Amongst the 1925 petitions deposited to the Parliamentary HS2 Committee, nine year-old Alexander Rukin, who made a video encouraging people to petition against HS2, has offered to help HS2 Ltd with their maths, as he believes the people at HS2 are below reception level at maths. More petitions have been submitted on HS2 than the number of petitions submitted to the House of Commons against HS1 and Crossrail combined, with more petitions to come when HS2 Ltd announce further ‘additional provisions’.
Alex in the Petition video
In his petition, Alexander states that he thinks HS2 is a stupid idea which shouldn’t be allowed to happen, and that he does not understand is why HS2 Ltd is being funded when his school keeps having to ask parents to donate money.
The part of his submission where he suggests he could help HS2 Ltd with their maths, echoes what he said in his video. His petition states:
“Your Petitioner does not understand why HS2 Ltd have said Phase 1 will only go through 19 ancient woodlands, when the Woodland Trust say this is 27. Your petitioner is of the opinion that is your drew a line through 27 blobs on a piece of paper, even someone in reception class would be able to count them and get it right, or at least get closer to 27 than the people getting paid lots of money at HS2 Ltd have done. Your Petitioner does not understand why these people have not been sacked, and would be quite willing to help them with their counting as he is really good at maths. Your Petitioner is extra upset about this because the list of ancient woodlands HS2 Ltd gave to the Woodlands Trust did not include Crackley Woods, which is his favourite.”
His petition goes on to say:
“Your Petitioner has been told that the people who worked out that that HS2 would be worth building have said that no-one works on trains to help cheat on their sums. Your Petitioner knows this is cheating because he has seen lots of people working on computers on trains and Your Petitioners parents both say that they work on trains. Your Petitioner does not understand why anyone is so stupid as to believe this.”
“Because the people at HS2 Ltd are really, really bad at maths and make things up that aren’t true, Your Petitioner is worried that HS2 will cost lots more than the people are saying. If HS2 costs more money and not enough people use it, Your Petitioner, like his classmates, will be the one paying for it in extra tax. Your Petitioner thinks it is unfair that he and his friends will have to pay more money forever for something they think isn’t needed and they won’t have enough money to be able to use it.”
“Your Petitioner, who started doing video conferencing at school when he was six, wonders if the old people who say we need HS2 have ever even heard of The Internet, Skype or Facetime. Even Your Petitioners’ Dad uses them, and when he went to the same school, they only had one computer on a trolley for the whole school.”
“Your Petitioner has been told that saying things which are not true is naughty, so does not understand why the HS2 people say things that are not true and get given lots of money.”
In line with the video he made, Alexander is also concerned about the fact HS2 will be on a viaduct opposite his mothers house, which could affect his sleep, as well as the effects on traffic and rail services, amongst other issues such as how much electricity HS2 would need.
His petition can be found here.
Stop HS2 Campaign Manager Joe Rukin said:
“Alex has been asking for ages what he can do to help with the campaign, and as we hadn’t got much leafleting on, which he really loves doing, I asked if he wanted to do a video. He jumped at the idea as he thinks because I have been on the telly so much, he should be too!”
“After I explained what petitioning was, he said he thought everyone in the whole country should be doing it, because he thinks HS2 is such a bad idea, and the wrong thing to spend lots of money on. I’ve not tried to wind him up about this, he is just really committed to doing something about something he thinks is wrong, and I’m really proud about that.”
MPA reports and Government maths. Perhaps Oxford should insist on Maths and Science for future politicians. This group did not shine in these two subject areas.