Toby on Tuesday

‘All aboard the Crazy Train’

 

We all remember the Hans Christian Andersen children’s story “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”   It begins, “Many years ago, there was an Emperor, who was so excessively fond of new clothes, that he spent all his money in dress.”   It goes on to tell how two swindling tailors promised him a new suit in a fabric that would be invisible to anyone who was too stupid or incompetent to see it.   Of course, there isn’t any suit but everyone pretends that they can see it and flatters him on it until it takes a small boy to cry out, “But the Emperor has nothing on at all!”

Last month, a nine-year old Cub Scout called Alex Rukin appeared in Parliament before the new High Speed 2 rail bosses and accused them of being “really, really bad” at maths and of making things up on the spiraling budget of their imperial vanity project.   He went on to identify a £7 billion hole in a scheme that is already likely to cost well over £50 billion.   Like the boy in the Hans Christian Andersen story, he said of the HS2 bosses,   “It really is worse than I thought.   I am still willing to help them with their maths if they want!”

The reality behind HS2 can be found on the EUs own website on ec.europa.eu/transport/themes.   HS2 has nothing at all to do with the transport needs of London or Birmingham.   Rather it is a vanity project designed as part of an imperial high speed rail network for those who benefit from the new European empire.   The StopHS2 website on stophs2.org/ spells out the case against this monstrosity all too clearly, but last month it took a nine-year old Cub Scout to appear before a Parliamentary committee and state the obvious truth.

In the name of “rationalisation”, great damage was done to our rail network by the Beeching Axe of the mid-1960’s.   Among the many notable casualties were routes operated by the old LMS (London, Midland and Scottish) which ran from London through Birmingham to the North.   Much of the LMS infrastructure is still in place and could now be revived at a fraction of the cost of HS2.   But there would be no vanity in doing this and it would not meet the exacting requirements of Brussels and Berlin.   It would be a low-key investment with ordinary passengers, now struggling under rising fares, in mind.  In the two decades since John Major’s rail privatisation, many inter-city fares have trebled and the fares planned for HS2 would effectively exclude most normal passengers.  

It is worth remembering exactly who HS2 is being built for.   The only people able to travel on it will be our new masters, the Eurocrats, the civil servants and the big corporate players.   Yet we shall all end up paying for it, either directly or by greatly reduced public services across the country.   And it will inevitably lose money year on year, a bottomless pit which we shall all be funding.

Now UKIP is the only major political party committed to the immediate scrapping of HS2.   Like Hans Christian Andersen’s small boy, and like Alex Rukin, we are saying to the emperors who now govern us from Brussels and Berlin, you may have been made fools of, but we in Britain are not fools and can see clearly what is happening!  Truth will out and, like your shiny new Euro-currency, HS2 can now be filed away along with all your other crazy schemes!

Until next Tuesday!
Toby