Tag Archives: The Green Party

Deaf, dumb and blind – here’s a good example of why I gave up on the ‘Green’ party…

30 Monday Nov 2020

Posted by in Hs2, Politics, The Green Party

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The Joseph de Maistre quote that “Every nation gets the government it deserves” has never been more apt. Sadly, it’s not just Governments, but politicians in general. Have we ever had such a lacklustre bunch – of all political shades?

Here’s an example – and a confession.

I used to vote for this person when I lived in London. By instinct I’m a natural green voter. But, over the past few years I’ve had a lot of interaction with the party’s politicians potential candidates and members. Now, I wouldn’t touch the Green Party with a barge-pole, because their dogmatic indifference to the science and the real issues – as well as their ineptness and dishonesty – is infuriating.

Here’s yesterday’s example. This blustering tweet from Baroness Jenny Jones regarding the HS2 Phase 2a: High Speed Rail (West Midlands to Crewe) Bill which is about to complete its journey through the House of Lords.

“Fight”, Jones? A fight is something you have a chance of winning. There is no fight as the Hs2 bill is already a ‘done deal’ – this is pure bluster. Either Jones doesn’t know how Parliament works (quite possible) or she’s being dishonest and grandstanding (equally possible). Of course, it might even be both as Jones has repeatedly proved attention to detail or facts really isn’t her forte. But then she is a also a ‘Green’ who backed Brexit in this infamous shambolic justification.

What Jones isn’t being honest about is the Hybrid Bill process. This starts in the House of Commons then moves to the Lords. Here’s the full timeline of the Phase 2a bill.

You can find a link to the actual document here.

Now, what Jones either doesn’t know or isn’t admitting is that some stages are more important than others. The most crucial of which is the 2nd reading of the bill in the House of Commons. If a bill gets a majority at this stage then the ‘principle’ of the bill is established. That means it’s gone beyond the point of no return. It cannot be stopped. Oh, amendments to the principle can be made at Committee stage, but the bill cannot fail.

Second reading – the general debate on all aspects of the Bill – took place on the 30th January 2018. The bill passed by 295 votes to 12, a massive majority of 283. The 12 opposing were the usual suspects, many of whom representing constituencies HS2 passes through.

Of course, some of the 12 have since left Parliament! Meanwhile, when the Bill passed 3rd reading in the Commons on the 15th July 2019 the Bill had 263 votes for and 17 votes against – another huge majority.

So, since January 2018 there’s been no ‘fight’ against the bill. To reinforce that fact when the bill had its 2nd reading in the Lords on the 9th September 2019 it passed without a vote as it was clear there was no need for a ‘division’. Why? Because there’s something else Jones isn’t telling people – HS2 enjoys even more support in the House of Lords than it does in the House of Commons! This isn’t a ‘fight’, it’s a walkover! The final stages of the bill are now a formality, it’s only a matter of time now before it receives Royal Assent, at which point it becomes law. This afternoon the bill is back in the Lords at what’s known as the ‘reports’ stage. This gives a further chance to closely scrutinise elements of the bill and consider (minor) changes – nothing more, as the Lords Ctte noted themselves on Page 6 of their report.

“It is not for this Committee to consider the general merits of the scheme.
Parliament has already approved it by passing the 2017 Act and by giving a
second reading in both Houses to the West Midlands–Crewe bill. We note
these general issues by way of background”.

So Jones is blustering. Needless to say, quite a few people pointed this out to her on Twitter. Her response? A mixture of arrogance and (typical of Green party ‘leaders’) an absolute unwillingness to listen to opposing views. Jones clearly prefers the security of her own little echo-chamber.

Worse was to come. How’s this for an example of patronising contempt – and cringeworthy sexism!

“Big boy toys”? Seriously?

Sadly, this sort of stuff is par for the course from Jones who is one of the main architects of the Green Party’s mad policy to oppose HS2. Still, it’s a good example of why they can’t be taking seriously as a credible political party. There’s a whiff of good, old fashioned Stalinism about the way they won’t tolerate any dissent – either from ordinary voters or within their own ranks.

Why does this matter? Good question. The Green Party only have one MP and their chance of getting any more is pretty much zero. But…

Climate Change is the biggest issue facing us all. We need a credible, strong, Green Party to continue to push for positive change and work with others to achieve it.

An illustration of the problem. These are the Medway viaducts in Kent. the two massive and wide motorway bridges dwarf the graceful high-speed 1 railway viaduct in the background. Now, guess which form of transport the Green Party spend all their time and energy in opposing?

Sadly, that’s the last thing we’ve got. Instead we have a bunch of tone-deaf people at the head of a dogmatic party that’s incapable of meaningful engagement with ordinary voters. So where does that leave politically homeless people like me who can see the problem? I’m damned if I know.

UPDATE:

Anyone looking forward to some political pugilism as promised in Jones’ bluster will have been sadly disappointed by this afternoon’s debate. It was a walkover!

I won’t bore you with the political minutiae and ins and outs of the procedure that involved Lord Berkeley trying to put forward an amendment using Transport and Works Act Orders as a way of delaying the bill’s progress, but it failed. Badly. From the outset it was clear Berkeley had no support, so he didn’t even press for a ‘division’ (vote), instead he withdrew his amendment.

And that was the end of that! Jones did speak, but there was no ‘fight’ in her. In an anondyne speech (sans StopHs2 T-Shirt) the gist of which was “I like trains, me”, she expressed her concern that people weren’t being listened to and that there was a lot of expertise out there people weren’t paying attention to!

“I think people should be listened to – and I’ll block or mute the first person who dares argue with me”!

Her weapons-grade hypocrisy nearly caused a coffee/keyboard interface issue here in Bigland Towers. The same person who was boasting on Twitter how she blocks and mutes people who don’t agree with her lecturing on ‘listening’? You couldn’t make this stuff up!

One bright point of the debate was Lord Adonis who was as fluent and passionate as ever, gently poking fun at Lord Berkeley and making the case for HS2’s Eastern leg whilst sporting a rather impressive tie!

If you want to watch the events on Parliament TV, you can follow this link, which will take you to it. After Lord Berkeley’s amendment was withdrawn the debate continued to discuss HS2 and another amendment from Lord Adonis that would commit the Government to building the Eastern leg of HS2. Lord after Lord from all sides of the political spectrum spoke in favour of, including many Ex-Government Ministers like Lord Blunkett (Labour) and McLoughlin (Conservative). Anyone watching the debate would be left in no doubt of the strength of support for HS2 in the Lords!

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More depressing nonsense from the Green Party…

14 Saturday Nov 2020

Posted by in Hs2, Railways, The Green Party

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Well, the Green Party of England and Wales anyway. The Scottish Green party is a separate entity and seems to be far more sensible and less dogmatic than the GPEW.

As someone who fits the profile of what looks like a natural Green party supporter and who’s voted for them in the past, I now find myself actively opposing them. Why? Because of their dogmatic and dishonest stance on railways and especially the High Speed 2 (HS2) rail project. It was this stance that made me look deeper at GPEW policy several years ago. It led to a long blog where I dissected their policy and the outright misrepresentations it contained.

Sadly, nothing has changed since. If anything the Greens leadership has become even more hardline about HS2 – and even more dishonest. That’s often the problem when you get caught up in a lie. You either come clean and admit it or you double-down on it. The Greens have taken the latter course.

The truly sad thing is this lie completely undermines everything the Green Party is meant to stand for. Why? Well, the UK’s biggest emitter of carbon dioxide nowadays is transport. The details can be found in this Government paper. As it points out –

As such, you’d expect the GPEW to have a laser-like focus on cutting transport Co2 emissions, wouldn’t you?

Exactly the opposite. Because, whilst the Greens have a mealy-mouthed policy of supporting UK High-Speed rail ‘in principle’, they vehemently oppose it in practice. In other words, they’re nothing more than hypocrites. But they don’t just stop at hypocrisy. Take a look at this Tweet from Caroline Russell. “Who she?” I hear you ask? Well, amongst other things, Russell is the GPEW Spokesperson on Transport.

As you can see from Russell’s list of roles and the fact she lives in North London, this is no rural Green Party Councillor living out in the sticks, who cycles to local meetings in-between knitting her own yoghurt. Russell is at the centre of things and has access to transport experts and a wealth of knowledge. So how can she come out with something as unutterably stupid as this tweet?

HS2 “shaves minutes” off ‘the’ journey between two major cities? Seriously? Has Russell ever bothered to look at a map of HS2? Because if she had, you’d expect her to have noticed that (from day 1) HS2 serves more than just two cities!
“Two cities”? Oh, please…

As for the “shaving minutes” nonsense, let’s have a look at a few sample times.

“Shaving” a few minutes? Hmm…

Not only does this point out that HS2 will serve 8 out of 10 of our largest cities, it looks beyond Russell’s obsession with London and Birmingham to highlight some rather spectacular journey time cuts. For example, Birmingham to Manchester is cut by 52% and Birmingham to Leeds is cut by a whopping 58%. Rail’s market share on both these routes is small because the existing journey times are slow and the trains are cramped Cross-Country ‘Voyagers’ of 4-5 cars. The services via Leeds also start/finish way beyond the core route and are often crowded before they reach either location.

Such journey time cuts are ideal to get people out of their cars and onto trains -as will be the new trains as they’ll be far superior to the product on offer now. Then there’s the massive increase in capacity HS2 adds to the existing rail network (for both passenger and freight services) that’s the real winner, because without it our rail network can’t cope with any shift from road/air to rail. Remember, before the pandemic, our existing rail network was creaking at the seams as it tried to cope with record numbers of passengers travelling on record numbers of trains running. It simply couldn’t cope with huge numbers of new passengers.

But surely? That’s what the Greens want, isn’t it? If we’re going to get people and freight off roads to cut transport Co2 emissions we need to provide the rail capacity to be able to do it?

Not according to the GPEW! According to Russell, some local electric buses and a few more local trains will do it! Quite how we’re meant to fit those local trains through choke-points like Birmingham New St, Leeds or Manchester Piccadilly is never explained – because the Greens don’t do explanations. Nor do they listen to the experts who point these things out.

Russell’s tweet begs the question, is (despite her being the Green’s Transport Spokesperson) she spectacularly ignorant and ill-informed, or – is this deliberate misinformation? But it’s not just Russell, you’ll hear this misinformation from many other ‘Green’ leaders too – like Bartley, Jones, and Bennett. It’s endemic and institutionalised.

It illustrates exactly why I won’t touch the Green party with a barge-pole, and I’m not alone. Their blind dogma and refusal to deal with the fact their policy on the railways and HS2 in particular is a dishonest mess that actually prevents them being credible (never mind actually tackling Climate Change) is maddening, but it’s so deeply ingrained in them I believe the GPEW is a write-off.

Sad to say, if you want genuine Green solutions to tackle climate-change. Don’t vote Green…

Is it just me, or has the environmental movement gone mad?

04 Wednesday Mar 2020

Posted by in Hs2, Politics, RSPB, The Green Party

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Sometimes, you really have to wonder. I’ve been occupied scanning old slides again this evening as Dawn’s busy on a Reiki course, so whilst I’ve been waiting for the scanner to perform its (slow) miracles I’ve been keeping an eye on social media – which is when I spotted this gem..

Seriously? F**k me, who knew that for thousands of years people have used various (mostly humane) methods to deter birds? Have the RSPB never heard of Scarecrows, or the farmers that set off shotgun cartridges on a timer – or Network Rail patrolling some of its stations like this? “Ethically dubious”?

If this is the desperate intellectual level some of our environmental groups are reduced to, you do have to start asking – what’s the point of you? What problems are you really going to solve with rubbish like this – and why on earth should we take you seriously?

Needless to say, it wasn’t long before arch HS2 critic Chris Packham piled in in his own unthinking fashion with this tweet.

Holding nature in ‘contempt’ by using birds to scare off birds? Talk about mental gymnastics! The sad thing is that knee-jerk rubbish like this only makes it easier for people to dismiss environmental groups as cranks. It gives ammunition to the opposition, nothing more, but nothing that Packham comes out with surprises me anymore. Let’s face it, a man who flies people half-way around the world on expensive bird-watching tours of the Gambia (for which he earns a pretty penny) trying to stop people in the UK from being able to travel on a carbon-neutral railway is the height of hypocrisy.

I’ll look forward to the next chapter of this madness, the RSPCA starting a campaign against people buying cats to scare away mice perhaps? For God’s sake – no-one tell them about Felix, the Huddersfield station cat!

The latest Stophs2/Green party debacle…

29 Friday Nov 2019

Posted by in Hs2, Joe Rukin, Johnathan Bartley, StopHs2, The Green Party

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Yesterday the Green party and StopHs2 held a joint demonstration outside the Department of Transport in London. To say it was a bit of a flop is an understatement. The event was widely advertised on social media by anti Hs2 groups and the Green party – for all the good it did. Here’s an example.

Notice that 27 people claim to have attended? This is a piss-poor number when you consider the number of people who supposedly oppose HS2. As is my habit, let’s crunch some numbers to get a bit of perspective.

Over 6.5 million people live in the 63 Parliamentary constituencies HS2 will pass through.

The Green Party are estimated to have a membership of 48,500.

StopHs2 have 11,849 Facebook followers. Many of whom will have seen this leaflet.

Now, allowing for the fact there’s clearly crossover between these different groups, you’d expect a reasonable turn-out, wouldn’t you? Especially as the demonstration was taking place in Central London, thus within easy reach of many of those supposedly up in arms about HS2, No?

No. Here’s a few pictures from the event, which was timed to take place between 3-4pm. The first one is the sort of tightly-cropped pictures that you’ll see the media use, making it look like there’s actually something going on.

Here’s Green party ‘co-leader’ Jonathan Bartley, (right) singing the praises of Mark Keir, their candidate in Uxbridge who’s standing against Boris Johnson. In the foreground is Sarah Green, another Uxbridge campaigner who’d been in court that morning to have (yet another) injunction taken out against her tiny protest group. In the background, dressed as a tree, is StopHs2 ‘campaign manager’ Joe Rukin.

Here’s what the media won’t show you. This is a view of the full event, which shows you just how pathetically small is was! I count a total of 15 people, including 3 members of the media. Even the police didn’t bother showing up! The only security is a couple of DfT staff stood discretely in the background.

Here’s another shot, after the media had left but including one innocent passer-by on her phone. This is the best both the ‘combined might’ of the Green party and StopHs2 can do – in Central London! Quite where the others out of the 27 who claimed to have gone were is a mystery. But then it’s like the social media ‘keyboard warriors’ who spend all their time ranting about Hs2 on Twitter or Facebook – but never get out of their armchairs when it comes to doing anything else.

Here’s a short video, just in case stills aren’t convincing enough!

I’ve not seen any media coverage of this as I’m assuming it wasn’t considered newsworthy, which is hardly surprising. Bartley gave a speech to camera in which he trotted out the usual scaremongering nonsense about ‘ecocide’ and ‘concreting over’ the countryside. mark Keir also spoke to the camera. What he said was more interesting because of what he let slip. He appealed for more people to turn up to the Uxbridge protests because they’re desperately short of bodies on the ground. If you follow his and the other protesters farcical antics on Facebook it’s easy to see why!

The whole protest reveals something about the UK green party, which is that they’ve very little credibility as anything more than a protest group – which is clearly what they’re happiest being. They have several credibility issues, one of which is the calibre of their candidates and Mark Kier is a good example of this. I’ve no doubt of his commitment, but there are serious questions about his fitness to be a candidate. OK, it’s fair to say that the whole Brexitshambles has exposed the fact Parliament has more than it’s fair share of people with the intellect of an amoeba on both sides of the floor, but the Greens are meant to be offering something better. Here’s an earlier blog of Kier giving an interview. Does this sound like someone you’d like representing you in Parliament? remember, he stood in Uxbridge in 2017 and managed to reduce the size of the Green vote!

I’ve no idea how the Green Party chooses its candidates, but I have to say they really need to up their game if they expect to be taken seriously. That said, their ridiculous ‘co-leader’ policy doesn’t help either. It may play well to the membership, but out in the real world? Oh, please…

The tragedy of all this is the UK desperately needs a credible Green party, but this lot ain’t it. When I see the impact their German counterparts have on politics I do go green – but only with envy! The German party manages to grapple with national and international issues whilst the UK party is obsessed with localism and can’t actually see the woods for the trees, hence their mad opposition to HS2, because the hard truth is without HS2 we simply don’t have the rail capacity for the future to get people and freight off roads and cut transport Co2 emissions to tackle Climate Change. Stopping HS2 isn’t ‘green’, it’s exactly the opposite.

Stophs2 think they can unseat Boris Johnson by Joe Rukin dressing up as a tree!

16 Saturday Nov 2019

Posted by in General election 2019, Hs2, Mark Keir, Politics, The Green Party

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No, seriously! That wasn’t a typo…

The Stophs2 campaign is going from farce to worse and yesterday has been an outstanding example. The ‘intellectual’ wing of the campaign collapsed several years ago when the folk involved in the ‘High Speed 2 Action Alliance’ (who were essentially a bunch of Chiltern Nimbys) gave up the ghost in 2016. The anti Hs2 ‘flame’ then passed to the sole surviving group known as Stophs2 who were always the ‘Mickey Mouse’ end of the campaign, as yesterday has proved in spades!

Stophs2 have been struggling to stay relevant for a long time now as their Chair, Penny Gaines has buggered off to Bournemouth whilst their Campaign Manager, Joe Rukin remains in Kenilworth. They get wheeled out as rent-a-quotes to various sections of the media who still have them in their contacts lists, but that has no reflection on their actual influence, which is zero. They weren’t even part of the HS2 phase 2a petitioning process.

But you can always rely on Joe Rukin to come up with a Cupid Stunt. Sorry, I meant to say a cunning plan! His latest brainwave was to dress up as a tree in the Uxbridge constituency of Prime Minister Boris Johnson along with some Extinction Rebellion protesters. Quite what Rukin was thinking this would achieve is unfathomable, but I’ll explore that more later. First, here’s a screenshot from the StopHs2 Facebook page that shows you this farce.

If you’re on Facebook and want to view this complete car-crash in all it’s glory, feel free! Here’s another snippet from their FB page.

Interestingly, some StopHs2 supporters were less than impressed by the spectacle, as the comments on Facebook show.

There’s also this little revelation that makes it clear the stophs2 grassroots really aren’t all that keen on getting involved in direct action. A stopHs2 sticker in the back of their 4×4 is one thing, joining a protest is another!

Despite the latter claim it’s clear that Rukin was in Uxbridge with Extinction Rebellion who were presumably hoping to entice people to vote for the Green party with this cringeworthy spectacle. Now, let’s get real for a moment and look at some facts.

In the 2016 EU referendum Uxbridge voted 57.19% to leave the EU. Boris Johnson held Uxbridge at the 2017 election with a 5034 majority.

The Green Party’s candidate, Mark Keir, who has been involved in various anti HS2 stunts, is not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer or obvious Parliamentary material who would be seen as attractive to ordinary voters (see this blog). He came last in 2017 and saw the green vote fall by 1.3% to 1.9%. The only person within spitting distance of Johnson was the Labour candidate, who increased their vote by a sizeable 13.6%. This year Labour have put up a different candidate but Keir is yet again standing for the Green party. So, who is StopHs2 backing? Keir! The one man who is guaranteed not to win and whom voting for will help keep Labour out and Boris Johnson in!

The StopHs2 campaign has been a tragi-comedy for some time. Informed sources tell me that Joe Rukin has been looking for a proper job for some time. Perhaps with his experience in ‘story-telling’ and dressing up, he should consider getting himself an Equity card, after all, he’s clearly got a talent for Pantomime and that season’s fast approaching!

StopHs2: Shutting the stable door in Haddenham…

08 Friday Mar 2019

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, Politics, The Green Party

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Yesterday there was a local Council election in Haddenham and Stone, a ward on Aylesbury Vale council in Buckinghamshire. The seat had been held by a long-serving Conservative Cllr who had passed away at the age of 82. In yesterday’s election the seat was won by the Green Party’s David Lyons, a well known local Green party member who’d stood before, coming second in 2015. Here’s the result, thanks to the excellent Britain Elects website and Twitter feed

greens

So, with no UKIP or Independent candidates standing and the long-standing Cllr deceased, The Greens won the seat with an impressive 36.5% swing. Picking the bones out of this one would be interesting as it suggests a lot of voters have swapped allegiances for a whole host of reasons. Does anyone seriously believe UKIP voters decided to go Green en-masse?

Here’s a background on the constituency and the players from Britain Elects. It adds some valuable context.

Of course, Hs2 passes through the area and antis are falling over themselves to claim this is a backlash against the project. No doubt some of that is true – especially as preliminary construction work has started. This is no longer a project that was on the drawing-board. Now there’s visible evidence on the ground, which tends to concentrate a few more minds. However, it’s clear that Hs2 isn’t the only issue in the area, as some local Tweeters have pointed out. Housing is also a big issue with 500 new homes due to be built in the area.

halber

As is often the case in Council elections the party that won had put in a lot of effort on the ground and built up a following behind a local man. Add this the demise of a long-standing incumbent and some local issues like Housing and Hs2 and you can see why the Greens have managed to go from 2nd to 1st place. Was Brexit a factor as some people are claiming? Probably, but again, these are local elections which tend to reflect local issues, so you can’t read too much of the national picture into them and get a true image.

So, what does this mean for Hs2? Absolutely nothing.

For a start, these decisions are way above a local Councillors pay grade. Parliament, MPs and the Lords decide on these things, not Councils. This is the political equivalent of a flea trying to bite a rhinoceros. It’s also worth noting that the Council David’s been elected to will be abolished in 2022, so his shelf life isn’t long.

If those opposed to Hs2 had real political muscle they would have shown it long before this. 2010 would have been good, or in any of the local or national elections since. It never happened. Even if Hs2 was the primary consideration (locals suggest it isn’t), this is very much a case of someone shutting the stable door long after the horse has bolted!

Update

I’ve done a bit of digging and found the actual numbers of votes cast, and the results from the May 2015 elections which is the last time the seat came up. You can draw your own conclusions…

haddenham

haddenham 2

Meanwhile, the Independent’s Europe Correspondent, Jon Stone (@joncstone on Twitter) has added this, detailing why some of the Nimbys in the area just might be upset with Hs2!

jon stone

Could we be faced with a delicious irony here? A Green party win because of a few disgruntled golfers? After all, golf courses aren’t exactly on top of the Green Party’s list of favourite things!

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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 protests? Twyford Down they ain’t…

20 Saturday Jan 2018

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Harvil Rd Hs2 protest, Hs2, StopHs2, The Green Party

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I’m puzzled. The anti Hs2 mob have always sworn blind that they’re the majority. That (depending on which clickbait poll you care to read) the whole country is united  in opposition to Hs2. It’s been the one single message that’s run through their campaign like the lettering in a stick of rock. Everybody opposes Hs2…

OK, so let’s bin the clickbait polls and the posturing, cut through the crap and look at reality. Let’s crunch some real numbers and look at events on the ground.

For a start, how many people live in the 63 constituencies that Hs2 passes through? According to the Government website Hs2 antis often use for their petitions, that’s 6,567,433 people. Yep, over 6.5 MILLION – hardly an insignificant number. So, first question. If that’s the case, why’ve less than 0.37% of them signed the latest Stophs2 petition? I’m typing this at 12:53 on a Saturday. Here’s the score on the door as I do. 24,814 – out of 6.5m

petition 20 jan

In fact, the position’s worse than that total suggests. 24814 is the total nationally, it includes the 3 received from the Orkneys & Shetland (where Hs2 is obviously a burning issue and dominating the inbox of the local MP). It also includes 2 signatures from Mid Ulster, another area which is clearly vexed about Hs2. So, what’s the real total for the 63 constituencies? I crunched the numbers yesterday. Here they are.

numbers

Having taken out all the signatures from constituencies away from the route we’re left with the fact that just 0.21% of people living on the route of Hs2 have signed the Stop H2 petition! 0.2%! So much for the strength of the support Stop Hs2 claim. But then this is what happens when you look beyond the hype to the real numbers.

It’s the same when you look at the campaign on the ground. They used to hold annual conventions, the last one was at The Staffordshire showground in June 2013. Their last national rally was in April 2014, the day Parliament passed the Phase 1 bill with a stonking majority of 411. Less than 100 demonstrators countrywide turned up.

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

Now the focus has switched to ‘direct action’ to prevent Hs2 being built. Apart from the fact this is a tacit admittance of their failure, it’s also proved to be a huge embarrassment due to the miserly turnout. Take Euston as an example. On the 12th January a local Vicar and another protester chained themselves to a tree in Euston Gardens. How many protesters were there? Less than the number of media who turned out to watch! (link).

Now this was central London and a borough that the protesters tell you is dead set against Hs2? So where are they all? One of the people interviewed, Keri Brennan is from  Hillingdon, not Camden! Stophs2 should have had hundreds of people here, but they didn’t. Why? Because most people have given up. What you see in the TV interviews are the same few faces.

It was the same a few days later when the gardens were closed. How many demonstrators staged a sit-down protest? THREE.

Havkman

This is Camden (pop 143,242) and this is the best they can do? One of them is from Hillingdon!

If this is the best they can do it really is laughable! If they can’t get people to turn up in central London then they really are in trouble. Meanwhile, what about that other protest in Harvil Rd in Hillingdon? It’s no better there. Harvil Rd has been organised by Hillingdon Green party. One of the stalwarts of the Harvil Rd protest is a woman called Sarah Brooks. Wait a minute, Sarah, that name sounds familiar? Yep, it’s the same Sarah who was at Euston in the pic above. There’s so few people involved that they have to be shared between protests!

sarah

Harvil Rd isn’t exactly a hotbed of protest either. They have a small camp opposite the site entrance and occasionally make a nuisance of themselves by climbing on heavy plant or blocking the site entrance. Here’s an example.

Harvil Rd 2

Not exactly the Twyford Down protests, is it?

Corralled behind those barriers are a grand total of FOUR protesters! Hs2 Ltd have announce that they’re seeking a High Court order to restrain the protesters. They’ve named SEVEN people in it – that’s all the regulars involved! Here’s another view produced by the protesters themselves that includes a plea for extra people to join them.

Harvil Rd.

In the video on the left hand side is another familiar face. The ‘spokesman’ for Hillingdon Green party, Mark Kier, who produced this load of tosh back in December. I mean, come on folks! This isn’t exactly on the scale of the Twyford Down or the M11 link road protests is it? This is their problem. The anti Hs2 groups have always written cheques they can’t cash. They’ve always pretended that they have more public support then they had. Sadly, the national media has always swallowed their claims without questioning them. This blog doesn’t. It was the same when the Hs2 plus report was launched in Manchester in 2014. None of the handful of demonstrators  outside was from Manchester (which doesn’t have a single StopHs2 group in the whole of the city), they were all from Cheshire!

DG173935. Anti Hs2 protest. Manchester. 17.3.14

If Greater Manchester says ‘No’ to Hs2, why a you lot all from Mid-Cheshire then, you lying toads?

Of course all this is a sideshow. Hs2 Phase 1 is under construction. On the 30th January the spotlight shifts and the Hybrid Bill for the next phase of HS2 – the section from Birmingham to Crewe will get its second reading in Parliament. It would take a miracle for the bill not to pass as Hs2 has always had cross-party support. A fact that makes these futile protests look even more pointless.

UPDATE: 9th February 2018.

As expected, the Phase 2 a Hybrid bill sailed through by 295 votes to 12. There wasn’t a single stophs2 protester outside Parliament that day. Meanwhile, the Harvil Rd protest has faded away and attracts little attention or support. It’s the same at Euston where the removal of trees in Euston Square gardens resulted in a protest from just a handful of people;

 

camden 6 feb

Over 143,000 people live in Camden but this is the best anti Hs2 protesters could do.

 

Meanwhile, StopHs2, the sole remaining ‘national’ campaign group hasn’t been heard from all month (apart from a couple of retweets on twitter). It’s website hasn’t been updated since January. Will the last one out please turn off the lights?