Tag Archives: Politics

The fall of Singapore, 75 years on. Lessons from the past for the future.

17 Friday Feb 2017

Posted by in Brexit, Politics, Singapore, Travel

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By chance, my arrival in Singapore yesterday was on the day the city-state remembered the 75th anniversary of the fall of the island to the Japanese in World War Two.

One of the books I’ve been reading on my travels is a study of the events leading up to the invasion and subsequent surrender (The battle for Singapore, by Peter Thompson). It’s a sorry tale of British arrogance and incompetence, of casual racism and an inability to face facts. The book exposes the myth the the islands mighty naval guns could only fire out to sea. In fact, some of them could and would be turned landward to shell the Japanese troops by the Johore Strait, but as the only ammunition they had was armour piercing shells, they were of limited use. The book also reveals that, whilst Gen Arthur Percival ‘took the rap’ for the fall, he wasn’t solely to blame. The whole military/civilian structure was, including the Governer. Despite warnings that the island was wide open to invasion through Malayia, less senior officers reccomendations that defences should be built along the Johore Strait, were turned down as “defences are bad for morale” (seriously)!

The fall should have come as no surprise. The island was woefully under-prepared and the re-enforcements it asked for were turned down. It had no tanks, few aircraft and many of the soldiers sent from India and Australia to defend the island were raw recruits with no training. Many hadn’t even been taught how to fire a rifle. The Chinese militia that were formed (far too late) to bolster the army were equally poorly prepared.

The siege was brutal, with thousands of civilians being killed by bomber aircraft which attacked the island with impunity. Worse was to come when the island fell as the Japanese were brutal masters. They slaughtered tens of thousands of Chinese for supporting the motherland in its war against the Japanese invader.

75 years on, Singaporeans are well rid of their former colonial masters. The city-state is a prosperous, modern, multi-racial country where standards of education (and civility) are streets ahead of little England. It’s not paradise (where is?) but it looks positively to the future whilst remembering the past without it being baggage.

How different to England…

The old qoute that ‘those who refuse to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them’ couldn’t be more appropriate for Britain. 75 years on from the fall of Singapore and the attitudes that led to it can be seen again in our political leaders, sections of the media, and (sadly) some ordinary Britons: Arrogance, racism and a refusal to face facts are the ‘new black’. We call ourselves a mature democracy, yet we’ve let the leaders of the Brexit campaign buy many of us with their money, lies and fearmongering about foreigners (call them what you will, immigrants, refugees, economic migrants, it matters not). Folk talk of the ‘will of the people’ but it wasn’t the people who are pressing for us to crash out of the European Union and single market. Many people didn’t really understand what it was they were voting for, but that’s hardly surprising when they’ve been drip fed made-up stories about ‘bent bananas banned by the EU’ or stories about immigrants ‘flooding in’ to the UK.

The tragedy of the UK at the moment is the political paralysis at the top. Few seem willing to bite the bullet and say “look, this is madness. Brexit will ruin our country for nothing”. So, our leaders lead us over the edge of a cliff, whilst many privately admit that no good will come of it – others exhibit the same levels of ignorance, denial and incompetence as a previous generation of British politicians and generals (educated at the self-same public schools that many of the present generation were) who led Singapore (and Malaya) to disaster.

Singapore has a bright future. It’s recovered from the wounds others inflicted on it 75 years ago. Will the UK ever recover from the wounds it’s about to inflict on itself?

The UKs suicide politics

09 Thursday Feb 2017

Posted by in Brexit, Politics, UK

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Despite being thousands of miles away from the UK I’ve been keeping up with the latest Brexit madness back at home. And truly, madness it is. It seems like the majority of MPs have metamorphosed into a strange cross between lemmings and invertebrates as they  spinelessly vote for a course off action (Hard Brexit) that will see our country jump off an economic cliff. “But we’re respecting the will of the people” they cry.

Really?

Funny that, because one of the architects of the Leave campaign, Dominic Cummings, has admitted that they only reason leave won was because they lied to people. Remember that “£350m a week for the NHS” lie?. This piece from the London Economic makes fascinating reading.

So, when MPs say ‘respect the will of the people’, what they’re actually saying is “respect a non-binding referendum vote that was narrowly won by blatantly lying”. That is not democracy. Not by a long chalk. That’s the sort of ‘democracy’ that politicians acquiesced to in the 1930s – and we all know where that got us…

So why do so few MPs have the backbone to stand up and admit the truth? Nowadays, I have far more respect for Tory rebels like Anna Soubry than I do for many Labour MPs (including my own) who’ve rolled over, seemingly out of fear of losing their own seats. It won’t help them. The Labour bloodbath is inevitable – it’s just a question of which direction it comes from. I would have hoped I’d have seen a principled fight, going down with honour in the hope of coming back with it too. Instead, we’ve got ’50 shades of UKIP’.

To add further insult, we have Jeremy Corbyn, the serial rebel who’s defied the Labour whip more than any other Labour MP, insisting that ‘his’ MPs vote FOR article 50. Afterwards he had the gall to tweet this;

corbyn..PNG

No Jeremy. The ‘real’ fight started as soon as the referendum was called, but you bottled that one. Most of us suspect you bottled it because we know that you never wanted us to stay in the EU anyway as it doesn’t fit with your dogmatic socialist view of the world. Despite the fact the vast majority of Labour MPs & members were pro EU, you ignored the majority view you claim to espouse in favour of your own beliefs. If you hadn’t ,we wouldn’t be in this mess now. So, please, stick your hypocrisy where the sun doesn’t shine. You blew the chance to stick up for all the things you mention in that tweet, so don’t try it on now.

‘Take back control’ they said. Never has a slogan seemed more empty – especially in what are supposedly the corridors of power.

The Yorkshire Hs2 antis battle each other

02 Wednesday Nov 2016

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, Yorkshire

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I mentioned in an earlier blog that the Yorkshire Stophs2 campaign’s doomed to failure as they’re singing from different hymn sheets from the beginning. This is very evident from the plethora of petitions different groups have started – with different aims. For example, here’s one started by one Julie Pile, which says that:

mexborough-hs2-petition

Apart from the obvious nonsense about failures of “statutory duty” and the usual catastrophic language about “wrecking” the environment, it’s clear Julie doesn’t mind if this happens, as long as it happens elsewhere. This puts her on a collision course with other campaigners on the route, but also the City of Sheffield and other who campaigned long and hard to have the Hs2 route changed from Meadowhall in the first place. So far, the petition’s gathered 3343 signatures, 1643 of which (or 50.85%)are from the Hemsworth constituency of Jon Trickett MP. To put this in perspective, it’s just 1.73% of all his constituents. The only other people to have signed in any number are the 418 signatures from Ed Miliband’s neighbouring constituency, Doncaster North. What’s noticeable is the tiny number of supporting signatures from elsewhere, like Sheffield, or even Rother Valley, another constituency on the new Hs2 route.

There does seem to be an embarrassment of riches (well, petitions really) amongst people in Yorkshire as a John Haith, a Rother Valley resident from Bramley has started this one, which has 3,202 signatures (but little support from Hemsworth). Meanwhile, Stephen Simcox (also Rother Valley) has started a “spend Hs2 money on the NHS” petition which has a paltry 763 signatures.

In truth, none of them have a cat in hell’s chance of success, but they do show a very Yorkshire trait – a lack of agreement over anything! The fact that there are obvious tensions and different interests across the county (even amongst anti Hs2 groups) demonstrates why any campaign to try and Stop Hs2 is doomed from the start – especially as these small local groups are pitted against the metropolitan areas of Leeds, Sheffield and York (all very pro Hs2) as well as the majority of the wider Yorkshire business community. Plus, can anyone seriously think the good Burghers of Doncaster (home to one of the two National Colleges for High Speed Rail) will want to kiss goodbye to the thousands of skilled people who will be trained there? Or for that matter, the hundreds of skilled jobs that will be created by the Hs2 rolling stock depot at nearby Crofton?

No doubt there will be a few awkward moments for some MPs as they try and balance the wider interests of their constituents with the impossible demands of a minority, but does anyone seriously think they will actually vote to stop Hs2 coming to Yorkshire or carrying on to the North-East, or for that matter Notts?

There’s another consideration too. The Hs2 Hybrid Bill for phase 2 will also contain the line onwards from Crewe to Manchester (another Labour heartland).  I’m sure there will be some very interesting meetings of the Parliamentary Labour Party if a handful of Labour MPs in Yorkshire were seen as putting the whole of the Phase 2 scheme under threat!

StopH2 campaigners in Yorkshire have made the same mistake that those on Phase 1 did. They’ve fallen into the trap of thinking their purely local concerns should be put ahead of national ones, and that others will give way to appease them.

Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week: No 19.

19 Wednesday Oct 2016

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

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I haven’t highlighted any individual campaigners for some months now as the whole StopHs2 campaign’s crazy nowadays but I couldn’t resist this outstanding example. So, step forward Nicholas Ward – who’s standing as a Stophs2 candidate in tomorrow’s Witney by-election!

Witney is an ultra-safe Tory seat that was the constituency of David Cameron, the former Prime Minster, who held it with a majority of 25,155. Ward, who lives in Greatworth near Banbury has decided that this is the ideal place for him to persuade voters that Hs2 is such a major issue (even though it’ll go nowhere near the place) they’ll reject their Tory tendencies to elect him as their MP instead. There’s a grand total of 14 candidates standing in Witney which means Ward has to fight for votes against parties with far more credibility, like The Monster Raving Loony party, or bus pass Elvis!

Ward’s website claims that “there is little to be gained from voting for one of the main parties in this by-election” as if Brexit and the economy are somehow a side-show in Witney compared to Hs2. He goes on to claim that he’s “always worked on the basis that, no matter how difficult the odds, one had to go on trying to achieve one’s objective for as long as there was any chance of success. This attitude has motivated his decision to stand in the Witney by-election.”
How Ward expects to be able to do anything about Hs2 (even if by some incredible miracle he was elected) is a mystery as the project has solid cross-party support and the Hs2 bill sailed through Parliament with a massive 411 majority. Like many other Hs2 antis Ward doesn’t understand that the general public don’t share his obsession with the project. It’s an attitude that’s bedevilled the anti hs2 campaign from the beginning, leading to them making serious tactical errors by assuming ordinary voters will ‘rally round’ – as Ward is doing. It’s a tactic that’s backfired time and time again as all it’s done is expose how little support they really have. Ward is doomed to repeat this failure when the by-election result is declared on Thursday night/Friday morning. If this isn’t crazy, then…

POST-RESULT UPDATE.

Mr Ward managed to get all of 92 votes. This beat his previous total of 63 votes from when he stood in Westminster North at the General election. It equates to 0.2% of all votes cast in Witney.

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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 petitions process ends, not with a bang – but a whimper…

09 Tuesday Feb 2016

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, Hs2 petitions, Hs2aa, StopHs2

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Last Thursday the House of Commons Hs2 Hybrid Bill Committee heard its last petition. At the close of events, Mr Strachan, one of Hs2 Ltd’s QC’s made this statement, which put the process into context;Strachan 1

Strachan 2

Yet, for all these remarkable numbers, the process ended with a whimper as the last two surviving anti Hs2 groups (Hs2aa and Stophs2) failed to make any impact with their final petitions.

Part of Hs2aa’s final ask was that Hs2 should have a 300kph speed limit imposed upon it. To justify this they used an ‘expert’ witness. Sadly for them this expert managed to make a fundamental error in his argument, asserting that existing high speed trains used in Germany, France & Japan all had top speeds of 300kph. Here’s a slide from his presentation.

hs2aa expert

The reality is very different. The Siemens Velaro E has a top speed of 350kph and the version used by Eurostar (the e320) will run at 320kph – the same as the Velaro D in Germany. Here’s a look at the Velaro family.

Alstom TGVs operate at between 300-320kph whilst the newer AGVs run at speeds up to 360kph.

The Japanese high speed fleets also operate at 320kph with the newer N700 capable of 330kph.

Oh, and that still leaves the Bombardier ETR 500 Frecciarossa (max speed 360kph) and the Spanish Talgo T350 (350kph). So, as you can see, the 300kph claim by Hs2aa’s “expert” is misleading nonsense. You can read about Europe’s top 10 high speed trains here.

Needless to say, Hs2aa’s QC had a hard time trying to sell these claims. You can watch the days proceedings here.

The final days hearings on Thursday weren’t any better. Joe Rukin presented StopHs2’s final comments and asks which were so poor that Hs2 Ltd’s QC didn’t even need to reply, pointing out that everything Rukin raised had been said before, so there was no point in wasting the Committee’s time responding!

Petitions done and dusted, the Committee have retired to compile their final report and recommendations, which may be available before the end of February. Expect the Committee to put the final nail in the coffin for antis claims that Hs2 should terminate at Old Oak Common not Euston as well as the idea that Hs2 should be tunnelled all the way under the Chilterns.

This leaves the anti Hs2 campaign with nothing else to do until the House of Lords petitioning process starts later in the year. This is a big problem for them as they’ve no way to keep their campaign going. It’s been losing momentum ever since the Hybrid Bill passed 2nd reading with such a stonking majority. There’s been nothing but bad news for them ever since and the lack of anything happening outside of social media means that many people have given up on the anti campaign.

To add to their woes the social media campaign’s floundering, badly. There’s hardly any activity from either of the two groups. Hs2aa have only tweeted 4 times in 2016. Their website’s been updated 6 times but most of that is the ‘news’ about their appearance at the Committee! Their Facebook page is equally bereft of real news, most of what appears is their tweets about “empty” trains!

StopHs2 are in just as poor a position. They’ve nothing going on so they’re reduced to recycling old stories. Their Facebook page is a joy to behold. The few people commenting (always the same few names) can’t understand why they’ve failed to stophs2 – although the nature of their remarks makes it obvious to outsiders! Twitter isn’t much better. They’re so bereft of ideas they’re now trying to get the Cubbington pear tree top of an EU vote, so they’ve been posting this in several languages;

tree

Quite how voting for a tree is meant to stop hs2 is a mystery, but I suppose they’ve got to keep the bloke bankrolling them thinking they’re still doing something!

In truth, the whole stophs2 Twitter campaign is becoming an embarrassment. Now that most sensible people have abandoned them the lunatics have taken over the asylum. It’s as mad as a box of frogs! Here’s a few examples from today.

nut 1

Nut 2

Nut 3

Nut 4

Is it any wonder sensible folks have given up on the anti Hs2 campaign when this is what it’s sunk to? How is this vacuous nonsense meant to persuade intelligent folk to support them? All it does is expose the fact their campaign’s a shambles.

I wonder how many more folks will desert it in the next few weeks before the Lords take up the reins & continue the progress of the Hs2 Bill into law?

Trump trumps the anti Hs2 mob.

09 Wednesday Dec 2015

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Bigotry, Hs2, Mid Cheshire against Hs2

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Nowadays the anti Hs2 campaign provides more comedy gold than it does a credible threat that can stophs2. The past 24 hours have provided yet another  example of that, as well as a lesson in how not to use social media.

Since May 2014 there’s been an anti Hs2 Tweetbot in town with the laughable moniker of ‘Hs2Facts’. It’s laughable because facts are in short supply – although there’s unintentional humour in abundance. This particular tweetbot started a poll, asking folk to register their Yes/No votes on Hs2. Like much of the anti’s social media campaign – all it’s done is shoot them in the foot. After 18 months the result is? A grand total of 220 no votes. To make it even more delicious the twitter names are displayed – so straight away you can see it’s all the usual suspects.

tweetbot

Meanwhile, in the real world, real people have got rather upset about American Presidential hopeful Donald Trump’s tirades and his call to ban Muslims from the USA. So much so that yesterday, one person decided to set up a petition on the Governments website, calling for him to be banned from th UK. 24 hours later, this was the result:

trump.PNG

It puts the anti Hs2 mob claims of support into perspective, doesn’t it? Remember, these same nutters once claimed that their protest was bigger than the one against the poll tax!

The anti hs2 mobs social media campaign is the gift that keeps on giving…

UPDATE:

It’s Thursday morning and the Trump petition has now passed the 402,000 mark with little sign of it slowing. If you want to add your name, here’s a link

Meanwhile, the anti Hs2 mob are still stuck on 220…

Jeremy Corbyn dashes the anti Hs2 mobs hope he was their saviour

19 Wednesday Aug 2015

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, Jeremy Corbyn, Politics

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Members of the anti Hs2 mob are rather like folks who are waiting for a messiah – always hoping someone, sometime, will turn up to save them. The last false prophets were UKIP who the antis worshipped as the party who would kill off Hs2. It was never going to happen & everyone else could see through them, but that’s faith for you. Both UKIP & the anti hs2 mob would much rather you forgot this risible claim:

ukip

Since UKIP were shown to have feet of clay the antis have been scrabbling around for another saviour. This time they latched upon Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn. This was because an article published in the Guardian reported that Corbyn was due to deliver a speech condemning Hs2 & announcing his decision to oppose it (they even carried quotes from a draft of the speech).

However, when the speech was delivered & the report appeared, all reference to Hs2 had mysteriously disappeared. In many ways this wasn’t a surprise as Corbyn was in danger of walking headlong into a Tory trap. I blogged about it all here.

Then, yesterday, Corbyn published this on the rail network & his plans for renationalisation. In the report’s bullet points was this:

“Stimulate the economy by increasing investment in new high speed rail, creating jobs and connecting more towns and cities”

https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/jeremyforlabour/pages/153/attachments/original/1439891675/Railways_JeremyCorbyn.pdf?1439891675

Clearly, some folks have been having words in Jeremy’s shell-like…

Whilst there’s no explicit mention of Hs2 – does anyone seriously think Corbyn would now oppose building hs2 in favour of going back to the drawing board, setting back plans by decades? Not only would this leave us with rail gridlock, it would put in jeopardy massive regeneration schemes in Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester & other Labour strongholds, costing thousands of jobs. Also, note Corbyn talks of increasing (not diverting) spending on High Speed rail.

As Corbyn is hands down favourite to win the Labour Leadership there’s now no chance that the Hs2 Hybrid Bill won’t pass its 3rd reading.

So, it looks like the anti Hs2 mobs search for the messiah continues, with time running out. Corbyn is not the messiah, he’s just a very naughty boy for leading the anti Hs2 mob on!

Labour hopeful Corbyn blindly walks into Osborne’s Northern Powerhouse trap.

04 Tuesday Aug 2015

Posted by in Andy Burnham MP, Hs2, Jeremy Corbyn MP, Labour election

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I’ve long suspected that Labour leadership hopeful Jeremy Corbyn would prove to be hopeless on understanding detailed issues. His tone is that of a man who likes broad brushstrokes & airy rhetoric, but doesn’t really understand the rest of the country outside his constituency in North London. I used to live in an adjacent constituency to his (Hornsey & Wood Green) where his reputation was similar. He’d been a Haringay Councillor there between 1974-1983. Jeremy has never bothered himself with having to make hard, practical decisions. He’s the perpetual backbencher. As far as I’m aware, in all that time he’s only ever chaired one real Committee, the rest are all talking shops like the All Party Parliamentary Group on the Chagos Islands (where? Ed.)

So, it was no surprise when the Guardian reported on Corbyn’s pitch to the North & ‘response’ to the Governments ‘Northern Powerhouse’ plans. In it, Corbyn comes out with classic soundbites on the railways, London and Hs2:

As the Guardian reported. Corbyn will also raise a question over the government’s plans to build the HS2 high-speed railway line to the north, on the grounds that it will drain other lines of investment and turn northern cities into “dormitories for London businesses”.

Apparently, his document says: “The Conservative government has torn schools away from the support networks of local authorities, regardless of the wishes of teachers and parents, and made them accountable directly to Whitehall, bypassing parents and local communities. They have suspended the much needed investment in rail infrastructure in the north to fund HS2, a project with the aim of turning our great regional cities into dormitories for London businesses.”

Apart from the obvious factual error that rail investment in the North hasn’t been ‘suspended’ (yes, one scheme, trans-Pennine electrification has been paused, but that’s so the scheme can be rescoped to include the extra work the local train operators have been pressing for) Corbyn clearly has no idea about what’s going on with the railways – or Hs2. Also, money hasn’t been diverted from funding rail investment in the North to Hs2 – they’re completely separate budgets & Network Rail’s money is intact – as the Transport Minister has made clear. Either Corbyn has no idea how things are funded (likely) or he’s playing a dishonest political game (also likely). Another stupid soundbite is that Hs2 will turn Northern cities into “dormitories for London businesses”. He completely ignores the major regeneration schemes in Northern cities that are being driven by Hs2. One only has to look at the plans for Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and Manchester Airport to see how out of touch with reality Corbyn is – and that’s before we look at plans that are yet to be finalised for regeneration for the Hs2 Phase 2 sites at Toton and Sheffield Meadowhall – and Crewe. Let’s be clear, all these schemes hang on Hs2, cancel it and you can kiss goodbye to them – and the 10s of thousands of jobs they’ll create and thousands of homes they’ll provide.

Something else Corbyn’s rhetoric ignores is the thousands of skilled apprenticeships that Hs2 is creating in the North. The Hs2 training college is due to open on two sites in Birmingham and Doncaster . These will be a keystone in training our rail engineers of the future & helping to create a skilled workforce. Kiss Hs2 goodbye & you can kiss these opportunities goodbye too..

Clearly, this is a view of the world as seen from Islington. It has nothing to do with anything based in reality on the ground,or in the North.

I’ve little doubt that the alarm bells will be sounding in the Labour held cities of the North which are staunch supporters of Hs2. We could be seeing the start of a North-South divide within the Labour party here if Corbyn persists with this nonsense or, (heaven forbid) gets elected as the next Labour Leader. If that happens, he’s handing the next election to the Tories on a plate as he’ll have walked headlong straight into Chancellor George Osborne’s trap. The Tories will be able to show that they’re getting on with regenerating the North whilst a Corbyn led Labour party would pull the plug on Hs2 & the huge regeneration schemes coming in on the back of it. Caught in the middle would be the Labour held authorities in the North who’ve worked so hard to get the benefits for their areas. So, we’d end up with A London-centric Labour leader at loggerheads with the Labour heartlands of the North – and Osborne laughing on the sidelines!

Needless to say. I won’t be voting for Corbyn as Labour leader, he’d be a disaster for the North and the Labour party. One can only hope that the other Labour leadership contenders like Andy Burnham see the opportunity this offers them & decide to stand up for the North.

UPDATE: It wasn’t long before a response came from the North care of Manchester’s leader, Sir Richard Leese, who tweeted this riposte;

Leese

What I predicted is already coming to pass…

Interestingly, all reference to Hs2 has been dropped from Corbyn’s Northern Future paper, which can be found here

More grandstanding from Labour’s Michael Dugher.

26 Friday Jun 2015

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One of the more depressing aspects of yesterday’s announcement of delays to Network Rails modernisation plans was the predictable reaction of Labour’s Shadow Transport Minister, Michael Dugher.

“Since 2010, passengers have had to endure a catalogue of failures on our railways. Ministers may try to shift all the blame to Network Rail, but this has happened on the government’s watch and the responsibility for this mess lies squarely with the government.

“Labour has warned time and time again that there needs to be fundamental change in how our railways are run. But the Transport Secretary has dithered and delayed.”

Irony is not Dugher’s forte. He lambasts the Government for ‘shifting the blame’ onto Network Rail whilst he shifts the blame onto the Government. Because, let’s be clear about this – Labour has as much responsibility for this mess as anyone.

As I mentioned in yesterday’s blog. The problem with electrification schemes is they’re like buses. There’s nothing for ages then they all come at once. We have Great Western, Trans-Pennine and Midland Main Line – along with a rolling programme of schemes over the border in Scotland. That’s a huge amount of work. But why does it all have to be done now?

Because the last Labour government did bugger all, that’s why

Between 1997 and 2010 Labour approved one measly scheme of less than 20 miles, the minor link line between Crewe & Kidsgrove. Contrast this with the previous Tory administration which managed to electrify the East Coast & Great Eastern main lines, amongst others. Not bad for a party whose leader (Margaret Thatcher) supposedly ‘hated’ railways.

Labour sat on its hands & let the DfT pretend that there was no need to electrify as some new technology was just around the corner. This faith in what Roger Ford of Modern Railways coined ‘bionic duckweed’ was bonkers- but it suited Labour as it meant they didn’t have to spend any money. It was only when Lord Adonis came along that the position was reversed & a tranche of schemes was announced. But by then it was too late.

Starved of work, the skilled engineers who’d electrified the East Coast had scattered on the four winds & the industry lost the ability to carry out major schemes. That skills shortage still exists – and not just in OLE. It’s the same in signalling & in design.

Dugher conveniently ignores this and Labour’s role in sowing the seeds of today’s problems. We’ll get no ‘mea culpa’ from him. But then this is the man who’s said Labour has “too many pointy heads & not enough street fighters” when clearly, the opposite is true. Attack dogs like Dugher got Labour into this mess in the first place & they’re one of the reasons why Labour failed to win the 2015 election. To be frank, people are sick of this style of politics, but Labour isn’t listening. Mary Creagh outlined the problem in her interview with the Guardian when she withdrew from the Labour leadership contest. In it she highlighted why Dugher replaced her – Labour wanted to ‘pick a fight’
That went well, didn’t it? Instead of gaining support, Dugher rapidly lost it. He managed to alienate many people in the rail industry – and quite a few of them were Labour voters!

Following their election defeat, Labour said they would listen to people & analyse what went wrong. Sadly, there’s little evidence of that happening. Dugher is still Shadow Transport Minister & now he’s running Andy Burnham’s campaign for the Labour leadership.

If Labour really DO want to listen, then I have a few suggestions.

Ditch your obsession with who owns the railways & concentrate on what you want the railways to deliver.

A bit of humility & understanding wouldn’t go amiss. How about admitting your part in past problems & actually come up with some solutions instead of grandstanding?

How about committing a future Labour administration to a rolling programme of investment that will even out the ridiculous peaks & troughs that have led to a skills shortage? This will have several benefits. It will create skilled jobs and save money through economies of scale. If the train builders know that over the next 10 years they’ll have orders for thousand of new electric trains we can get them for a decent price – oh, and prise the DfTs dead hands off train specifying & ordering train. That’ll save a few bob too..

Also, how about supporting the industry instead of using it as a political football?

In fact, there’s a whole host of ways the industry could advise you on. But that means listening, not lecturing, something you’re not good at. Contrast Dugher’s approach with The Tories Claire Perry, who does listen and actually had the sense to ask the industry what it needs from Government. Novel, eh?

Sadly, I’m probably wasting my time typing this. Dugher has stuck his fingers in his ears & Labour’s promise to listen & learn from its mistakes is looking increasingly hollow. We’ll end up with a new Labour leader but the same old problems will remain. I don’t see anything that will bring people back to Labour & Labour back to power.