Tag Archives: StopHs2

UKIP. Schadenfreude’s such a lovely word!

21 Sunday Jan 2018

Posted by in Politics, StopHs2, The Green Party, UKIP

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I can’t help but look upon the imminent demise of UKIP without a certain frisson of pleasure. A party that’s done more to ruin the UK’s reputation abroad and helped deliver the shambles that is Brexit is about to get its come-uppance – as blogger Tim Fenton mentioned today.

Ukip’s most recent accounts show it was £380,630 in debt before the 2017 election which weakened the party’s finances even further. The party’s so skint it can’t even put up candidates in local elections. The parlous state of the party’s finance have been the subject of infighting in the past and an open secret amongst members (link).

Now UKIP can’t afford another leadership election, which might save the skin of the latest temprorary Leader (the 4th in 15 months), Henry Boulton, despite the revelations about his openly racist girlfriend – Jo Marney. Jo’s provided social media with an open goal, so I make no apologies for sharing this pic of the couple caught together on the London Underground after their supposed ‘split’. Oh, and the Twitter commentary from Scott Ballantyne is inspired!

human

Meanwhile, former UKIP leader Nigel Farage has got himself embroiled in the murky world of American politics, Trump, Assange and Russia…(link). There’s no chance of him riding to UKIPs rescue as there no money in it for him anymore which leaves the party stuffed. Even MEPs and some of the remaining local Councillors are jumping ship. John Arnott, the MEP  for the North East of England, said he had lost confidence in Mr Bolton but thought no better of those “jockeying” to replace him.

Here’s a list of recent desertions, with links. Arnott

All 3 Plymouth Cllrs quit

All 5 Hartlepool Cllrs quit

Will the last one to leave please turn out the lights?

Of course, UKIPs collapse spells even more trouble for another bête noire of mine, the Stop Hs2 campaign!

I’ve not seen any evidence that UKIP helped the campaign financially or practically, other then lending it support via social media & having members who had a foot in both camps. But UKIP did help draw attention to the campaign. Their opposition to Hs2 was nothing more than a cynical ploy to attract votes from disaffected Tories who lived on the HS2 route. The problem was that the Stop Hs2 campaign had always exaggerated how much support it had, so the avalanche of votes UKIP hoped for never materialised – even in the Chilterns, which was the ‘hotbed’ of anti Hs2 activity. They gained (and then lost) a couple of Council seats but never seriously threatened to unseat any MPs.

UKIPs demise will leave the Greens as the only party opposing Hs2 – and they’ve got their own problems as their standing in the polls and share of the vote in recent local elections has fallen dramatically. As an illustration of both parties troubles, here’s three local election results from Thursday.

green results

We live in interesting times…

Update: 22 Jan.

UKIPs National Executive Committee met yesterday and passed a motion of no-confidence in Bolton. Bolton refuses to resign, so now a ballot of the (remaining)members will take place. Meanwhile, social media has been kept amused by today’s antics as a series of UKIP ‘Front Benchers’ no-one’s ever heard of have resigned. Ds anyone even *know* UKIP had a spokesperson on Culture? Or Intelligence?  But the biggest ‘pot calling kettle black’ moment came from Neil Hamilton, disgraced former Tory MP, ex-jailbird & now UKIPs leader in Wales, who told the BBC;

“He’s made himself into a ludicrous figure by his own poor judgement and he should get out of the way and allow us to get on with rebuilding the party.”

They’re beyond parody!

Hs2 news: Phase 2a to Crewe Hybrid Bill 2nd reading.

18 Thursday Jan 2018

Posted by in Hs2, Hs2 to Crewe, Parliament, Rail Investment, StopHs2, Transport

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The 2nd reading of the Hs2 Phase 2a West Midlands to Crewe Hybrid Bill has been scheduled for Tuesday 30th January.

phase 2a

A number of important decisions are made at 2nd reading. Firstly, the principles of the bill are established. A debate is held, the length of the petitioning process is decided and finally, the premise of the bill is assured. This final bit means that 2nd reading is regarded as Parliament’s intent. If the bill passes with a large majority (as the phase 1 bill did), Parliament’s intent is very clear. After the Second Reading, there can be no amendment which can destroy the principle of the bill.

In addition to referring a hybrid bill to select committee, the House may also give instructions to the select committee. Instructions can prevent the Hybrid Bill select committee from amending certain provisions or allow it to make alterations to infrastructure provided for in the Bill

After the bill passes 2nd reading the petitioning committee (made up of MPs unconnected with the project) will be established.  The composition of a select committee reflects the party balance in the House. The select committee will mostly sit in a quasi-judicial capacity. It will not be looking at principle or policy; its focus will be restricted to addressing mitigation, compensation and adjustment.

It’s the same after the bill passes the formality of 3rd Reading & goes on to the Lords. The whole petitioning process isn’t rerun, and the Lords will have no power to reject or fundamentally alter the Bill.

So, what does this mean for the Stophs2 campaign? They’re toast! It means the focus has moved away from phase 1 and shifted North. Their campaign’s always been very weak and disorganised on this section. All their national groups were Phase 1 based. There are very few active ‘action’ groups locally. Staffordshire’s is a great example of this, they were always divided by the ‘cult of personality’ as local eccentrics or ‘kippers’ (UKIP supporters) tried to use the issue for their own ends. As UKIP has collapsed and is on the verge of bankruptcy, don’t expect much organised opposition there! The recent Stop Hs2 petition on the Government website is a useful indicator as to the health (or otherwise) of the anti Hs2 campaign in the area. Here’s a spreadsheet from yesterday which has a breakdown of the signatures by constituency. From this it’s easy to see how few active anti Hs2 ‘action groups there are.

revised petition

There will be  number of things to watch out for at 2nd reading, including the size of the majority for the bill, the number of MPs who vote against – and where their constituencies are. After that there’ll be about 3 weeks for people to petition the Committee. The number of petitions will also be of interest, especially as this time electronic submissions will be accepted. For phase 1 petitions actually had to be delivered to Parliament in person.

I wonder if StopHs2 will be organising a rally outside Parliament on the 30th the way they did for 2nd reading of the Phase 1 bill. That was an embarrassment as less than 100 people turned up!

DG177046. Anti Hs2 demo. Westminster. London. 28.4.14.

This was meant to be a national demonstration from all the different phases of Hs2. Remember over 6.5 million people live in constituencies Hs2 will pass through, yet less than 100 people turned up to protest!

If there’s no demonstration this time it will say an awful lot about how far the Stop Hs2 campaign’s collapsed.

 

 

Hs2 and Twitter. Never a good mix. Add in Carillion and…

16 Tuesday Jan 2018

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Carillion, Hs2, StopHs2

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When major news stories break Twitter can be a very strange place. It can educate, amuse and frustrate all at the same time. It can also make you seriously wonder about the sanity of some of your fellow citizens – the one’s who never let the fact they know absolutely nothing about a subject and clearly have a tenuous grip on reality stop them sharing their ‘wisdom’.

The collapse of Carillion and the fact it had some contracts to build Hs2 is a classic example. If you believed some of the nonsense, Carillion was solely responsible for building the line which is now going to collapse as a result of them folding. Needless to say, those opposed to Hs2 have leapt on the story, grasping every straw they can find to claim that either this is the ‘end’ for Hs2, or that the Government should now cancel the scheme as a consequence. Here’s a superb example of the bat-shit crazy!

Lance-watkins. 16.1.18.PNG

Meanwhile, Joe Rukin of StopHs2 returned from semi-retirement (he’s not written anything since 22 Nov) to pen this on their website;

“Today, crisis-hit Carillion has gone into liquidation, less than six months after it was awarded the contract to design and build all the tunnels on Phase 1 of HS2.”

Carillion were designing and building all of the Hs2 tunnels? Really?

No. It’s Rukin lying through his teeth again. In fact, Carillion weren’t involved in any bored tunnels. Here’s are the details of the 3 construction contracts (that were divided into 7 lots) which were let to different Joint Ventures (JVs). The information comes from the official Government website.

HS JV contract details..PNG

Carillion were part of the CEK Joint venture, along with Eiffage Genie Civil and Kier Infrastructure and Overseas. They won lots C2 and C3 – neither of which involve boring tunnels. All the tunnelling sections were won by other JVs. The other members of the CEK JV have stated that they have contingency plans in place to deal with the collapse of Carillion, so it’s very likely they’ll continue without them whilst looking for a replacement.

Of course, none of this will stop the ill-informed frothing as people sound off, but eventually the penny will start to drop with some as it becomes obvious that Hs2 is continuing. One very public sign of this is all the work at Euston. The gardens at the front of the station closed yesterday. This led to a futile protest by three demonstrators who were quickly removed from the site before the fencing went up.

The other protest site further up the line at Harvil Rd isn’t exactly a hotbed of activity either. The protesters tweeted out this picture the other day. Four people corralled behind fencing, outnumbered by the people protecting them is more Watership Down than Twyford Down!

Harvil Rd 2.PNG

So, has the public furore over Carillion and the anti Hs2 protesters attempts to grab media attention by chaining a Vicar to a Euston tree helped their cause? Not in the slightest. Their petition on the Government website continues to underwhelm. By close of play yesterday it had garnered a grand total of 24,136 signatures since September 2017. The only problem is that to be in with a chance it needed 66,200 plus! The maths are inescapable. On average it needs over 1150 signatures per day until March 21st. Yesterday it managed 188. Today it has 10. Its average is dropping daily and currently stands just over the 200 mark. It’s toast.

Meanwhile, away from the doomed Stop Hs2 protests, I’m sure that some awkward questions will be asked about the failure of Carillion and the behaviour in the company’s boardroom. Once such question would be how is it that so many hedge funds had short positions on the companies shares, yet this wasn’t sounding alarm bells with others?

Welcome to 2018 and my first blog on an old subject – Hs2

01 Monday Jan 2018

Posted by in Hs2, Railways, StopHs2

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I’m kick-starting the new year with a bit of number-crunching and a look at the stophs2 campaign, which hasn’t had a great 2017 and which is set to have an even lousier 2018! their last remaining umbrella group (Stophs2) is hanging on by the skin of it’s teeth but if it survives the year in anything but name it’ll be a minor miracle. There’s really nothing going on.

The political campaign has skidded to a stop and apart from a few ineffectual protesters shuffling around the pavement at the Harvil Rd protest there’s very little happening on the ground. A few local action groups are trying to keep up local pressure, but as the number of signatures on the latest Stophs2 petition show, there’s not much support for them outside the small number of people directly affected by the Hs2 routes.

So, lets have a look at that petition. I’ve broken it down into phase 1 and the two legs to Manchester and Leeds. Here’s phase 1.

petition phase 1 1 Jan

The numbers that are most significant are the percentages of all constituents who’ve signed. As you can see, they’re tiny, even in the campaign’s ‘heartlands’. Only two constituencies have more than 1%. What’s also significant is the numbers who’ve signed in December. None are in triple figures.

Of course, this petitions pretty pointless on phase 1 anyway as Hs2’s a done-deal here and it’s being built. Now let’s have a look at The leg to Manchester.

petition phase 2 M'cr 1 Jan

The figures here are appalling. 7 constituencies had no-one signing in December and the one’s that did get them never got into double figures! What this betrays is the lack of organised stophs2 ‘action’ groups on this stretch of Hs2. Apart from on in Mid-Cheshire and another around Stone, there’s bugger-all going on. No groups exist in Manchester at all. As the phase 2a Hybrid Bill is due to start its passage through Parliament this month it will be interesting to see how the lack of any organised opposition affects its progress.

Next up – the route to Leeds.

Petition phase 2 Leeds. 1 jan

The numbers are little better here. Only 3 constituencies have got into double figures and the percentages are tiny. Only one stands out – Rother valley. But even here the percentage signing is still under 1.5% of constituents. Clearly, there are more ‘action’ groups here, but they’re not achieving much and they’re having no impact on a national scale.

Here’s some more number-crunching. This is the numbers of people signing the petition by month.

signs

As you can see, the monthly average is dropping like a stone. The petition’s clearly doomed. It’s already more than 35,500 behind target. Put simply, they’re running out of Nimbys or those folks allied to groups opposed to Hs2 like the Green party of right-wing organisations like the TPA, IEA or what’s left of UKIP. In other words, they’re stuffed as they have no political clout.

There’s another interesting number too. Stophs2 claim 5901 followers on Twitter, so how many of those followers have retweeted and spread the petition? Just 94 in 96 days. So much for their social media campaign!

stophs2 31 dec

Notice the hollow boast about the number of people signing? Today (96 days later) they’re on 22,882! The story of apathy and inaction is the same on their Facebook page and website. They’ve run out of steam and support everywhere.

I can’t see The Dept of Transport or Government  being too worried about their campaign nowadays as it’s pretty much ceased to exist. Rent-a-quote Joe Rukin, their ‘grandly titled ‘Campaign Manager’ has been looking for a proper job for some time. If and when he goes the game’s up as Stophs2 is pretty much a one man & his dog operation. The group’s Chair, Penny Gaines, decamped to the South-West some years ago. In November 2017 Stophs2 lost two out of its five Directors, including Roger Waller who’d allowed his home address in Dunsmore, Aylesbury to be used as the groups registered office. The registered address has now moved to Rukin’s in Caesar Rd, Kenilworth (although Rukin resigned as a Director as long ago as January 2011). The remaining Directors are Gaines, Rae Sloan and Richard Lloyd – although how long they’ll hang on is anyone’s guess.

Somehow, I doubt I’ll be spending much time blogging about Stophs2 in future.

 

 

Is it any wonder the Green party are bombing in the polls?

27 Wednesday Dec 2017

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Green Party, Hs2, Mark Keir, Politics

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I’ve just come across this load of nonsense about Hs2 from the Green Party’s Mark Kier in Hillingdon, North London. It’s been posted on YouTube by ‘Occupy News Network’, a ragbag of leftists and anarchists. It’s straight from the ‘make it up as you go along’ school of political commentary.

These are the people who’re backing the futile protest in Harvil Rd, which is hardly ‘Swampy’ or Twyford Down! Apart from occupying a stretch of pavement they appear to have been unable to even delay the HS2 preparation work in the area, never mind actually stop anything!

In his YouTube diatribe, Kier claims (amongst other things) that Hs2 costs £110bn (it doesn’t), it’s funded by Chinese loans (it isn’t) and that it’s “wiped out democracy” (that’ll be why Parliament passed the Hs2 bill by a vote of 452 MPS to 41 then!). He also trots out some tired old canards such as the ‘fact’ Hs2 will be wider than a motorway (it won’t) and that the time saving between London-Birmingham is 20 minutes (it isn’t).

The pointless Harvil Rd protest has attracted several Green Party leaders, who’ve trotted along to grandstand and have their photos taken in ‘solidarity’ with the protesters. They’ve all parroted similar nonsense to Kier, which shows that the problems with the party being both dishonest and ill-informed is systemic. It also suggest that the Green party has retreated back to its protest/pressure group roots rather than trying to maintain the fiction that it has any credibility as a serious political party.

None of this rubbish will stop Hs2 in the slightest of course, but it does help to show why the Green Party has slumped in the polls in recent years. I wouldn’t trust this lot to run a whelk stall, far less a Council or, God forbid – a country.

I love a good petition, I love bad ones even more!

22 Friday Dec 2017

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, Rail Investment, StopHs2

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I’ve been threatening to blog about the latest daft Stop Hs2 petition for ages now but I’ve never been able to find the time as it’s been busy year on a whole host of fronts. I’ve finally found a few moments and thought, it’s now or never…

First, a bit of history. Back in September the sole surviving ‘national’ Stop Hs2 umbrella group was foolish (and desperate) enough to start a new petition on the Government website. Regular readers will know how I love these petitions as they allow you to mine data. Each signature is allocated to the constituency it comes from so you can discover where the anti Hs2 campaign’s strength lies – and where its weaknesses are. Amongst other things the number of signatures helps show where there are active Stophs2 groups.

The results have been fascinating. Right from the start it was obvious the petition was never going to hit its target, but that didn’t prevent @stophs2 boasting that they’d harvested 10,000 signatures in their first week. It was a boast that was always going to come back and haunt them – as it’s proved…

I decided to drill down the data by analysing each constituency Hs2 passes through and update the results every two days. As the petition quickly faltered I decided to add the monthly scores, which have proved to be interesting – and also the last time anyone signed in each constituency. Predictably phase 1 of Hs2 provides the vast bulk of the signatures as that’s where the campaign was best organised & where all the ‘national’ anti Hs2 groups were based (Hs2aa, AGAHST, 51M and stophs2) but it’s pointless as the Phase 1 Hybrid Bill has Royal Assent and Phase 1’s under construction! Here’s today’s results. I’ve added the number of constituents for comparison.

blog 1

As you can see, the greatest ‘success’ is in Cheryl Gillans constituency, where a ‘massive’  1474 people have signed. But wait, what percentage of all constituents is that? It’s only 1.57% – and that’s in the one place that’s the ‘hotbed’ of Stophs2 with a prominent anti MP! Head North out of the Chilterns and the numbers drop dramatically, with lots of zeros appearing. Head into London and the pictures exactly the same. Even Camden (supposedly the most anti of London boroughs) only reaches 370 signatures (or 0.26%). This suggests to me that in many areas the ‘action group’ network’s collapsed. A search for their websites or perusal of their Facebook or Twitter accounts confirms that suspicion.

Now let’s move on to the next phase of Hs2 – phase 2a to Crewe and on to Manchester. The numbers here are very interesting…

blog 2

The best number here is a measly 324, or 0.38% in Stone, which still has a functioning stophs2 group (of sorts) and an anti MP – Bill Cash. After that the numbers are appalling. Look at the dates when someone last signed.  It’s clear there’s few functioning stophs2 groups on the rest of the route. Stafford’s a waste of time and even Tatton (which includes the dysfunctional Mid-Cheshire Stophs2 group) can’t muster more than 0.32%! head North into metropolitan Manchester and the numbers are laughable! This bodes badly for stophs2 when the phase 2a bill passes 2nd reading & begins its path through Parliament. Now lets have a look at Phase 2 to Leeds…

blog 3

Despite a handful of active stophs2 groups on this section and acres of bluff and bluster about ‘big’ protests, judicial reviews etc, it’s clear that there’s little going on in many constituencies. Rother Valley’s the noticeable exception, but even here the figures aren’t huge (unless you count 1.3% of all constituents as a major problem). Also, this area’s where groups are in direct conflict with MPs who may not be happy about details of the route, but who still support building Hs2.

Let’s look at the headline % figures for each of the 3 groups, which puts things into a different perspective. Phase 1 has 0.30% of all constituents signed up. Phase 2 to Manchester has just 0.10% and the Leeds leg only has 0.17%. In total that’s a tiny 0.34% of all the 6,567,433 constituents!

Here’s another perspective. The Government website contains lots of polls. The headline for Stophs2 is this.

petition. 22 dec. 17.14

Not exactly a million man march, is it? It gets worse. The Hs2 petition’s No 21 in the ratings. It’s beaten by petitions about banning fireworks (108,715) banning balloon & sky lantern releases (43,326) and the sale of animal fur (27,667) – amongst others!

What this crazy petitions revealed is how the anti hs2 campaign’s been a spectacular failure that’s continuing to fail. All the national groups bar one have folded. The one that remains (Stophs2) is toothless. It doesn’t have the money or political influence to keep the campaign going – especially now that spades are in the ground preparing for the construction of phase 1 whilst political attention shifts off their turf to Phase 2a and beyond.

2018 is going to be a very interesting year for Hs2 – but for the anti Hs2 campaign it’s ‘Good-night Vienna’

StopHs2. Hoist by their own petard!

14 Saturday Oct 2017

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Railways, StopHs2

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You have to laugh! The anti Hs2 campaign’s in the doldrums after a terrible political party conference season, coupled with the fact that, well, they’re pretty much irrelevant nowadays. So, to try and fill space on their website and pretend that something’s happening that isn’t a disaster, Joe Rukin penned this…

Here’s a screengrab.rukin, stockport

Question Time vets its audience and invites them from a wide area. This is hardly representative of Stockport, but let’s just play along with Joe’s spin for a while. ‘Stockport agrees Hs2 is a monumental waste of money’. Really?

Let’s ignore the fact that there’s not a single StopHs2 (in)action group in the whole of Greater Manchester. The nearest one is the ineffectual Mid-Cheshire group, who’ve had to pretend to be from Manchester in the past (here they are in 2014). So, what’s the hard  evidence for such a claim? Well, why don’t we have a look at the new national petition that StopHs2 started last month? Surely, Stockport will register in that as an absolute hotbed of anti Hs2 feeling – as Rukin’s claimed. Oh, wait…

Here’s a screenshot of the petition results from Stockport, taken earlier today.

stockport

A grand total of 9 constituency residents, 0.01%…

As usual, Rukin’s bullshit and bombast falls just as soon as you start looking at the truth.

 

 

 

A busy week for Hs2.

20 Thursday Jul 2017

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, StopHs2

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I’m on a train to London, so I’ve got some time to finally catch up with a bit of blogging. As anyone who’s been following the news will have seen it’s been a busy week for Hs2. Firstly, £6.6bn of Civils contracts were awarded. Balfour Beatty’s joint venture with French firm Vinci won two contracts worth £2.5bn. They’ll design and build the Long Itchington Wood Green tunnel to the Delta Junction/Birmingham Spur plus the section from the Delta Junction to the west coast main line near Lichfield in Staffordshire. Vinci has previously been involved in the high-speed Tours-Bordeaux rail project in France.

Contracts worth nearly 2bn to build Euston Tunnels and Approaches and the Northolt tunnel were won by a joint venture between Sweden-based Skanska, Austria’s Strabag and UK firm Costain, which has worked on Crossrail and the Channel tunnel.

Two more packages, worth a combined total of £1.34bn for the North Portal Chiltern Tunnels to Brackley and Brackley to South Portal of Long Itchington Wood Green Tunnel went to a Carillion / Eiffage / Kier joint venture. Carillion have been in the news, recently, so this attracted media attention.

Other companies to have won HS2 work are the joint venture between French construction group Bouygues and UK firms Sir Robert McAlpine and VolkerFitzpatrick. They claimed a £965m contract for the Colne Viaduct and Chiltern tunnels package.

A story planted in the press the day before as a spoiler, claiming Hs2 would cost £111bn caused a predictable furore from the usual suspects, so it’s worth bearing in mind that in the tender, the estimated range for these contracts was from £7.1-11.8bn. Of course, what will happen now is a year of detailed design work before the contract target cost is set.

Later in the day the Government announced that the phase 2a Hybrid Bill had been deposited in Parliament. This bill will begin its passage through the Houses, with the intention of Royal Assent in 2019, allowing construction to beginning 2020.

It’s worth remembering that – despite the claims from antis that Hs2 is ‘late’, this section has been brought forward several years, from 2033 to 2027!

The Phase 2b Hybrid Bill is expected to be with Parliament in 2019, with Royal Assent being granted in 2022. To this end, Monday afternoon saw Transport Minister Chris Grayling announced his decision on the final route choice (link). Unsurprisingly, it confirmed that Meadowhall had been dropped in favour of a more Easterly route and that Sheffield would be served by a loop, with trains running through Chesterfield. The change appears to be for several reasons. The Hs2 design panel had already expressed concerns over the viability of Meadhowhall on space, cost and technical difficulty. What appears to have tipped the balance was the growing influence of Transport for the North (TfN) who have developed ambitious plans to ensure the North’s major cities (including Sheffield) would be within 30m journey time of Manchester Airport. The route change will allow greater integration and connectivity with the future Northern Powerhouse rail (aka HS3). Of course, the fact the change will save an estimated £1bn will have made the idea attractive too!

A minor change to the route in Leicestershire around Measham has seen a third option adopted with a minor deviation off the 2013 route. This should render MAPA, the local StopHs2 ‘action’ group redundant, although to be honest, they were doing very little post-consultation anyway!

The reaction from those opposed to Hs2 showed just how ineffective they are nowadays. Hs2aa haven’t made a sound. In fact, if you look at their website, you wouldn’t know anything’s happened since April! StopHs2 trotted out Joe Rukin to do the usual round of splenetic ‘rent a quote’ interviews, but it’s all rather pointless. What’s been very telling is how few of Stophs2 followers are engaged with them nowadays. Despite having several thousand ‘followers’ on social media, only a handful are passing on the message though retweets and shares. Here’s an example…

stophs2. 20 jul 17

Predictably, Twitter was full of people jumping on the bandwagon to offer their opinions about Hs2 for a couple of days. These ranged from the ignorant to the batshit crazy, along with Hyperloop supporters and the folk to whom the NHS is everything. None of it will make the slightest bit of difference of course as they’re simply individuals sounding off about something, they’re not a campaign. As for an ‘organised’ Stophs2 campaign, that’s essentially history. Stophs2 is two people, the most prominent of which is Joe Rukin. Local sources tell me that Joe’s been looking for a (real) job for some time now. Chair Penny Gaines lives in the SouthWest nowadays and does very little. When Joe goes – that’s it…

All this activity means that Hs2 will be featuring in the news a lot from now on several fronts. There’s the construction of phase 1, the Parliamentary process of phase 2a and the consultations and environmental assessments of phase 2b.

Talking of phase 2b. The pictures not looking too rosy for those trying to Stophs2 on that section of the route. With the collapse of the national groups they’re on their own and (in typical Yorkshire style) they seem to spend as much time arguing between themselves as they do trying to stop Hs2! The supposed merger between the Trowell and Erewash groups appears to have hit the rocks as people backpedal. The announcement of the final route will see others breathe a sigh of relief and step away, leaving them even thinner on the ground. Hopefully, the residents who’re genuinely affected by Hs2 will ditch the rabble rousers and political opportunists and start trying to get what they can out of Hs2 Ltd in the form of mitigation and compensation for their communities. Whilst their MPs support building Hs2, there’s no doubt they also want to get the best for the communities they serve. I wish them well in doing it.

There’s deluded, then there’s Joe Rukin…

29 Saturday Apr 2017

Posted by in 2017 General election, Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, Hs2aa, Joe Rukin, StopHs2

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A few days ago, StopHs2 campaign manager Joe Rukin was frantically circulating this email to the scattered remnants of the Stop Hs2 campaign.

“An urgent message from Joe Rukin:
You will hopefully have seen the news since the weekend about the possibility of the Tories going soft on HS2 in some way in their manifesto, whether that is a pause, cancellation or review.

The first thing I want to make absolutely clear is that this is completely true.

In fact the situation is rather better than reported, as whilst Messrs Gillan & Bridgen along with other MPs went to see George Freeman about a list of issues including HS2, it turned out the team writing the manifesto had already picked up HS2 as an something they might change their minds on. I cannot stress enough that this is totally serious. Whilst it may have been dismissed by 3 Andys; Jones, Street & Percy, they aren’t the ones writing the manifesto. Personally I would doubt they would go as far as saying there would be a cancellation/pause/review in the manifesto, more likely they’d go for no mention at all which would them give the space for any of those three options. Then again, as they’ve already been willing to hint at tax rises, what do I know?

I covered this in todays article https://t.co/XgUiEIpMLN but have decided to leave it a bit more speculative in public, as whilst there is now work to do in terms of trying to influence this decision, I’d rather try and not let on that this is really up for grabs in public for as long as possible.

So that leaves a fortnight to try and influence the Tory manifesto, and indeed the Labour one. We’ve had a conference call today to get things going with other campaign groups and there will be meetings with Labour next week, but as Deanne has mentioned before, it continues to be ASLEF & TSSA which are heavily behind Momentum that are the problem with Labour.

For now please go to Conservative Home and fill in the survey below. When it comes to the rankings, please vote “Continuing with HS2” as zero, and try not to give anything else either a top or bottom score, as you’ll effectively be voting against yourself:

http://www.conservativehome.com/…/what-should-be-in-the-con…

Attached are some of the banners we used at the last election. We may still have some physical ones left.

I cannot stress strongly enough that it really is game on, but in reality it’s not six weeks we have at this point in time, it’s two. More will follow in the next few days. Any ideas welcome!

Joe Rukin,
Campaign Manager, Stop HS2.”

There was only one problem. Like most stuff that emanates from Rukin, it was complete bullshit – although it did fool one of two desperate antis. Hs2aa, who gave up campaigning against Hs2 last year (they abandoned social media in June and their website’s not been updated since November) were forced out of retirement to cobble a page of ridiculous claims for their website (see link). Even AGAHST, an organisation that hasn’t been heard of for years made an appearance in the form of it’s one time Campaign Director, Deanne Dukhan.

It was all a complete waste of time, as most antis realised. Rukin had tried to sell this pup via the StopHs2 Facebook page on April 23rd, when MP’s Gillan and Bridgen had managed to flog their dead horse to a couple of the national newspapers (see my previous blog here). The problem was the claim was met more with derision than expectation. You can see their replies here but I’ve added a selection for your delectation.

g1

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And my absolute favourite, which sums up the scepticism and derision this claim met with, is this one!

g3

It was only going to be a matter of time before Rukin’s house of cards came crashing down around his ears. That happened today when Teresa May gave an interview to the Yorkshire Post under the headline “THERESA MAY has slapped down Conservative backbenchers in the South with a commitment to deliver the HS2 rail line to Yorkshire”. So, there’s no room for any dissembling there! She went on to say –

may

May’s statement was soon picked up by the nationals, with the Guardian running it here.

So there you have it. As I predicted, you won’t be seeing any mention of cancelling Hs2 in the Tory manifesto. Rukin, who’s lied through his teeth so often, has ended up looking a complete fool yet again. His stock was never high with other anti Hs2 campaigners anyway (Hs2aa Director Hilary Wharf was overheard being particularly scathing about Rukin’s relationship with the truth a few years ago). Now it must be at rock-bottom.

I wonder how long it’ll take before any of this is mentioned on the StopHs2 website, or will this load of bollocks written by Joe disappear first? I’m not going to be holding my breath…

Will Hs2 feature in the general election? Will it heck…

19 Wednesday Apr 2017

Posted by in 2017 General election, Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, Politics, StopHs2, Uncategorized, YorkshireStopHs2

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As all the parties start getting over their surprise that a general election’s been called and begin to muster their troops I thought it worth looking at the stophs2 campaign and their hope that Hs2 will be an election issue. Of course, the answer is – will it hell.

Since Hs2 appeared on the scene we’ve had two general elections (in 2010 and 2015) and numerous local elections. None of them have seen any serious swing or influence brought about by Hs2 or the people who oppose it.

StopHs2’s ‘Campaign Manager’, Joe Rukin even went as far as to stand for MP in Kenilworth in 2010. He later admitted to the Hs2 petitioning Ctte that it was a con to get a free Stophs2 mailshot out to voters, but even that didn’t do any good. He got all of 327 votes or 0.7% and this was meant to be an anti Hs2 ‘stronghold’! Nowadays Rukin has pretty much given up and spends most of his time ranting about football on Twitter rather than Hs2. (see @JoeRukin). The other umbrella group (Hs2aa) threw in the towel last year, so don’t expect any anti hs2 publicity in local or national media in the run-up to the election as the anti hs2 campaign’s skint.

Another oddball that’s tried to stand on a StopHs2 ticket is Nicholas Ward whom I blogged about here. He stood in Westminster North in 2015 and got 63 votes, then again in David Cameron’s old constituency of Witney in 2016 when he got 92 votes (0.2%)! It’s unknown if he’s going to throw away another deposit by standing again in this election.

Apart from solo players the only political parties that oppose Hs2 on the national stage are the Green Party and UKIP. The Greens claim to support the ‘principle’ of high-speed rail but then wrung their hands and bottled out of it when it actually came to doing so. Mind you, their rail and Hs2 policy is a dishonest mess. I dissected it previously in this blog. The Greens are currently standing at 3-4% in the polls. They have 1 MP and aren’t likely to achieve anything in June.

That leaves UKIP, who’re in such a political and financial mess nowadays it’s unlikely they’ll be fielding many candidates. Their new leader, Paul Nuttall, is such a Walter Mitty character he’d fit right in with the remaining anti Hs2 Nimbys. Despite proposing not one but THREE high-speed rail lines in their bonkers 2010 manifesto, UKIP flipped when they fell for Stophs2 campaign claims that there were plenty of votes to be had in areas like the Chilterns if they opposed Hs2. The problem was – it was a lie. I crunched the numbers in this blog. UKIP famously blustered they’d stop Hs2 with stuff like this:

UKIP Chilterns

UKIP managed to get 2nd place in Aylesbury Vale in the 2015 general election (partly on the back of Hs2) but came nowhere near beating the Tories, who had a majority of 17158, or 31% compared to UKIP’s 19.7%. Since then it’s all been downhill. A by-election was held this month following the resignation of UKIP District Councillor for Elmhurst, Andrew Hetherington. UKIP lost the seat to the Lib-Dems, which suggests Brexit’s more important than Hs2 nowadays. UKIP have lost their solitary MP and the party is in such a mess it’s not going to have any impact on Hs2.

What all these votes have demonstrated is that hs2 is only ever a Nimby issue. The only time it’s had any impact on elections is actually on the route of the line. Even then, it’s never been enough to upset the applecart. Of course, since 2015 things have moved on. Hs2 phase 1 has gained Royal Assent and the ‘national’ Stophs2 campaign’s fallen apart – as well as the Phase 1 campaign.

Now the focus has shifted to Phase 2, where the StopHs2 campaign is hopelessly disorganised, skint and without a coherent strategy. All it does is re-run the failed tactics used by Phase 1 Nimbys. To make matters worse, it has negligible political support. Only 2 out of Yorkshires 51 MPs opposed Hs2 and that figure hasn’t changed. If Labour do badly in the North and lose seats to the Tories, it’ll change nothing as Teresa May has made it plain she’ll build Hs2 (as have the Lib-Dems).

Could a change of Labour leadership after a June bloodbath change anything? No. Because the heartlands labour are likely to be reduced to (the metropolitan areas, like London, Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham and Sheffield) are exactly the cities that Hs2 will serve! They’ll be pushing for Hs2, not to Stop Hs2.

If the remaining Hs2 antis think the general election will somehow stop Hs2, they’re in for a yet another disappointment. Just like they were in 2010, and 2015.