August Blog

I live in the path of the proposed route of the High Speed Train. Quite apart from the whole project being monumentally silly, it will impact indelibly on many, many lives. Not now, not next week, but years down the line, especially when you try to sell your house. Those unaffected by this vainglorious scheme might shrug and point to the fact that the our rich – boy government has said that people will be compensated. They’ll have to leave their homes,friends, schools and re-arrange their lives, but they will get a handful of cash. So that’s ok. No it isn’t. EVERYBODY –every tax payer’s affected by this transportation lunacy. When the projected cost stood at [give or take] 36BILLION, the average taxpayer would have been contributing around £1,700 EACH. Projected costs are now heading towards 50BILLION.

Intelligent, informed people have presented the government with a shed load of perfectly good reasons as to why the scheme should be dumped forthwith – in the form of the STOP HS2 campaign. I’ve been drawing cartoons for them. HS2 is such a daft idea, the jokes are endless. I’ve used one as my Gag of the Month. Judges recently threw out all HS2 appeals. Twerps. But there’ll be more appeals, more opposition – which will gradually grow and grow as the population realise what a criminal waste of money HS2 will be. If it ever happens.

Personally, I don’t think it will ever happen. But that’s not the point. The point is that this government, and the Labour opposition think HS2 is a good idea. A good idea to increase the commercial and financial suction down to London ?

We already have a north/south rail system which is in dire need of modernisation. So modernise it. Don’t tell fairy stories about how HS2 will relieve the pressure on our existing network. It won’t. Will it carry freight ? No. Will it stop where you want to get off ? Probably not. You’ll have to commute to do an HS2 commute. Also, and I really don’t want to nit-pick here, but the latest projected cost figure of getting on for 50 BILLION doesn’t include trains.

And all this in the face of national wealth growth figures of next to nothing, a creaking National Health Service, and hosts of other life-enhancing undertakings which are presently starved of cash. Dave’s transport policy is best summed up by a made -up word which featured heavily in “The Saving of Private Ryan”. FUBAR. Say no more.

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