves or their narrow political dogma.

Finally, the house adjourned for the day and I could concentrate on other matters. I’ve managed to scan another 40 old rail slides today, which include the early days of privatisation. I particularly like these two. This is London Kings Cross on the 29th July 1997 when GNER had stamped its image on the East Coast Main Line. Well, it’s early image, because if you notice, their logo’s in white, which gave way to gold lettering after just a few months. In the foreground is the unique 89001 which was brought back from store to add extra capacity to the fleet. GNER really sweated the fleet compared to BR. If I remember rightly, they ran double the number of services with the same fleet. Now, 22 years later, the scene is set to change even more as the existing Intercity fleet (now run by LNER) is being replaced by the new Hitachi built ‘Azuma’ trains, the first of which will enter service in May.

06767. 89001. Kings Cross. 29.7.97crop

A couple of days later I was over at Clapham Junction, where engineers were renewing track through platform 10. In those days safety standards were a lot more relaxed. The worksite was separated from the operational railway by a bit of plastic tape and the PPE (Protective Personal Equipment) that rail staff wore – whilst better than it was 15 years earlier – was nothing compared to today’s standards! Another thing to notice is how tatty and run-down the overbridge was compared to today.

06776. Relaying track in platform 10. Clapham Junction. 31.7.97crop

Right, that’s enough from me. Now it’s time to call it a day…

 

 

 

 

Another day in Brexit Britain…

26 Tuesday Mar 2019

Posted by in Brexit, Food, Musings, Photography, Politics, West Yorkshire

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

The farce that is British politics shows no sign of allowing reality to intrude at the moment, despite it knocking at the door – and shouting through the letterbox. The band of Brexiters are tying themselves in knots to justify both Brexit, and themselves. One of the maddest statements came from a supposed Labour MP, Kate Hoey, who said in a Parliamentary debate that “I don’t call it a no deal, it’s not a no deal, It’s a different type of deal”. Presumably in the same way that being dead is a different type of living…

This is the level of batshit crazy we’ve come to expect from the rabid Brexiters, for whom no mental gymnastics are out of bounds in their efforts excuse the complete and utter shambles they’ve helped visit upon us.

Away from the craziness, I’ve been busy editing pictures at home. First up were some more old slides, such as this, taken at Clapham Junction in June 1997. Nothing in the picture remains today. The old Kensington sidings that 33026 is using to run round an engineers train have vanished under a new platform for London Overground services. 33026 survived until 2003 when it was cut up at Eastleigh, having been withdrawn in August 1998, just over a year after this picture was taken.

06707. 33026. Clapham Junction.15.6.97crop

As well as scanning more old rail slides I’ve started on pictures from the anti Brexit rally in London on Saturday. You can find those pictures in this gallery.

This evening has had more of a domestic focus. Dawn’s accelerating her training for the Huddersfield half-marathon, so I’ve been stepping up to the plate on the cooking front and trying some different recipes from a new ‘Hairy Bikers’ cook book. The prawns I cooked tonight have seemed to go down well anyway. Here’s the basic ingredients all ready for cooking.

This is what the prawn curry looks like when it’s ready. No, those aren’t green chillies you see, they’re sugar snap peas, which give the curry a delightful crunchiness.