Tag Archives: StopHs2

Hs2 gets Royal Assent

02 Thursday Mar 2017

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, Hs2aa, Mid Cheshire against Hs2, StopHs2, Transport

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This major milestone was attained on the 23rd February whilst I was away in Asia, so I’ve not had chance to blog about it until today. Royal Assent means that years of talking and arguing about Hs2 are finally over. Royal Assent is essentially granting planning permission for construction to start. There are no more legal or political hoops to jump through. Politicians have now moved on to other things, even if a few anti Hs2 campaigners haven’t. What RA also does is release some pots of money that had been held back. Here’s what the DfT release says about them:

“Two funds, worth £40 million, are now open for bids: the Community and Environment Fund (CEF) and the Business and Local Economy Fund (BLEF). The CEF will help enhance community facilities, improve access to the countryside and conserve the natural environment, while the BLEF will support local economies in areas where businesses may experience disruption from the construction of HS2.

The CEF and BLEF together make up £40 million and will be allocated at a regional level: £15 million for the central area (Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Buckinghamshire Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire and Hertfordshire), £7.5 million for Greater London and £7.5 million for the West Midlands (Birmingham, Solihull and Coventry). The remaining £10 million will fund cross-border or route wide projects”.

But there’s more…

“A further £30 million road safety fund will go towards local road safety schemes in areas not currently accustomed to construction traffic. This will help provide a legacy of improvements for areas adversely affected by Phase One traffic.”

That’s a total of £70m for projects along the phase 1 route that have been released by Royal Assent.

Of course, RA has had other impacts. It’s screwed down the lid on the StopHs2 campaign’s coffin. Their campaign’s dead – although some of them refuse to admit it and continue to witter on Twitter, as if it matters any more as spades will start going into the ground in a few short weeks time.

So, what’s next for the anti Hs2 campaign. Well, on phase 1 – it’s oblivion. There’s only one active group left in 2017 as Hs2aa haven’t been heard of since November last year. In fact, if you look at Hs2aa’s website you wouldn’t even know Hs2 has got Royal Assent!

That leaves Kenilworth based StopHs2 which is just two people. Joe Rukin (who lives locally) and Penny Gaines, who’s decamped to the South-West! In order to keep his non-job going poor Joe is trying to sell his services and ‘expertise’ to Phase 2 campaigners. Quite what Yorkshire would do with a bloke whose CV reveals 7 years of failure and dishonesty is an interesting question. StopHs2 are skint. How long they will survive now is an interesting question. I’d be surprised if they last beyond the summer.

That brings us onto the next phase of Hs2 – 2a from the W Midlands to Crewe. The consultation closed on 7th November 2016. Shortly afterwards the Govt confirmed the route. 2017 will see the Environmental Impact Assessment completed and the Hybrid Bill launched. The Govt are expecting phase 2a to get Royal Assent in 2019. This may seem optimistic when you look at the time it took on Phase 1, but for one thing. The anti Hs2 campaign on Phase 2a is almost non-existent!

Apart from an active group around Stone (Staffs), supported by the local MP, Bill Cash, there’s no organised opposition to Hs2. There was in the past (of a sort, anyway) but it was always riven by in-fighting and egos. Much of it was UKIP inspired, but as they’ve got their own problems nowadays don’t expect many fireworks.

That leaves the two arms of phase 2. Crewe to Manchester and the W Midlands to Leeds.

Of the two, the Manchester arm has the least Stophs2 activity. There’s a small group based in Mid-Cheshire that’s noisy but ineffective (it doesn’t even have the backing of the local MP) and there’s the remnants of a group around Warrington. Take a look at their website. It hasn’t been updated since 2015!  Their Facebook page isn’t much better.  The only other group worth mentioning is CADRAG (Culcheth And District Rail Action Group) but they’re just as moribund as the others. This comment on their Facebook page says it all.

cadrag

That leaves the Leeds leg, where the story is more complicated.

There’s one tiny group in Leics (which essentially seems to be a one man and his dog operation) around the village of Measham. Here’s their website. When you look through you find there’s very little in the way of action. Much of their website is empty and they’ve still not announced who their Committee members are 3 months on! Their main reason to exist seems to be to help people turn out carbon copy consultation responses (which worked so well on Phase 1 , not). Their social media presence is one man tweeting stuff that has no links with Measham at all, just random StopHs2 propaganda, oh, and a strange obsession with how many views his Tweets have had (so much so that he then tweets about it)! A telling statistic is that only 1% of the local population turned up to their inaugural meeting.

What makes this group interesting is that they’re like a few on the Yorkshire arm. They only exist because the route was changed after consultations. That means there’s opposition to their position as the changes were so that Hs2 affects less people. We may yet find the rug is pulled from under groups like this if the new consultations show a majority of local support FOR the changes!

It’s the same with a few small groups North of Sheffield. There’s an added problem for anti Hs2 campaigners here as they command very little political support. Whilst Yorkshire political culture is renowned for factionalism and squabbling between the different Councils, local Authorities and metropolitan areas the overwhelming majority of Yorkshire politicians see Hs2 as a good thing even if they can’t agree on the final course of the route. But then, neither can the protesters! There’s no coherent voice or anti Hs2 campaign across Yorkshire. The anti campaign is also hamstrung by the fact that – unlike the Chiltern Nimbys, they can’t use the excuse that there’s no stations and they don’t directly benefit.

What Yorkshire does have is a cadre of academics and vested interests centred around Leeds/Harrogate who are anti Hs2. In the case of High Speed UK (HSUK) that’s because they have their own pet scheme they want to make some money out of.

In conjunction with Wakefield Council (one of the political awkward squad, through its leader, Cllr Peter Box) a group grandly styling themselves “Yorkshire Against HS2” have organised a conference tomorrow. Titled “Hs2 Alternatives”. It contained the usual rag-bag of long term opponents and political dogmatists, from lobbyists like the Taxpayers Alliance to the Green party’s Natalie “brain fade” Bennett. Add to the mix HSUK (still punting their back of a fag packet ‘alternative’) and the superbly bonkers Paul Withrington, (who styles himself ‘Transport Watch’), StopHs2’s Joe Rukin and local self publicist Cllr Gibbons and you’ve got a real treat! I doubt Yorkshire’s seen a box of frogs this mad since the UKIP conference was last in the county. Quite wisely, two local MPs (Ed Miliband and Jon Tricket) are keeping their distance and (allegedly) leaving messages via a video link!

alternatives

Somehow, I can’t imagine Sir David Higgins losing any sleep over this one. If it’s raining in Wakefield tomorrow you might get a few through the doors, but if this is the Premier league of the remaining opposition to Hs2…

And that it! The phase 2 Hybrid Bill won’t be along for a couple of years yet, so expect a lot of what’s left of the opposition to drop away – just as it did on phase 1. In the meantime, construction will have started on phase 1 and the phase 2a Hybrid Bill will be attracting all the attention.

Now I’m looking forward to a few years spent blogging about progress on the construction of Hs2!

All’s quiet on the Hs2 front…

30 Friday Dec 2016

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

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As it’s the penultimate day of 2016 I thought I’d take one last look at Hs2 and the campaign set up to stop it. To say antis have had a terrible 2016 is somewhat of an understatement. The Lords Hs2 Committee published their final report on December 15th which brought to an end the petitioning process that has lasted since 2014. The report served thin gruel to anti Hs2 campaigners but it did offer support for those on the route who will face genuine hardships. The reports suggested amendments will be debated early in 2017 with Royal Assent being granted soon after. After that, it’s all over bar the moaning as Phase 1 construction will begin.

Meanwhile, back on November 15th, the Government published details of the final phase of Hs2 – 2b, moving the debate on from phase 1 completely.

So, where does that leave the Stop Hs2 campaign? Dead in the water to be honest. Just like UKIP voters, their campaign’s been dying off for years (both figuratively and literally). The only ‘national’ group left by November was phase 1 based StopHs2. If they were to have any chance of survival they would need to be re-invigorated by a massive upsurge in the opposition to Hs2 due to the announcement of phases 2a and 2b. The problem is – this never happened. Let’s crunch some social media numbers. Here’s a look at the StopHs2 and Hs2aa following on Twitter and Facebook, comparing the day after the Phase 2 announcement with today.

scores-30-dec

The usual caveat applies. Not all followers are supporters. Some are there simply to keep an eye on them. The numbers can’t lie. They show that interest in Stophs2 has barely moved. When you consider the amount of people living on the recently announced routes a gain of 149 Facebook ‘likes’ and 69 Twitter followers is appalling. Campaign Manager Joe Rukin and StopHs2 Chair Penny Gaines have done even worse. As for Hs2aa – don’t even go there! For the first time since StopHs2 was established, nothing’s been heard from Gaines, Rukin or any of the StopHs2 accounts in the week since Xmas eve. This doesn’t bode well…

I suggest that these figures and the fact the number of regular stopHs2 tweeters is now below two dozen shows just how badly their campaign has done. There’s been no Phase 2 bounce at all. It can only be a matter of time now before StopHs2 folds, leaving no ‘national’ group to co-ordinate any sort of ‘fight’ on Phase 2.

However, there’s more.

I’ve always pointed out that social media is a double-edged sword for pressure groups and campaigns. It exposes their weaknesses as much as any strengths – especially on Phase 2, where their Facebook groups are pretty revealing. If you track the different new phases you find there’s no discernible organised ‘action’ groups on phase 2a to Crewe and only a handful of moribund groups on the Western branch to Manchester. Here’s an example. This is from the CADRAG (Culcheth and District Rail Action Group) page.

cadrag

No doubt this inertia and lack of interest is shared by other groups which is why you never hear anything about them anymore (eg, Mid Cheshire and Warrington StopHs2). It’s only the route change on the branch to Leeds via Sheffield that’s generated some new groups, but what they’re saying on social media is hardly a defiant or united message. Here’s some to watch; Erewash Crofton Mexborough and here’s the optimistically named Yorkshire against Hs2 which features appeals for people to attend two national demonstrations,  neither of which ever happened!

demos-that-never-happened

All told, the stophs2 campaign in Yorkshire is a mess. It’s riven by opposing views as many people want Hs2, whilst some just want to move the route back to Meadowhall. They don’t have the same political support as Hs2 opponents did on Phase 1. For a start, there’s no 51M group of councils, nor do they have any MPs who’ve come out to directly oppose Hs2. In fact, of the 51 MPs in Yorkshire only 2 voted to oppose Hs2 – and they were away from the route in Huddersfield and Shipley! Despite some trying to replay the phase 1 campaign, they can’t use two of the main arguments as phase 2 doesn’t pass through an AONB and it’s clear that people living near the route benefit from a station in Sheffield, the training college in Doncaster and a potential parkway station elsewhere in Yorkshire.

I predict that 2017 will see a very different situation surrounding Hs2. Once Phase 1 construction starts and thousands of people take up jobs building the route I expect public opinion towards Hs2 begin to change – especially as the anti campaign will have faded away. Phase 2 will still remain an issue but the level of opposition is very different in type and scale. Don’t expect it to receive the same media attention either.

I’ll still be keeping an occaisional eye on Hs2 matters, but for the first part of 2017 expect to see a lot more blogs appearing. I’m off out to SE Asia for a couple of months, so I’ll have plenty of time to write. In the meantime, Happy New Year!

An Hs2 update

22 Tuesday Nov 2016

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

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Despite my hopes I’ve not had as much time for blogging as I’d wanted, but here’s a quick update on Hs2 as we’ve had an interesting few weeks.

On November 15th the Government make the long-awaited announcement on the phase 2 and 2a sections of the route. These have now gone out for consultation. The only really contentious issue was the decision to adopt a change to allow Hs2 trains to run directly through Sheffield Midland via a loop off a section of Hs2 which has been shifted Eastwards through South Yorkshire. The announcements were greeted favourably by the vast majority of politicians (nationally and locally) and by the business community. As usual, the only fly in the ointment was getting the folks of Yorkshire to agree on anything! There’s currently a battle between the counties politicians as towns like Barnsley and Doncaster wanted the original Meadowhall route, whilst Sheffield had lobbied hard for a city centre route. A new housing estate outside Mexborough (Shimmer) has been caught up in the furore and provided an classic example of  just how disorganised, fractious (and deceitful) the Yorkshire StopHs2 campaign is. Some campaigners tried to claim that Hs2 wanted to knock down all 215 properties. Here’s the claim on the blog page on the website of one of the main Yorkshire groups.

215-demolitions

There’s only one problem. It’s a complete fabrication. The Higgins report contains no such figure! Not only that, but H2 Ltd confirmed in an interview to the iPaper yesterday that the figure is actually 16, not 215 properties!

ipaper.PNG

The article’s a very good example of balance and unsensational journalism that reveals not everyone on the estate is anti Hs2 – a fact often ignored by more sensationalist sources. You’ll see the same levels of division if you visit the Facebook pages of some of the Yorkshire Stophs2 groups. What comes across is that some people are using the campaign  as a vehicle for their 15 minutes of fame, leaving other residents feeling they’re doing more harm than good. The fact cracks have appeared so early, plus the inability of local politicians to agree, doesn’t bode well for the Stophs2 campaign in Yorkshire.

Worse news was to come on the national political stage with the news that the one party that’s really exploited the Stophs2 campaign (UKIP) is continuing to implode. They’ve lost yet another Leadership candidate, plus the EU is demanding back 400,000 euros in funding that UKIP have ‘misspent’ on UK campaigns. There’s now the delicious irony that Stophs2 and UKIP appear to be a race to see who can implode first…

As if this wasn’t bad enough, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn addressed the CBI yesterday. His speech restated Labour’s commitment to building Hs2.

corbyn-cbi

So, who’s going to stop Hs2 now? No-one. Phase 1 will have Royal Assent within weeks. £900m of enabling work contracts have been let and work has already started on ground investigations and re-routing services. The consultations over the phase 2 routes will continue for a year or two now, but the political will behind the project remains steadfast and solid.

It’s going to be a cold, cold Christmas without any cheer for the anti Hs2 campaign.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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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Why Hs2 antis should finally give up on petitions.

19 Wednesday Oct 2016

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Railways, StopHs2, Yorkshire

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I’ve often said that the Stop hs2 campaign never learns from its mistakes. I’ve been provided with another great example of this today when one of the campaigns long-standing Walter Mittys’ (the fantasist Nicholas Batty) tweeted a link to yet another daft petition on the Government’s website.

batty-oct-19

Here’s a link to the actual petition.

Needless to say I went to have a look. The petition was started by a Stephen Simcox from Rotherham on the 26th July 2016 & closes on the 21st January 2017 (all petitions are set to close automatically after 6 months) It’s gathered a grand total of 467 signatures since. It hasn’t got a cat in hell’s chance of success but what I found really interesting was that someone in the Civil Service has been expanding the data these petitions carry. Not only do they tell you the number of signatures from each of the 650 Parliamentary constituencies, now they also tell you what percentage of registered voters have signed. This is extremely useful as it tells you how much people in that constituency care (or rather, don’t care) about an issue. However, for the Stop Hs2 campaigners it’s a disaster, as it allows you to define just how little support they have!

Here’s a screengrab of the constituency map.

petition.PNG

This shows that the greatest number of signatures (a ‘whopping’ 121) come from the Rother Valley constituency on phase 2 of Hs2. 2nd is 62 signatures from the Doncaster North constituency. Now this can be put into context thanks to the new feature.

Rother Valley has 94,959 constituents and a *cough* massive 0.13% of them have signed the petition! In Doncaster North that’s 0.06%. Somehow, I don’t think any MPs are going to be losing sleep over this.

Phase 2 StopHs2 campaigners are running a carbon-copy of the campaign that failed to stop Hs2 on phase 1 in the South. It’s crazy as they don’t have the money or support that their Southern counterparts had. Not only that but the two surviving umbrella groups (Hs2aa and StopHs2) are both based in the South. Neither of them are likely to survive beyond Phase 1 receiving Royal Assent – which will leave phase 2 protestors without any logistical or technical support. The Yorkshire stophs2 campaign is isolated anyway as it doesn’t even have the support of its local MPs (for example, Doncaster North’s Ed Milliband is a firm supporter of Hs2). They’re also up against Yorkshire business groups who’re strong supporters of the project. There’s also the problem of a lack of unity between old and new groups in Yorkshire as some are campaigning for the Hs2 route to be moved back to Meadowhall!

In short, the Yorkshire Stophs2 campaign’s over before it’s even started.

The sad thing about all this is that the people who are genuinely affected by Hs2 are being led up the garden path by the likes of Joe Rukin from Stop Hs2. Instead of campaigning for  the best route possible, maximum mitigation and benefits to their communities from new facilities funded by Hs2 Ltd, they’ve been conned into wasting their time fighting a battle they can’t possibly win by trying to stop Hs2 altogether.

UPDATE.

Since this blog was written (6 days ago) signatures have gone up by 253, from 464 to 720 – or 42.1 a day. The problem is, a petition like this needs an average of 556 signatures per day to stand any chance of getting past the magic 100,000, and each day it fails, that number increases…

StopHs2 rearrange the deckchairs on the Titanic…

05 Wednesday Oct 2016

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2 Bow Group, Hs2aa, StopHs2

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These days, observing British politics is a surreal and scary experience. The Tory party conference especially so. I actually thought I’d switched on a repeat of an old UKIP one by mistake when I heard the anti foreigner rhetoric and the plans to make companies ‘register’ all their foreign workers. and ‘name and shame’ them if they don’t employ British workers. After all, the idea is crass enough, xenophobic enough and stupid enough to have come from UKIP, but no. It really is the party of Government who have suggested it.

However there was another surreal event at conference, which was to do with the StopHs2 campaign and it was more comical and farcical than anything.

Campaign group StopHs2 ‘launched’ a new ‘briefing paper’ at a fringe meeting yesterday. Laughably they tried to pretend it was bigger than just them by roping in other old names, namely Hs2aa and AGAHST, which is rather amusing as AGAHST bit the dust some years ago, as you can see from their abandoned website   Nothing’s been heard from them for years but their former Communications Director, Deanne DuKhan did attend for appearance’s sake. Poor Deanne never did get much right during her time at AGAHST, as this missive she penned in April 2012 shows. A search of the internet doesn’t reveal any trace of her in relation to Hs2 and AGAHST since 2013, which is rather odd as she’s the sole remaining Director!

The ‘briefing paper’ that was launched by StopHs2 can be found here.

It’s essentially a 16 page rambling rehash of anything and everything (and anyone) that they can find that’s ever been critical of Hs2. It also contains some outright lies which (despite them having been exposed) they’re still trotting out – like this one:

lie

I exposed that one way back in February 2015 (see here)

StopHs2 say “The paper will be circulated to all MPs and Lords following party conferences”. Talk about a waste of time! There’s not a cat in hell’s chance of anyone stopping the phase 1 Hybrid Bill this late in the day. MPs won’t be debating it again and the Lords can’t stop Hs2 at 3rd reading, which is expected in November-early December. Plus, if this regurgitation of old arguments couldn’t stop Phase 1, there’s no chance of it stopping phase 2 (even if anyone remembers it by then).

Even everyday anti Hs2 protestors seem to have twigged this, as this comment on the StopHs2 Facebook page reveals.

kinch

Which rather says it all. Today Teresa May closed the Tory party conference with a clear commitment to build not just phase 1 but also phase 2 of HS2. “We will press ahead with plans for HS2” she said, echoing the earlier statement to conference from of her Transport Minister, Chis Grayling.

Stophs2 might as well have saved their money and chucked their ‘briefing paper’ straight into the recycling bin. All they’re doing is rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic…

 

 

The Stop Hs2 campaign revisited

26 Monday Sep 2016

Posted by in Hs2, Hs2aa, Mid Cheshire against Hs2, StopHs2, Uncategorized

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I haven’t blogged about the Stop hs2 campaign for some time, mostly because it’s a busted flush nowadays, but I thought it would be useful to sum up the state of play in the final weeks before Phase 1 gets Royal Assent.

Ever since Hs2 passed 2nd reading in the Commons with such a stonking majority the antis campaign has been doomed. From that point on there was a noticeable decline in their efforts which has continued ever since. Now they’re doing a very good impression of the fabled Oozlum bird! The final straw for many of them was the fact the Lords Hs2 Committee made it very clear they weren’t going to tolerate the campaign trying to bog down progress on the bill by sticking in hundreds of pointless petitions. The Committee also severely limited what one of the remaining anti Hs2 groups (Hs2aa) could petition about.

This left the two surviving groups almost redundant. So much so that Hs2aa have given up campaigning on social media. Their Twitter and Facebook accounts haven’t been used since June 12th and their website is pretty much abandoned too. It’s carried 4 articles since June, most of which are repeating newspaper stories. Their campaigning is reduced to funding an advert to be rolled out in a few ‘periodicals’ (so, not the national newspapers then) before the Tory party conference next month and err, that’s it…

Meanwhile, the Stophs2 group is hanging on by the skin of its teeth despite the fact it’s a pointless organization with little to do. Like Hs2aa, its website is mostly kept alive by repeating what the media are saying about Hs2 or recycling old articles from the past, otherwise there’s nothing happening. The days of meetings, conventions and organising protests are long gone. This year they’ve not even attended any of the party conferences, so we’ve been saved from the usual fairy stories about how ‘busy’ their stall was – which is always contradicted by people tweeting pictures of it!

What’s instructive is taking a look at their Facebook page. On it you’ll find the same few names constantly expressing their bewilderment. They simply can’t understand why Hs2 is still happening. However, when you read through the comments and see the sheer level of ignorance about transport, economics and politics being expressed – you can see why they failed. The comments are overwhelmingly from those living on the route howling in incomprehension at everything. Their unguarded comments make it clear most of them have given up the fight, all they’re doing now is moaning about the result.

So, where do things go from here? It’s clear the stop Hs2 campaign’s been a miserable failure. Tactically it’s been a disaster. It never understood that a few hundred people affected by a specific issue like Hs2 would struggle to get wider public support. Pretending some negative opinion polls would somehow translate into anything concrete was a huge mistake – as was incessently painting politicians (the very people they needed) as corrupt. Trotting out a constant stream of lies, deception and dodgy figures wasn’t too bright either.

The anti Hs2 campaign was probably the first major one of the social media age, so it holds a lot of lessons for others. What it’s taught us is that social media is very much a double-edged sword for such campaigns because it exposes your weaknesses just as much as it allows you to get your message across to people. Social media has allowed us to see that the stophs2 campaign was actually a tiny group of people that was shrinking as time went on. It also showed that many of its ‘supporters’ were opportunists from the economic right wing such as the Taxpayers Alliance and the Institute for Economic Affairs, plus UKIP. We can see from Facebook that their campaign stalled years ago. It’s never attracted more than a few thousand people at most. Only a tiny percentage of that few thousand are in any way activists. Twitter paints an even worse picture as it’s clear from the activity surrounding the #hs2 hashtag that there’s been a massive drop in people tweeting anti H2 messages. To make matters worse, the majority of those remaining are either from the political fruitcake end of the spectrum or are tweeting anonymously (which is a complete waste of time). That leaves a handful of ordinary people. As a campaigning tool to stop hs2 it’s useless. Instead, what it has done is expose another of their weaknesses – which is that apart from their ‘heartland’ in the Chilterns, they’re scattered and isolated.

The phase 1 campaign is effectively dead. Royal Assent (which is only a few weeks away) is now certain. The last hope for their campaign was that the reconstituted Tory government would have a change of heart after Brexit. That hope was dashed when it became clear that Teresa May, her new Chancellor and Transport Minister strongly backed hs2. Added to this was the delicious irony that the brexit vote made building Hs2 crucial to the Governments efforts to boost the economy. So much for UKIP (who claimed Hs2 was a dastardly EU plot that was imposed on us) support for the antis! Once phase 1 gets Royal Assent Hs2aa (which is almost exclusively made up of Chiltern Nimbys) is redundant, as is Warwickshire based & funded Stophs2. I can’t see either of them surviving into 2017, which leaves the stop hs2 campaign without any national leadership or structure.

Now the ‘battle’ moves on to phase 2 and phase 2a. So, what’s the state of play on those sections of the route?

Phase 2a to Crewe passes through Staffordshire where the anti Hs2 campaign’s always been a bit of a joke. They’ve spent more time fighting each other than trying to stop hs2 due to the egos and ‘personalities’ involved. Think of Monty Python’s ‘Life of Brian’ and the ‘splitters’ of the Judean Peoples front…Right now there’s not even an established group in Staffs to oppose phase 2a. UKIP support featured heavily in Staffs, but now that party is in decline there’s little to suggest there’s ever going to be coherent opposition to Phase 2a.

Phase 2 is a little more complex. The leg from Crewe to Manchester and the spur to the WCML near Warrington has very little opposition apart from a moribund group of Nimbys in Mid-Cheshire and another around Warrington. What’s significant is that there’s not a single organised StopHs2 group anywhere in the Manchester area. The other leg through Sheffield to Leeds has more opposition due to the recent route change. That said, there’s little that’s coherent. Leeds has a tiny and disorganised group in the outskirts to the South-East. There was a group at Church Fenton, but again, that’s done very little. There is new opposition centred around Rotherham but they seem hell-bent on running a carbon-copy of the failed phase 1 campaign. Instead of concentrating their efforts on route changes or mitigation they’re wasting their time trying to stop the whole Hs2 project. The problem all these groups have is political support for Hs2 is far stronger in the North than it was in the South. Even though some Yorkshire MPs like Ed Miliband have expressed opposition to the route change, they still support building Hs2. This means there’s no chance that there will be a rebellion of MPs to vote down the Hs2 Phase 2 Hybrid Bill when it gets to Parliament. Of course, all this is several years away but what is increasingly clear is that Stophs2 as a national campaign is finished.

EVENING UPDATE:

To add to the doom and gloom for the stophs2 campaign, Labour’s Shadow Chancellor made an announcement at today’s Labour conference. He committed the party to borrowing to invest in an infrastructure fund. He specifically mentioned that both Hs2 & Hs3 would be built from these funds. Now, you can offer odds on the chance of Labour ever getting back in to power before Hs2 is built, but what matters is Labour’s clear commitment to the project. They’re not going to be voting against either the Phase 2a or Phase 2 Hybrid bills…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The anti Hs2 mob live on another planet…

08 Sunday May 2016

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, House of Lords, Hs2, Hs2 petitions, StopHs2

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When is applying the long-established rules of Locus Standi (The right or capacity to bring an action or to appear in a court) and the letter of the law “undemocratic”, “dictatorial” or trying to “over-rule 750 year history of representation”?

Never – unless you live in the weird parallel universe inhabited by Andrew Gilligan and the rest of the anti Hs2 mob!

As I predicted in my last blog, the petitions to the House of Lords are facing far more Locus Standi challenges than the earlier petitions to the Commons. 414 of the 821 are subject to challenge. This has provoked squeals of outrage from stophs2 campaigners and the usual fact-free rubbish from Andrew Gilligan (see here) and Joe Rukin (here).

Of course, what they all neglect to say it that whilst this is the Govt and Hs2 Ltd bringing the challenges, it’s up to the House of Lords Committee to judge if those challenges should be allowed. The Committee is Chaired by Lord Walker of Guestingthorpe, who just happens to be a QC with a long history of senior judicial appointments which include being a High Court judge, Justice of Appeal, Lord of Appeal and Justice of the Supreme Court of the UK. With such an august legal mind Chairing the Committee it’s going to be almost impossible for Hs2 antis to get away with screaming ‘foul’ on this one – hence their anger.

StopHs2 campaigners know this was their very last throw of the dice. Yet again, they’d hoped they could bog-down the process of the bill with repetitive petitions only this time, they weren’t going to be allowed to get away with it. The Govt and Hs2 Ltd had been very generous in the commons by challenging so few petitioners. In their final report the House of Commons Ctte had this to say about Locus Standi;

audience

So, what’s happened shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. The Govt and Hs2 Ltd are simply exercising their legal right to challenge petitioners standing and a very senior and experienced legal mind is chairing the Committee that will rule on their validity.  Expect the majority of the challenges to succeed.

 

Hs2’s big day…

23 Wednesday Mar 2016

Posted by in Hs2, StopHs2, Uncategorized

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This afternoon the Hs2 Phase 1 Hybrid Bill will pass 3rd reading in the House of Commons which effectively means Parliament grants the project planning permission. The bill still has to pass through the House of Lords but they cannot stop the bill becoming law.

To all intents and purposes, today puts an end to the Stop Hs2 campaign as it’s now exhausted the political process. Whilst their campaign may stagger on for a few months until the Lords petitioning is over there’s really nowhere for them to go. The past 6 years have shown that their claims of being a national, grass-roots campaign were false. The heart of their campaign has always been nimbyism – especially from the Chilterns (and to a lesser extent Warwickshire). They never made a political breakthrough and made the fundamental error of trying to stop the project rather than gain support for getting the best financial and environmental mitigation possible. It’s also been a terribly dishonest campaign which hasn’t covered anyone involved with it in glory. A good example of that was yesterdays disgusting attempt to use the victims of the Brussels bombings against Hs2 when their corpses were still warm (see here).

What’s interesting to see is the way the Stop Hs2 campaign is going out with a whimper. Looking at them you’d hardly think today was so important. They’re too weak to organise a demonstration outside Parliament as the last time they tried that (for 2nd reading) less than 100 turned up. They’re too skint to put adverts in the newspapers so they’ve relied on social media – but even that’s a flop. There’s no attempt to make a big splash or get Hs2 trending. Instead there’s just a few lone people tweeting their opposition or making desperate, last minute pleas to their MPs. None of it shows a campaign with any vigour, purpose or determination. To add to the pathetic feeling one of the two surviving anti groups (Hs2aa) appears to have given up on social media, which it’s not used since the 6th March. It’s posted an appeal to MPs on its website but hasn’t noticed it’s website is blocked by most internet browsers as an “attack page”!

I only hope that people living on the next phases of Hs2 who will are genuinely  affected learn from the mistakes the Stophs2 campaigns made and concentrate on getting the best from the project instead. My advice to them would be to ditch the political opportunists who want to exploit you (like UKIP and local campaigners who are only in it for the attention it brings them) and work through the established local political framework to engage with the project. You have a lot of legal protections through environmental and other laws.

What the past 6 years have taught us is that vital national infrastructure shouldn’t be delayed by Victorian political processes such as Hybrid Bills, which allow a vociferous minority to add costs and delays. The good news is that the lessons appear to have been learned. The new infrastructure Commission and an overhaul of the Hybrid Bill process will (hopefully) prevent infrastructure being used as a political football both by politicians and local opposition. Hs2 has in some ways been a remarkable story. The project has maintained the political consensus around it through two general elections and a coalition Government – no mean feat!

I’m working in London today but I hope to catch up with some of the debate this afternoon and blog about the result of the vote later.

UPDATE (21:17).

Well, I didn’t manage to catch any of the debate, but I did see the result. The Hs2 bill passed 3rd reading with a stonking 357 majority. The final vote was 399 to 42. That means only 1 extra MP voted against Hs2 than they did during the second reading back in 2014. What amused me was all the fuss UKIP made about Hs2. Remember this ludicrous claim?

Farage Hs2

Yet, when it came to the crunch, their solitary MP didn’t even vote!

I’ll blog more tomorrow. In the meantime, let’s all enjoy the fact Parliament has spoken with a very loud voice – and that voice has said “build Hs2”.

 

The anti Hs2 mobs imaginary friends

11 Friday Mar 2016

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

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I’ve not blogged about the anti Hs2 campaign for a little while. This is because – to all intents & purposes – it’s pretty much ceased to exist. There’s been no point in highlighting a crazy campaigner of the week as their social media campaign is full of crazies now all the sensible ones have given up or moved on. I’d be better off trying to award a sensible campaigner of the week.

The two remaining campaign groups (StopHs2 and Hs2aa) have a desultory presence on social media nowadays. StopHs2 manage a few ineffectual tweets a week but Hs2aa have only tweeted 10 times this year. Why they bother is a mystery as pictures of allegedly ’empty’ trains have never got them anywhere anyway. They’ve not even managed to mention the fate of their final legal action which should have been heard by the UN yesterday.

Over the years we were lead to believe there were (allegedly) millions of disgruntled voters directly affected by Hs2 who were itching to stop the project. Needless to say, these imaginary friends never appeared. This weeks announcement that the 3rd reading of the Hybrid Bill is on the 23rd is a great example.

One MP, the shy and retiring member for Lichfield, Michael Fabricant (are you sure this is right? Ed) took to Twitter to announce he was going to present a motion to annul the Hs2 Hybrid bill on the 23rd. Here’s the wording;

Fab amendment

OK, the motion is a complete crock that doesn’t stand a chance, but you’d think that the antis would be ganging up to congratulate & support him. After all, he has over 16,000 Twitter followers so you’d think the news would be spreading like wildfire through the Twitterverse, yes?

Nope. It’s two day since Fabricant tweeted his joyous news. Here’s how many people have liked it or retweeted it;

Fabricant. 11.3.16.

A paltry 27 retweets and 16 likes shows just how parlous the state of the anti Hs2 campaign is nowadays. Still, it goes to show what I’ve always said, the anti Hs2 mob have relied on their imaginary friends and never understood that -as they can’t vote, they’re worse than useless.

Still, there’s one good thing about Fabricant’s motion. It will expose just how few MPs actively oppose Hs2 and may actually hasten the end of the StopHs2 campaign.