Category Archives: environment

Love’s Labour’s Lost: The party conference that now puts realism before socialism

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This week I paid a lightening visit to the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool and found a remarkably changed and brutally focused party.

Out had gone any commitment to state ownership, hugely expensive pledges to spend, spend, spend and in had come a sharp focus on bread and butter issues like cutting hospital waiting lists and building lots of homes for generation homeless..

There was also a brutal message from Sir Keir Starmer that the party would be raising very little on new taxes- beyond taxing non doms and VAT on private school fees. Everything was going to depend on growing the economy from its present feeble state to pay for new public spending. If that fails the whole Labour project will collapse once they are in government – a big hostage to fortune.

What was also noticeable was the huge presence of corporate firms and large charities and ngos – never have I seen such numbers in the exhibition hall and its overflow corridor.

The main reason why Labour is being cautious is the state of the British economy post Brexit. Although Brexit was never mentioned by the Labour leadership, the chaos and incompetence of the present Tory government ( now also emerging in the Covid inquiry) has virtually torched the British economy, now bedevilled with a cost of living crisis and high inflation. And they can’t blame the EU. But it is worse than that – the chopping and changing in government policy -illustrated by scrapping HS2 at Manchester during their conference last week and delays in the net zero programme – has even bewildered their business allies who don’t know where they are and how they should plan.

That is why they see a Labour government as a better bet than the Tories. It is ironic that after all the attacks on Jeremy Corbyn turning Labour into a cult – it is now the Tories that are turning into one – with their obsession with opposing trans rights, boat people, cancel culture and recreating the UK in the image of the 1950s. No wonder much of business ran off to Liverpool.

David Blunkett; Official House of Lords portrait

I did attend two very interesting fringe meetings during my short stay. Both illustrated the new order at Labour. One organised by the TUC was on the subject of tackling Britain’s skill shortages among the workforce. It was addressed by Steve Rotherham, the Labour Metro Mayor of Liverpool; Bridget Phillipson, Labour’s shadow education secretary; Labour peer David Blunkett; and chaired by Kevin Rowan from the TUC. What was impressive was that the TUC and David Blunkett had drawn up a very detailed plan to tackle the crippling skills shortage – often overlooked by politicians – and Bridget Phillipson, was keen to implement it. It included scrapping the very low wage of £5.28 a n hour for apprentices and replacing it with the minimum wage and radically changing the funding programme to tackle skills shortages and prevent employers exploiting it for cheap labour. If Labour are serious in doing this, it will be fundamental to economic recovery.

An even bigger eyeopener was a fringe meeting organised by Labour’s environment campaign, Chaired by a Westminster Labour councillor , the campaign had both the head of forests, from Global Witness and a Aviva, the private insurance company on the panel. It turned out that both Global Witness and Aviva had been working together to ensure UK legislation that would stop British firms contributing to global deforestation by de investing in companies that did this. Even this it appeared had been opposed by the Tories.

One extraordinary meeting I did not get into was on the controversial future of rail to be addressed by Labour’s shadow transport secretary, Louise Haigh. Organised by Lodestone Communications, whose clients include US whiskies, the Countess of Chester Hospital ( not best to advertise this at the moment) and IT firms, it was private but important enough for the general secretaries of ASLEF and the RMT to attend. I was told it shouldn’t have been advertised in Labour’s conference programme and been placed there by mistake. Very intriguing.

Women born in the 1950s who have faced a six year delay in their pension would have been pleased by a motion which was passed by Labour’s women’s conference. It commits the next Labour government to fully implement in law the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and ensure equal pay for women is fully implemented. We shall see if Sir Keir Starmer makes this a manifesto commitment.

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Rishi Sunak: The Road Kill PM

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” Dishy Rishi” or our new Maharajah Pic Credit : Lauren Hurley / No 10 Downing Street

Increasingly desperate about his poll ratings the Prime Minister has turned to dumping green policies as Europe burns. The Tories managed by just under 500 votes to hold Boris Johnson’s old seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip and claimed that stirring up the introduction of new charges for the ULEZ ( Ultra Low Emissions Zone) being extended to all vehicles entering Greater London helped them hold it. Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, bought the argument.

For the record two other reasons also contributed to counter that view. Despite ULEZ the Green Party polled 893 votes taking more than enough votes from Labour to deny them the seat. And the seat has a substantial Indian minority – who are thrilled to have an Indian PM – with many mothers dubbing him “Dishy Rishi” as they see him as a trailblazer for the future community.

But Sunak’s short term populist stance on these issues aimed at the “boy racer” motorist vote is going to have a devastating effect on the health and lives of ordinary people. In the space of a week the PM has signalled he is against ULEZ, against 20mph speed limits, against restrictions on cars in residential neighbourhoods and in favour of a massive expansion of oil and gas in the North Sea. If he gets more desperate I can see him dropping the ban of new diesel and petrol cars and promising the combustion engine will live forever in the UK.

Bill Esterson Labour’s business and industry spokesman Pic credit: Industry Forum

And none of this is good for long term planning for business to transition to net zero as Labour’s shadow business and industry spokesman, Bill Esterson points out. It could even damage our own car industry as every country we export is switching to electric cars.

As he says: “Over 70% of our car exports go to markets that have already set a phase-out date of fossil vehicles.

Other countries are committed to the transition away from fossil fuels. And they are keeping their commitments.”

All these measures will damage the health of people and cost lives. That is why I think he deserves the title of the Road Kill PM – the roads of the UK will not only be littered with dead wildlife but dead and injured children and pedestrians.

Take the ULEZ zone itself. This is as much a public health issue as an environmental one. Children have died in London because of it so Sadiq Khan is right to introduce it. And the Tories are hypocritical about the zone – it was demanded by Grant Shapps, as transport secretary as part of a cash settlement to bail out Transport for London during the Covid crisis. So it could be called the “Grant Shapps” ULEZ zone as much as Khan’s.

In France ineligible cars are BANNED not charged in Ulez zones

Also drivers chaffing at paying the charge should know that this initiative is not confined to the UK. If they drive to France on holiday they will find they are not charged but banned from driving in a growing number of big city centres and could be fined. And all eligible cars and motorbikes have to carry a clean air sticker or you cannot drive in France.

No wonder doctors have written Sunak and Khan to say.

“Air pollution affects every one of us from before we are born into old age. It not only causes respiratory conditions such as asthma, but also heart attacks, heart arrhythmias, strokes, child developmental disorders, lung cancer and dementia.

“Ulez works. It has already saved lives and prevented many illnesses and hospital admissions.”

As for reviewing 20 mph limits in cities including London. There is no question that will result in more deaths and injuries.

Road crash Pic credit: Brake, road safety charity

Brake, the road safety charity, says:

“A vehicle travelling at 20mph would stop in time to avoid a child running out three car-lengths in front. The same vehicle travelling at 25mph would not be able to stop in time, and would hit the child at 18mph. This is roughly the same impact as a child falling from an upstairs window.

The greater the impact speed, the greater the chance of death. A pedestrian hit at 30mph has a very significant (one in five) chance of being killed. “

Latest statistics for London show the number of collisions has reduced by 25% (from 406 to 304), and collisions resulting in death or serious injury have also reduced by 25% (from 94 to 71), demonstrating the huge impact of lowering speeds to 20mph on many roads.

But for Rishi Sunak to get his votes back and stay in power obviously a few more children or pedestrians killed or maimed every year are a price worth paying. Anyway he seems to go most places by helicopter.

Then there is the big boost to finding North Sea oil with 100 new licences to be issued by the government. Again this is going down the wrong track. The North Sea is not the only place being explored when I was in Namibia a big exploration was under way near Walvis Bay which could yield an enormous new field. At some point the big increase in electric vehicles is going to meet the burgeoning supply of oil and as demand for oil falls so will the price until it becomes uneconomic.

The security claim is rubbish too – since it will be traded on the open market. What is true is that Rishi Sunak’s family firm Infosys will personally benefit every time BP gets a licence as they signed a deal with the oil giant just before the exploration licences were announced. His wealthy family will see the petrodollars rolling in, the more BP win concessions. No doubt the cash will be hidden in some offshore tax account so we won’t know about it.

Next month Rishi Sunak will be in Delhi for the G20 summit and the press there is already very excited about him coming there. Politico Europe is already suggesting he will be mobbed by ecstatic Hindus. And the Times of India has heralded his arrival in Downing Street as a move from ” Empire to the Rishi Raj”. Others see this as revenge for Britain’s Imperial past ruling India. Now Rishi rules over the British people instead.

The choice of helicopters for Rishi Sunak from Maharaja Aviation

Given his penchant for exorbitant expensive helicopter rides over mundane journeys by rail or road I have found the perfect charter company for his travel. It is called Maharaja Aviation and runs a fleet of helicopters. He can fly like a modern fabulous wealthy maharaja across India dispensing baubles to the masses. And in the meantime he can forget the country he rules with its sky high mortgages and rents, sewage in the seas and rivers, food inflation and its demonising of other foreigners who try to seek sanctuary on its shores.

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Namibia: Dunes,Moonscape, Prehistoric Plants and Chinese uranium

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A visit to Namibia’s extensive desert reveals an extraordinary unique environment probably not repeated anywhere else on earth.

Huge sand dunes near the coast compete with an enormous desert plain dotted with prehistoric plants and an unparalleled moonscape next to mountains full of uranium.

First the sand dunes. Just outside the port of Walvis Bay lie large sand dunes favoured by quad bike fraternity. We visited this first and saw how popular they were.

Sand dune outside a quad bike centre
Quad bikes

Next we passed the resort of Swakopmund A German colonist resort which still contains many of its original buildings.From here there is a huge desert plain where you find prehistoric plants.

One of the German style hotels in Swakopmund

The star of the plants is the Welwitschia mirabilis a prehistoric plant that can live for 3000 years and grows just two large leaves that often split into pieces in the arid desert. Extremely slow growing there are male and female plants which attract desert living insects and beetles .They live only inland in the Namib desert and in the wilder parts of southern Angola.

Female prehistoric plant which has red green cones observed by tourists on our trip
Male prehistoric plant

Life can exist in the desert because a fog moves from the coast during the night creating enough moisture for animals like the springbok and jackals to find moisture from plants including the dollar plant a succulent that stored water in its leaves.There are also sidewinder snakes and scorpions but fortunately are all asleep in their burrows during the day.

The most dramatic area is the rocky moonscape where nothing appears to live but in fact hides an oasis in a dried river bed that has existed since 1849.

the arid desert
Moonscape of Namibia
the oasis bar restaurant and camping site

In the distance are mountains where Namibia’s huge reserves of uranium can be mined.Now all the main mines are owned by the Chinese according to our guide.The uranium is exported to China for its civil nuclear programme. Curiously another big Namibian export is marble to Italy so perhaps not all Italian marble is home mined.

An emu at a small zoo in the oasis

Kangaroo Island: How this wildlife idyll revived after facing near extinction

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One of the most remote places we are visiting around Australia is called Kangaroo Island – the country’s third largest island off a remote peninsula in South Australia.

View of the Kangaroo Island foreshore from our ship anchored in the passage

This island was once attached to the Australian mainland until the thaw following the last ice age created a sea passage between the island and Australia.

It has a chequered history.It’s first inhabitants were from Stone Age but never developed further after being isolated. It was the subject of Aboriginal stories and myths including one that the sea passage was created after a group of rebellious women fled a tyrannical leader who caused the sea to rise up and drown them.

At one time the island was deserted leaving its unique animals and birds to have no fear of humans. But then in the early nineteenth century a group of settlers and ex convicts moved in and there followed a massacre of its animals and birds for food and profits.

One species a dwarf emu became extinct just like the more famous Dodo as settlers ate them all. They then turned on the huge kangaroo population and decimated them. They also killed off most of the seals for their skins but ignored their valuable oil which meant eventually their community collapsed . ASA last gasp they started to kill off the whales of the coast but this was only seasonal.

One of the sandy bays on the island at Penneshaw

But it has a well stocked supermarket, petrol station,post office, cafes,a cricket pitch and a craft market and a number of tourist attractions. Also a number of new species have been introduced including koala bears and bees. Indeed the Ligurian bees on the island produce a unique honey as the population is isolated from any other bees.

Today’s island has recovered and many of its unique mammals are flourishing again.The main threat to them are wildfires which have destroyed a lot of the vegetation not people as the population is very small. Penneshaw the port where ferries link to the mainland has just 300 people.

Sculpture Trail and suspension bridge
Burnt out tree

There is a splendid open air sculpture trail on the island where hidden in the dense bush you can find wallabies and kangaroos if they don’t run off to hide. I have put up pictures of the trail below.

One of the sculptures
trail meets tree
Hidden in here is a wallaby hiding by a bush

When I was there the bush was tinder dry with a few flowers in blossom.Here is one below.

Sealink ferry connecting the island to the mainland

Eco or ego Legacy Ltd: How a Labour peer was caught in the crossfire of an Irish company brought to its knees by ” mismanagement and intransigence “

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Baroness Mary Goudie Official Portrait pic credit: parliament.uk

Last week the House of Lords Conduct Committee recommended Baroness Mary Goudie, a Labour peer, be suspended for six months from Parliament for entering a consultancy with an Irish eco company, which was declared late and providing advice to the firm who they should lobby in Parliament.

Normally this blog would condemn utterly any public figure who sells their expertise in Parliament for financial gain but there seem to be some rather peculiar circumstances in this case that make this judgement unduly harsh. Yes Baroness Goudie should be punished for breaching the Nolan code of conduct but her actions pale into insignificance compared to the behaviour of the bust company itself.

Obviously the role of the company is outside the remit of the House of Lords Conduct Committee but researching the history of this short lived firm reveals an extraordinary saga of events and Baroness Goudie seems to be left taking the rap.

For a start the case against her has been brought SIX years after the event in Parliament and FOUR years after a petition in the Dublin High Court forced it to go bankrupt. And the complainant has turned up with six year old emails, her consultancy contract worth 20,000 Euros over 10 months and internal corporate details of what she promised to do for them. It would suggest the person was either a member of the firm or knew someone there.

Parliamentary meetings never took place

She did plan to facilitate a meeting in Parliament where the directors could lobby an MP who belonged to an all party group on funerals and bereavement and write to the permanent secretaries of DEFRA and the Ministry of Justice. But the meeting never took place and the MP met the directors of ecoLegacy without Baroness Goudie being there. And there is no trace of any letter ever being written to the permanent secretaries.

Wrongly used the House of Lords library to help company

She wrongly used the House of Lords library to prepare a report for use by the company but as to be explained later it really didn’t tell them anything as the firm was using a new untried technology for cremation. Nor did she use debates in the Lords to promote the firm but was very late in registering her interest.

Now if we examine the firm its management record is appalling. It describes its business as “Provider of alternative processes to burial and cremation. The company offers burial and cremation alternatives that turn human deceased bodies into calcium and carbon powders and returns the powders in a biodegradable urn and seed which can be grown as a tree, helping families to remember their loved ones who departed.”

This sounds a lovely eco-friendly idea and the directors sought huge sums from wealthy American investors in ” start up ” schemes promising good returns. By the time it went bankrupt according to the Irish Business Post it had raised 7.2 million Euros and was running at a big loss.

Judge Deirdre Murphy at the Kennedy Summer School. Pic credit: Kennedy Summer School

The most devastating critique came from an Irish Judge Deirdre Murphy when she heard a petition from The William Jay Gencarella Family Trust, based in the US, in 2018

Her judgement read: “Two founding members of the company Tony Ennis and Brian McKimm, featured extensively in the evidence adduced on the hearing, both on affidavit and on cross-examination, but neither provided direct evidence to the court. The hearing was not so much “ Hamlet” without the prince as “ Two Gentlemen of Verona” without the two gentleman. During the course of the hearing there were allegations and counter-allegations that both had misappropriated company funds over the years. The court has the impression that in many respects the hearing of this petition was a proxy war between the two founding members, in which the petitioner has been ill-served and was liable to suffer collateral damage.”

She “appointed Declan Taite as liquidator to EcoLegacy Ltd which she said had been “brought to its knees” by the “mismanagement and intransigence” of one of its founders, Tony Ennis.

In another case before a judge in Dallas, Texas, three groups, Fox Bend Development Associates, Ltd., Fred and Michele Secker, and Jeffrey Hicks Trust 2005, sought to sue ecoLegacy. The citation reads: ” that Ennis made fraudulent misrepresentations and omitted material facts in soliciting Plaintiffs to invest a total of $3,250,000 into ecoLegacy. Plaintiffs assert claims for fraud, negligent misrepresentation, violation of Texas and federal securities laws, and costs and attorneys’ fees. “

Ennis got the case dismissed because there was an arbitration agreement built into the contract.

Was the project just a piece of Irish baloney?

The question must be asked whether the whole scheme was just a piece of Irish baloney. One engineer who worked on the project called Remo says it was not and could have succeeded but was brought down by disputes between directors. All this makes the crimes of Baroness Goudie seem small beer. if this is the Lords Conduct Committee suspension template, I can only think the alleged behaviour of Lady Mona on behalf of Metpro, the PPP supplier now being sued by the government, would see her banned for five years.

The other big question is whether Baroness Goudie knew about all these shenaghins. The main court drama came after she had finished her consultancy. If one looks at her website, it looks as though eco-funerals were never at the top of her agenda. Instead she is known internationally as a women’s rights and peace campaigner holding a number of distinguished positions. On the balance of probabilities, I think not. The problems in the company were not her fault but she should have checked it out more thoroughly rather than relying on a ” trusted friend”. It was a clash of egos that bought ecoLegacy down. It was more ego than eco.

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Parliamentary Ombudsman’s plea to MPs to summon the DWP and the Environment Agency for failing to compensate people

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Amanda Amroliwala chief executive of the PHSO

Rob Behrens, the Parliamentary Ombudsman, has asked the Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC) to intervene on his behalf and summon the heads of the Department for Work and Pensions and the Environment Agency to appear before them to explain why they are ignoring his findings and refusing to compensate people.

The plea came during a hearing of the committee last week to examine the organisation’s progress and future plans to handle complaints. The committee also heard how the Ombudsman was hamstrung by the failure of the Cabinet Office to pass new legislation to give him greater powers and the latest progress in the 50swomen maladministration claim. More about this below. All these issues highlight weaknesses I have raised in previous blogs.

The DWP case involves 118,000 disabled people who suffered from years of benefit maladminstration . I wrote about this in August- see here. The complaint came from Ms U – via the London borough of Greenwich welfare rights office- who was put in the wrong lower category of the employment support allowance despite being in very poor physical and mental health with little or no savings The Ombudsman ordered the Department to pay her £7500 compensation and five years of arrears totalling £19,832.55 plus interest.

A National Audit Office investigation found that 118,000 people were in the same boat and should have been compensated alongside her following the Ombudsman’s ruling. But the DWP decided only to pay her and ignored everyone else. The pay out would have run to millions of pounds and the DWP decided it would ignore the Ombudsman because legally they can.

The second case involves one family but it is one of the most egregious cases I have heard in Whitehall. The case has been going on for 12 years and involves admitted maladministration by the Environment Agency over the issue of a water licence for a micro hydro project in Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire. The Earl family who renovated a tumbledown watermill to use for the scheme was supposed to receive substantial compensation decided by an independent assessor appointed by the Environment Agency. who bungled their case. The money owing could amount to £3m as interest has piled up and the EA has refused to follow through the Ombudsman’s finding for years.

John McDonnell MP

MPs also raised the issue of the Ombudsman’s lack of powers. John McDonnell, the former shadow chancellor and a Labour member of the committee, has tabled a question to the Cabinet Office asking why they have not introduced legislation to do this. The issue is raised in an earlier blog here.

Mr McDonnell asked Robert Behrens:”Can you explain the practical implications of the Government’s lack of support for legislative reform? How does that hold you back from adhering to the Venice principles, which the Government have signed up to ?”

He told him: “Two of my counterparts have the power of own-initiative investigation. In cases like Windrush, the maternity scandal in hospitals or the issues with mental health, we could go out and look at an issue without it being complained about. We could resolve that issue before it went to a long-standing independent or public inquiry. The peer review panel said that other ombudsman schemes in Europe use that and have used it in Covid to good effect.”

He went on: “If you have 16 public service ombudsmen in the United Kingdom, it means that people do not know where to go. It means the profile of my office and other offices is lower than it would otherwise be. That is not satisfactory in terms of being the only organisation in the public service that provides redress free of charge to citizens. That is very important.”

He added that he saw no reason why a government could not introduce a bill to do all this straight after the next general election.

MPs Question chief executive on 50swomen pension investigation

Amanda Amroliwala, chief executive of the Parliamentary Ombudsman, was closely questioned by three MPs, Ronnie Cowan, SNP, John McDonnell and Lloyd Russell-Moyle, both Labour, on the maladministration complaints over the delay in paying 3.6 million 1950s born women.

On Stage 2 of the report, which has already been leaked on this website see here, she said: “We have not
finalised that stage of the report yet. We are in the process of receiving and analysing the very extensive comments that we have had from the Department and from the complainants who have brought the complaints to us”

RONNIE Cowan, SNP MP for Inverclyde

Under further questioning she added: “We are looking at how those will need to change the
provisional views that are not yet public but that some individuals have had sight of. We will do that as soon as possible.” She would not commit a date for this report and the proposed remedy will be published except ” hopefully” between January and March next year. She was also quizzed on the level of compensation. Ronnie Cowan pointed out it could be anything from nothing to £10,000 but if it was maladministration only the top level was much less than £10,000 .She would not be drawn on how much this is likely to be.

John McDonnell reflected the frustration among MPs about the long delay in the Ombudsman producing a final report. “You can understand the scale of interest and concern there is amongst Members of Parliament. You will have seen that from the early-day motions. There is not an MP without a constituent who has been affected. The concern that people have is because of the age of many of our constituents. Some of them have already passed away. Others may not be here to receive any form of redress, if we delay beyond the next quarter of next year.”

There is another elephant in the room that was not discussed. If the DWP is refusing to pay 118,000 benefit claimants their compensation, why should they pay any of the 3.6 million 50swomen a penny beyond the six test cases who complained?

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Judge’s extraordinary injunction against HS2 protestors banning nearly one million people from trespassing anywhere on 170 mile route

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HS2 Protest : pic credit: Construction News

The day after the official mourning period of the Queen ended Mr Justice Julian Knowles issued a judgement that made British legal history for its scope and scale of curbing future protests in England.

His ruling was an astounding victory for the HS2 Ltd – builders of the £98 billion high speed rail line – and Grant Shapps, the former transport secretary recently sacked by Liz Truss, the new PM.

They had sought an injunction to stop campaigners against the route from disrupting activity – such as building tunnels near London Euston and Staffordshire or trying to stop destruction of the countryside – such as in Wendover, Buckinghamshire- by injuncting all the people involved.

But Mr Justice Julian Knowles gave them more than they could have dreamed of – by injuncting any protest activity along the whole route from London to Crewe- and extending it to categories of unknown people as well as the 59 people named in the injunction bringing in hundreds of thousands of other people who support the protestors.

He ruled that “there has been significant violence, criminality and sometimes risk to the life of the activists, HS2 staff and contractors”, adding that “much of the direct action seems to have been less about expressing the activists’ views about the HS2 Scheme, and more about trying to cause as much nuisance as possible, with the overall aim of delaying, stopping or cancelling it via, in effect, a war of attrition”.

Massive legal precedent set by judge

The legal precedent the judge has allowed could open the doors to other national bodies – such as EDF who run state owned nuclear power plants – or Sellafield to seek such wide ranging injunctions against nuclear protestors – or new fracking companies extending their local injunctions to cover the whole of the country. Or the Just Stop Oil protestors – who have dug tunnels at oil terminals – could find them subject to a national ban.

Parliamentary sovereignty invoked

The judge’s reasoning was simple. He was not taking sides on whether he approved or rejected the construction of HS2. Instead he said the scheme had been approved and debated by Parliament and to protest against it by causing criminal damage was effectively in breach of Parliamentary sovereignty. He denied that his decision would have a chilling effect on protests because people could protest peacefully without having to trespass on the site or block construction entrances.

He bought the arguments of HS2 that these had already cost them £120m and could cost £200m and provided work for 27,000 people. He also accepted that HS2 could not afford to employ security staff or ask the police to patrol the entire route. He saw no point on HS2 issuing damages claims against the named individuals because they had no money.

He defended the huge scale of his injunction by saying: “I have anxiously considered the geographical extent of the injunction along the whole of the HS2 route, and whether it should be more limited.

“I have concluded, however, given the plain evidence of the protesters’ intentions to continue to protest and disrupt without limit – ‘let’s keep fucking up HS2’s day and causing as much disruption and cost as possible. Coming to land near you’ – such an extensive injunction is appropriate.”

Warning to over zealous security staff

He did however issue a warning to overzealous security staff injuring protestors citing the case of one person who knelt on a protestor’s neck – similar to the case of George Floyd who died in the US when a policeman knelt on his neck and sparked the Black Lives Matters protests. Presumably he didn’t want a Protestors Lives Matters campaign in the UK.

What is more interesting is the service of the injunction – which could land people in prison if they disobey it.

For the 59 people named he ruled: “Service of this Order on Named Defendants may be effected by personal service where practicable and/or posting a copy of this Order through the letterbox of each Named Defendant (or leaving in a separate mailbox), with a notice drawing the recipient’s attention to the fact the package contains a court order. If the premises do not have a letterbox, or mailbox, a package containing this Order may be affixed to or left at the front door or other prominent feature marked with a notice drawing the recipient’s attention to the fact that the package contains a court order and should be read urgently.”

But for the unnamed people the judge ruled that Facebook and Twitter had made large number of people know about the injunction. The protestors’ fundraising account had 265,268 followers.

Grant Shapps at the HS2 Old Oak Common construction site Pic credit: HS2 Ltd

“A non-exhaustive review of Facebook shows that information about the injunction and/or the link to a fundraiser has been posted and shared extensively across pages with thousands of followers and public groups with thousands of followers. Membership of the groups on Facebook to which the information has been shared amounts to 564,028.”

So there was no need for HS2 to individually inform these people.

A spokesperson for HS2 Ltd said: “HS2 Ltd welcomes this judgment and its approval of the route-wide injunction. As Justice Knowles makes clear, this injunction will not, and is not intended to, stop legitimate protest. Instead, we hope the injunction will prevent the violence, intimidation and criminal damage these protests have frequently caused, harming the HS2 project and those working on it, and costing the UK taxpayer millions of pounds.”

But it looks as though protestors may challenge this judgement

The Guardian reported :” Lawyers representing one of the environmental activists. Nicola Hall of Robert Lizar solicitors, representing the activist James Knaggs, said: “This is a disappointing outcome. This injunction represents a concerning extension of the powers of a state-owned limited company to control and police large swathes of land across England. There is a concern that it constitutes a wide-ranging restriction on protests opposed to HS2 and is of extremely large geographical scope. It applies to very large areas of land, much of which is unfenced and unmarked.”

I can see this issue developing now Liz Truss is committed to creating growth and allowing free market policies at the expense of the environment, human rights and equal justice for all.

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Local elections: The pincer movement that threatens Boris Johnson

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Those who follow my tweets that record local by-election results over the last year should not be surprised by this week’s council election results. For the past year they have been revealing shock upsets where either the Green or Liberal Democrat candidate unseats a sitting councillor – more often a Tory rather than a Labour one – with a jump in their vote share by anything from 30 to 50 per cent.

Boris Johnson – facing an all party pincer movement

Labour a year ago was still losing councillors to the Tories in by-elections in Red Wall and Midland seats. It is only in the last few months as the Partygate scandal developed that Labour started holding those seats and occasionally taking a seat back from the Tories.

What the local elections showed this week is that these startling by-election gains by the Greens and the Liberal Democrats are not a flash in the pan but part of a new trend. It also confirmed that Labour is back in business, has largely halted its decline in local government seats, consolidated its firm grip in London,, recovered from an all time low in Scotland, and yes, made gains in the North of England in Cumbria and Lancashire and stopped the rot in the North East. And it has made spectacular gains in Wales and become a force again in the South of England.

Sunderland symbolic of the halting of the Tory surge

The symbolic Labour council for me in the North was Sunderland. This was a council the Tories were keen for Labour to lose – and previous gains by the Tories and Liberal Democrats made this feasible as Labour’s majority had been cut. The Tories put money into winning seats – Johnson came up to the North East – even if he confused Tyneside with Teesside. What happened? The Tories did not gain a single seat and Labour managed to hold on with reduced majorities. Instead the Lib Dems took a seat off the Tories and Labour – winning by that surge in vote share that has become familiar in council by-elections.

The two symbolic Lib Dem council victories for me are St Albans and Gosport. The Lib Dems just controlled the Hertfordshire city before the local elections and had also taken the Parliamentary seat from the Tories in 2019. But this week’s election saw a Liberal Democrat landslide. The city has 56 councillors – 50 of them are now Liberal Democrat after they gained 20 seats overnight wiping out Labour and reducing the Tories to just four councillors.

Gosport was another extraordinary result for the Lib Dems. I know the town from sitting on the Gosport War Memorial Hospital inquiry. It is a fiercely working class, Tory naval town, heavily pro Brexit leaning even towards UKIP at one time. Yet the Remain supporting Liberal Democrats have taken control and ousted the Tories. This with Somerset , Woking and Hull going Liberal Democrat show a big change.

For Labour in the South the fact they now have a big majority on Worthing Council in West Sussex is also an extraordinary result. Some five years ago Labour won its first seat for 50 years and now they control the authority. The other extraordinary victory is Westminster. Dame Shirley Porter, now 91,- the Tory leader fined for gerrymandering the council to prevent Labour ever winning in the 1980s – must be cursing the result in Israel now Labour have a working majority.

Rise of the Greens

The other factor in the mix is the rise of the Greens. Though they control no council fewer and fewer authorities do not have a Green councillor – after this election . Here their appeal is potentially dangerous to both the main parties. The emphasis on green issues is subconsciously boosting their brand among people fed up with the old two party system. They can simultaneously appeal to the radical elements who left Labour after Jeremy Corbyn was banished from the Parliamentary party – and to rural Tories concerned about the demise of the countryside. No wonder one right wing Labour supporter suggested undemocratically that people expelled by Labour should be banned from joining another party. Thus the Greens can win seats in Sheffield, North Tyneside, Newham and West Oxfordshire, Sussex and Rutland all in the same year.

There is one person who is going lose out altogether by these converging trends – Boris Johnson. He is facing a pincer movement. His chances of further gains in the Red Wall area have been stymied, he has gone backwards in Scotland and Wales and his heartland Blue Wall seats are now seriously threatened by the Liberal Democrats in places like Esher and Walton and in places like Worthing and Southampton by Labour.

In my view, these local election results have created the perfect storm to undermine Boris Johnson.

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HS2: The train going nowhere

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Boris Johnson loves mad grandiose building projects ( remember the third London airport in the Thames Estuary) and more recently a tunnel/bridge under the Irish sea from Scotland to Northern Ireland.

Picturew of the design for the first HS2 trains

But what is emerging is that that even the most basic grandiose project -London’s Crossrail link and the high speed railway from London to Birmingham can’t be built on time to cost or even properly completed. A failure to integrate Crossrail with the rest of the railway system and continual cost rises for HS2 are the main reasons for delays.

MPs on the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee last week achieved one first – getting HS2 to provide some proper figures on the real costs. The entire HS2 project – if ever built from London to Scotland – will be £98 billion if not more. The first phase from London to Birmingham now has a budget of £44.6 billion – of which £11 billion has already been spent but we won’t see any results for the travelling public until 2029 at the earliest if not 2032. And probably in reality even later.

What is more disturbing is that service will initially run only from Birmingham to Old Oak Common in west London -not to London Euston where it can connect with other services.

Whitehall still quarrelling over the plans

Worse still internal Whitehall quarrelling means that they haven’t even fixed the most crucial arrangement – what will the Euston terminus look like.

“The redevelopment of Euston station is currently estimated to cost £2.6 billion. Despite HS2 Ltd telling us last year that the design of the station was ready for planning consent, the Department has spent the past 15 months looking for cost saving options and efficiency opportunities, including the potential for a smaller station.

” HS2 Ltd asserts that it is getting close to the point where the programme will literally run out of time if a decision is not made soon, and that Old Oak Common is being set as the London terminus when the railway first opens to decouple it from the risks at Euston.”

Gigantic building site at Euston. Pic credit: Global Railway Review

This is an extraordinary situation. It is made much worse because the area around Euston Station is now one gigantic building site after homes, shops and private businesses that border onto the existing station were demolished. And people living next to the site are being moved because of the noise and dust. And all for a new terminus whose configuration has still to be determined by the Department of Transport and which could be smaller than currently planned.

Further up the line there are disputes involving the land they are purchasing, environmental damage and pollution problems created by the development.

Volume of complaints rising

The MPs report: “We are already concerned about the volume of complaints on disruption from the programme which does not bode well for the future as more communities will be impacted as construction progresses. HS2 Ltd estimates it has handled 124,000 queries over the past three years and interacted with over 76,000 people along the route.

….”the number of complaints from the public about High Speed 2 has increased as main construction on Phase One has started. Complaints to the Independent Construction Commissioner HS2 rose to 86 in the first quarter of 2021 from 74 in the previous quarter. The majority of complaints are about the impact of construction on roads and traffic, vegetation clearance and about noise and vibration. Due to the scale of the programme and the time until the railway is complete, complaints are likely to increase.”

As part of its ” levelling up ” programme the government has promised to reskill the nation so people can get jobs as part of the regeneration of Britain post Brexit. Yet again the MPs point to further failures. The much trumpeted National College for High Speed Rail was a failure in attracting students and has had to be renamed the National College for Advanced Transport & Infrastructure and, most recently, merged with the University of Birmingham.

The MPs report: “The Department admits that the performance of the college has been disappointing and hopes that its latest merger, new leadership and new curriculum from September 2021 will be an opportunity to get the best out of the arrangement. Yet the Department’s involvement with the college has been limited as it falls under the Department for Education’s accountability remit.”

As for extending the railway to Scotland via Leeds and Sheffield that is in doubt and could be scaled back to Crewe. This has been partly confirmed by Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, who in an interview yesterday with the Financial Times has cast doubt on whether the line from Birmingham to Leeds along the eastern side of England will ever be built – hinting that other projects may have priority.

“We want to make sure we get trains to Leeds in a way that actually benefits people on the network and not blindly follow some plan invented 15 to 20 years ago which no longer benefits people.” he said.

This completely contradicts what he said only in May when he promised the government would “complete HS2 and include HS2 on the eastern leg to Leeds”. All this suggests that costs must be mounting up with another U turn in prospect.

If this is levelling up – it is farcical

So what do we have here? An extremely expensive part built railway that may not even initially link Birmingham and central London beset with issues and aeons away from the dream of a high speed line linking Scotland with central London.

If this is to be an example of ” levelling up ” Britain it is just farcical. Meanwhile in the European Union we left the high speed train network goes from strength to strength with new lines and a sleeper train network planned that will reduce the need for air travel – all part financed by British train customers as most of the companies running our train services are owned by state rail companies based in the EU.

Our new high speed train system is going nowhere soon and causing nothing but pain and disruption.

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Bad news for fighting Climate Change: How Whitehall bungled first Green home insulation scheme

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Sarah Munby, permanent secretary, BEIS, clearly not to up to the job over this

In a few weeks time Britain will be playing a pivotal role by hosting the Cop 26 international climate change conference in Glasgow.

Tight targets are going to be set which if not met will mean even more dramatic weather catastrophes than we are seeing now as the planet warms up.

So is Whitehall up to the job? If one takes the first example of action to save energy the answer is a resounding no.

A damning National Audit Office reveals an extraordinary poor performance by BEIS – the business and energy ministry – in getting 600,000 homes – mainly owned by low income families updated with new home insulation to cut their fuel bills and save energy.

The Treasury had earmarked £1.5 billion. The ministry ended up spending only £314 million. Its 600,000 homes target was missed by over 550,000. The administration costs were astronomical – for a scheme that provided grants of up to £5000 or £10,000 for low income income families – it cost over £1000 per house. Instead of of 600,000 saving up to £600 a year in fuel bills – only 47,500 will benefit.

And it should have provided a much needed job boost providing work for 82,500 people during a time when work was in short supply Instead it created just 5,600 jobs before the scheme was closed down last March.

Worse still both customers and contractors were badly treated. Delays paying contractors and customers getting their vouchers led to over 3000 complaints.

Why Sarah Munby is to blame for this fiasco

Who is to blame for such a mess? The answer must lie with the permanent secretary, Sarah Mundy. She is supposed to be this new business friendly appointment bought into government by the Tories to shake up Whitehall. Her biog on the gov.uk website said: “Sarah joined BEIS in July 2019 as Director General, Business Sectors. Before that, Sarah worked at Mckinsey, where she led their Strategy and Corporate Finance practice in the UK and Ireland.

“She has worked with some of the UK’s largest companies to change their strategic direction, and led much of McKinsey’s work on productivity across the UK economy.”

But she in no way lived up to her billing. To be fair HM Treasury gave the Department an over-ambitious 12-week timescale to design the scheme, consult with stakeholders and procure an administrator.

This came at a time when the Department was supporting vaccine procurement, and undertaking activities related to EU Exit. The Department accepted that delivering the scheme within this timescale posed a high risk, but judged it was justified by the need to support businesses in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A US global company’s cheapskate bid

But it is at the back of the NAO report that her real failings show up. She was obviously entranced by business to use a new state of the art digital voucher system and gave the contract to ICF, a US global consulting and technology company, based in Fairfax, Virginia. The report reveals they put in a cheapskate bid. Their technology was not up to the job as shown by repeated reviews of failures in the digital voucher scheme. This led to the scheme having to managed manually- which is why it cost £1000 per house.

The NAO said: “ICF’s proposed costs for the development of the digital solution were less than half that of the second cheapest bidder, triggering the need for a review under government contracting guidance. The Cabinet Office review concluded there was not enough information within the bids to understand specific costs, and thus whether any adjustment should be made for a low bid.”

But it came back to Sarah Munby. She ignored the Cabinet Office. Having chosen the contractor she was then warned by every single contractor asked to undertake the work that it couldn’t be done in time. But she still went ahead.

Whitehall sceptics ignored

And the same came from inside Whitehall. The Department presented the Scheme’s full business case to its Project and Investment Committee on the 28 September, ahead of the Scheme’s final approval for launch on 30 September last year. The Committee decided not to approve the full business case, raising concerns that the digital systems for the Scheme were not yet fully developed and tested. They were right but still she ignored them and went ahead. Within six months it had to be abandoned and it is largely her fault. As a result hundreds of thousands low income families have lost the chance of cutting their energy bills this winter.

One can only agree with the verdict of Meg Hillier, chair of the Commons Public Accounts Committee.

“The Green Homes Grant scheme was set up to fail, with an undeliverable timetable and overly complex design which took little account of supplier and homeowners’ needs….

““Government cannot hope to achieve its net zero ambitions if it doesn’t learn the lessons from this botched scheme.”