“Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.”
That’s because Parliament has gone on holiday. But we haven’t!
STOPHS2 wishes all a very happy and peaceful festive season but asks everyone to show support to those whose homes and businesses confirmed at risk of being bulldozed and blighted for ever by HS2. Oh yes and they found out from the maps on the Department of Transport Website this week whether they were or not (still no letters Mr Hammond?).
Wikepedia says “Ebenezer Scrooge is the principal character in Charles Dickens‘s 1843 novel, A Christmas Carol. At the beginning of the novel, Scrooge is a cold-hearted, tight-fisted and greedy man, who despises Christmas and all things which give people happiness. Dickens describes him thus: “The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, made his eyes red, his thin lips blue, and he spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice ….”.
Please do look at the various clips of Phillip Hammond on line.
Russell Parsons, a homeowner facing losing his family home in Northamptonshire gave this statement about living under the shadow of the confirmed route of HS2 at Christmas following this week’s announcement
“We are even more depressed. They have slightly moved it right so I now goes right through our farm and our entire 16th century hamlet will be removed from the map. We are going to enjoy our Christmas despite the worst Christmas present ever. John Maynard Keynes, a British Economist who developed the school of thought known as Keynesian economics, said ““There is no harm in being sometimes wrong — especially if one is promptly found out”.
Mr Hammond is supposed to be an economist. He is wrong and consistently fails to answer questions on the real case for HS2. Philip will never factor in the same league as John Maynard Keynes. Keynes also said “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”.
I would point out to the country that the people need the best economists in the world, we simply can not afford anything else”
Another fabulous quotation of Mr Keynes is “The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones.”
STOPHS2 urges Mr Hammond, our very own pet Scrooge to go through his own “Transformational” process, just as Scrooge did before it is too late.
Transformation Benefits you say Mr Scrooge well “Bah, humbug!“
Well, it was a white Christmas for sure and many trains on the existing network were not running. I suggest that money allocated for HS2 in 2011 and 2012 be diverted to improving the existing rail network so that it works 24/7. While I was waiting at Maidenhead station on the 16th December trains between Didcot and London stopped running moments BEFORE the snow starting landing!
The existing system is inefficient because it uses every technology under the sun and is unfocussed. Let’s at least electrify the GWR from Paddington to Wales and the West Country and get the whole network onto a common form of energy source. The Diesel fumes at Paddington are getting to be very uncomfortable and are definitely not green.
And don’t get me started on the UK’s unique third rail system South of the Thames . . . .
Scrooge was shown the errors of his ways… Hammond, knows that all the arguments for HS2 are flawed and yet still persists. What is his real motivation? and where are the three ghosts we need?