#HS2 Opposition Grows...and so it should!

Following on from my blog back in May which showed how I’d arrived at the conclusion that building HS2 was not a good move for the country, things have become even clearer. Namely the cost has gone up considerably, there’s now more and more opposition from senior politicians and industry, Labour’s support has been weakened and now linked directly to a £50bn cost cap. As they start to lose the argument, pro HS2 groups have also changed their argument from one of quicker travel to increased capacity.

In June, transport secretary Patrick McLoughlin told the Commons that the cost for the full Y-shaped high-speed rail network linking London, the Midlands and the North had been revised upwards to £42.6bn. When you include the cost of rolling stock, the total cost is now estimated at £50.1bn, though recent research suggests the final figure could be far closer to £80bn. Reports in the Financial Times are suggesting that Treasury officials are already preparing for an overspend of £31bn on the project. Given Central Government’s history of underestimating capital infrastructure projects the £80bn looks increasingly like a minimum a figure.

By the time HS2 is built it'll more likely than not, end up costing 6 times what the current estimate is. This always happens with these sorts of projects. The private sector comes in with a disingenuous low bid to win the work. The Government snaps it up. The Government then demand change after change to the scheme, private sector costs each change increasing their profits along the way, suddenly it's too late to do a U turn, the construction costs continue to go up and up and we’re left holding the bill.

Institute of Directors

The Institute of Directors is the latest body making calls for HS2s cancellation. Their director general called for the Government to abandon the project, branding it a "grand folly". Simon Walker spoke out in light of their own research suggesting businesses are not convinced by the economic case for HS2.

Supporters of the key rail link to the capital believe it will provide northern towns and cities with better business opportunities.  However the survey of IoD members found that just 27% feel the high-speed rail project represents good value for money and 70% say the scheme will have no impact on the productivity of their business.

Commenting on the research, Simon Walker said: "Businesses up and down the country know value for money when they see it, and our research shows that they don't see it in the Government's case for HS2. Some of the specific claims that the Government has used to support its economic case for the project have been challenged by our members, who by and large do not feel that their business will benefit. Overall there appears to be little enthusiasm amongst IoD members, not even in the regions where the benefits are supposed to be strongest. Indeed, our research shows that almost every region expects London to benefit the most.”

"The IoD cannot support the Government's current economic case for HS2 when so many of our members are doubtful of the benefits. We agree with the need for key infrastructure spending, but the business case for HS2 simply is not there. The money would be far better spent elsewhere and in a way that will benefit much more of the country. Investment in the West and East Coast main lines combined with a variety of other infrastructure projects would be a far more sensible option. Our members support increased investment in other aspects of our road and rail network, citing this as more important than investment in HS2. 80% feel that investment in existing intercity rail services should be a priority, with just 41% saying the same for investment in HS2. 63% believe the money should be spent on other transport projects. Station upgrades, inter-city improvements, tunnels, electrification and capacity improvements should all be considered alternatives.”

"It is time for the Government to look at a thousand smaller projects instead of falling for one grand folly”

I couldn’t put it better myself Simon!!!

Mandy and Darling Re-appear and Labour backtrack

Last month I found myself actually agreeing with something that came out of Peter Mandelson’s mouth then last week low and behold, the guy who started the whole ball rolling, ex-Chancellor Alistair Darling warned of a potential "nightmare" on England's existing railways if HS2 is built, he says he's now changed his mind because he thinks the business case for HS2 has been exaggerated and argues that there are better ways of encouraging growth outside London.

Labour heavyweights tried to weigh in, albeit not very heavily. Asked if Labour would continue to support the project, Ed Balls is quoted saying "We have consistently supported plans for a north-south rail link but it's got to work, it's got to be value for money. There will be no blank cheque from a Labour Treasury." Labour leader Red Ed went on to say he is a "supporter" of the HS2 rail project but it should be scrutinised for "value for money".

The Capacity Argument

The railways are not full to capacity. Virgin trains were on average 50% empty, since the carriages were expanded it's nearer 30%. It’s only the cheapest trains that are full. Long distance rail demand fell last year. Yes, there is a capacity issue in some parts of London and the South east commuter lines but that's little to do with a train to the North. Why spend £50bn of tax-payers money marginally improving a service for a small minority of people.

Instead of spending £50bn, capacity at the southern end should be increased. The 34miles of Great Central Line between Calvert & Rugby (inc. a freight link to Banbury) could be re-opened for about £400-500m. This line would be able to support 140mph running of tilting trains and would provide the relief to the WCML south of Rugby.

Upgrade the existing Chiltern / ex GWR mainline through the Chilterns (London Northolt Junction - Banbury - Leamington - Birmingham Moor Street). This could easily become the mainline between these two cities - taking pressure off the WCML.

How about re-opening the ex GCR mainline from a new triangular junction to the south of Leicester (Narborough) - through to just north of Aylesbury (Claydon). This could take the freight trains off the WCML southern section.

See there’s lots of cheaper ways to free up capacity instead of HS2

Fares and how much we’ll subsidise HS2

Give the capital investment of £50bn will have to be repaid, the fares will inevitably be pitched at such a premium level that no one will be able to afford them. It's already cheaper to travel by car or plane to most places so HS2 trains will make this even worse.

£50 Billion works out at £3k per working household, if it reaches £80bn that's almost £5k per household in extra taxes to pay for something that will benefit very few people. As rail travel accounts for only 3% of all journeys and long distance even less, the subsidy per user for HS2 will be massive.

So a key question with HS2 should be: will it benefit everyone or just the wealthy?

Will people who pay their taxes (but will not be able to afford to use the service) subsidise people who can afford to avoid paying taxes to travel first class? Are we simply advocating a tax-payer-funded first-class service for the well-heeled to commute from their second/third homes to London more easily?

Don’t forget, they told us that there was a real need for a M6 toll road, of the 72,000 vehicles a day they predicted, less than half use it now. The £2 for a car in 2003 is now £5.50. Will HS2 be a similar story?

How about slowing the existing trains down and put more on the track and then cut the fares. Cheaper fares are what people really want, not walk on fares of over £200! Look at Stagecoach Megabus they take 4hrs 30 to London from Manchester but cost about £10 they can fill their 80 seat coaches very very easily.

Not everyone wants speed they want a low cost way to travel HS2 does not offer any of this.

We Don’t Actually Have The Money

A particular hobby horse of the opponents is how else we could spend the £50bn (or £80bn). The best alternative for the £50bn though is NOT spending it at all. And not borrow it either. It is wrong to look at this as if there was some earmarked pile of cash. There isn't, we’re borrowing it. Each infrastructure spending plan should stand on its own merits, and get investment commercially based on its prospects.

You have to ask; if there is such a big opportunity here, why is the private sector not investing in HS2?  Well quite simply they’ve learned lessons from things like the M6 Toll Road and see HS2 for what it really is. It’s a pity our politicians haven’t learned any lessons isn’t it?

SHOCK HORROR - Politicians get it wrong too

Politicians are obsessed with spending money, yours and mine. We're not yet completely out of a recession and they're already hell bent on spending a load more on a train set. They don't really care what it's being spent on, just so long as it's plenty more than the last time. Remember our generous and ill conceived foreign aid policy?

Nowadays we cannot sustain and equip our Armed forces due to cost. Our National Health Service is no longer coping with no money available. The elderly are receiving sub-standard care because it is too expensive. Yet suddenly we have £50bn for the HS2 rail link? Who’s kidding who? Sometimes I doubt my own sanity when £50bn can be tossed around like this yet we have no Fleet Air Arm, no fixed wing aircraft carriers and only six destroyers in our navy! Every single member of the army will soon in their entirety be able to be accommodated in Old Trafford.

On top of that, the vacuum at the heart of Cameron's airport policy and the fact the lights will go in 2023 if we don’t build power stations, is far more important than HS2 or even extra capacity on the West Coast. These would benefit the entire nation rather than just a tiny metropolitan elite.

White Elephant

At the end of the day, HS2 is a complete white elephant that we can’t afford. It’s perfect for places like China where distances between cities are huge, not so in our cramped and crowded small island. 

People compare us with Germany and France but they too are far larger countries and have more space to build. Those arguing that we must have it to keep pace are utterly misguided. Being able to get to Birmingham from London 30 minutes faster is not a reason to rip up huge chunks of countryside and displace thousands of people. You want to get to Birmingham quicker? Get up earlier.

The argument against HS2 has now matured. It’s been a long time since the HS2 antis have relied on NIMBY arguments (they rarely mention them now), since the economic argument that HS2 is a white elephant vanity project is enormously strong. More and more of us can see the emperor has no clothes.

It’s about time a tough decision is made to can this nonsense for good, and spend the vast and over growing price tag on small and highly targeted projects across the whole country. Imagine how many useful transport capacity improvement projects could be completed for £50 billion.

I'm a great believer in trains as a form of travel. As I said in my previous HS2 blog, I'm an engineer that thinks HS2 is an inspiring project. BUT I'm also a realist. With modern communications technology, HS2 is the wrong answer; it’s a very costly white elephant that our children and grand children will still be paying for long long after it’s finished.

Recycling Centre Fires: A Get Rich Quick Scheme ?

On Tuesday night a recycling centre in Bredbury near Stockport went up in flames. I watched my Twitter feed go daft with everyone talking about it and posting pictures, then on Wednesday morning heard the local radio do like-wise. The story appeared on local and national TV news and I actually saw the smoke plume myself from 25 miles away in Warrington. It was a seriously massive blaze, even today Greater Manchester Fire & Rescue Service are saying they expect to be in attendance for a week.

Thing is, it all seemed so terribly familiar. Is it me or do I remember seeing something like this a week or so ago? Wasn’t there something similar in Birmingham and in Kidderminster and, oh yeh Sheffield? These seem to be becoming a regular occurrence I thought. So I ‘googled’ the subject and in a very short space of time came up with the following list of similar fires, all at so-called ‘Recycling Centres’. This wasn’t a definitive list either, just a selection from the last eighteen months. 

Bredbury, Stockport.  20th August, 2013
Premier Waste UK, Walsall Road, Perry Bar, Birmingham, 4 Aug 2013
Shireoaks Road, Worksop. 3rd August, 2013
HW Martin Waste in Parkside Lane, Beeston, 31 July, 2013 
Park Road, Padiham, 26th July, 2013. 
Lockerbie Road, Dumfries 18th July, 2013 
Foley Street, Attercliffe, Sheffield, 14th July, 2013 
Jayplas, Smethwick, Birmingham, 1st July, 2013 
Lawrence Recycling, Stourport Road, Kidderminster (Again). 16th June, 2013
Albert Hill Industrial Estate, Darlington 25th May. 2013 
Sandy Lane Industrial Estate, Stourport-on-Severn. 20th May, 2013 
Sims Metal Management, Long Marston, Stratford-Upon-Avon. 30th April, 2013
Lawrence Recycling, Stourport Road, Kidderminster. 12th December 2012
North West Recycling, Kingmoor Park industrial estate, Carlisle. 3rd December, 2012
BW Riddle, South Fen Road, Bourne (Again). 2nd December, 2012
Caythorpe, Lincolnshire, (Again). 2nd November, 2012
Johnson's Lane, Widnes. 21st October, 2012
Caythorpe, Lincolnshire. 18th October, 2012
Stanton-by-Dale, Long Eaton, Derbyshire. 15th September, 2012 
BW Riddle, South Fen Road, Bourne. 14th September, 2012
Dagenham, East London. 12th August, 2012
North West Electronics Recycling, Carneige Road, Liverpool. 5th July, 2012
Scrubs Lane, Willesden, London. 25th May, 2012
Heydon, Cambridgeshire. 21st March, 2012
Jigsaw Recycling Yard, Port Clarence, Billingham.  11th March, 2012
Nechells, Birmingham. 3rd March, 2012
Homefield Road, Haverhill, Suffolk. 27th February, 2012
Chilton, Didcot, Oxfordshire. 22nd February, 2012
Wyllie Waste Recycling Services, Perth. 17th February, 2012
Bolton Brothers paper, Claydon, Suffolk. 2nd February, 2012

Try it yourself, start typing "recycling plant fire" into Google - look how many other searches there have been for similar incidents. The question I now have is when are the authorities going to start looking more closely at "recycling plant fires". Is it poor practices, lack of regulation. Are all these fires just coincidence or are they a mechanism for the owners to get rich quick, and leave society with the environmental chaos?

Fire Service Resource / Cost
Recycling plant fires aren’t little fires which need one or two fire engines and a dozen fireman to put out, no these fires require immense resources from our already over stretched fire services. 

During the Smethwick recycling fire last month, West Midlands Fire Service was stretched to breaking point in what has been branded the biggest blaze in the region's history. At one point during the fire JUST ONE fire engine was left free to deal with the whole of the remainder of the West Midlands. Over 40 fire engines and 200 fire-fighters were needed to bring the fire under control. 



Most of these large fire’s have occurred in areas with fairly big fire & rescue services who could cover the attendance required, but what happens when they can’t, or if they’re in a more rural area with less availability of resource and another ‘life’ threatening emergency comes in, what gives ? Are people’s lives being put at risk, not just the fire-fighters fighting the recycling fire, but the general public who require their services to genuinely save their life?

Better Health & Safety
In many cases the way the waste is stored at these centres contributes to the size of the blaze. If they were to store the various types of waste in a yard with non-flammable (brick, concrete or even corrugated steel) firewalls dividing it up into bays or sections the fires would be easily contained and not spread to the whole yard. 

If it’s not already, surely it would be more sense to make it illegal to store so much flammable (and toxic) material side-by side all in one place without any firewalls. In buildings the regulations require fire compartments for separation, why not in recycling centres?

Why are bails of flammable materials not covered adequately to prevent their ignition? Why are there not adequate fire prevention mechanisms in place such as sprinklers or alarms? How is it possible than entire centres can go up in flames time and time again? No matter how the fires start, the results always seem to be the same.

It is alleged in various articles that the companies that operate these sites try to work on a shoestring, paying out minimum wage to their employees who obviously aren't going to be too interested in SHE (safety, health, environment); they therefore, keep their running costs down by saving budget money on H & S etc. They should all be held accountable. Or are Health and Safety officials turning a blind-eye so we can meet EU dictates on recycling targets?

Why do we still recycle?
Fifteen or so years ago, your local council used to dispose of waste. They sent it for landfill or controlled incineration. But then along came Global Warming. It was decided by the greens and the environmental lobby that the tried-and-tested methods that had worked for years were bad. Never slow to jump on a bandwagon, our politicians delivered innumerable patronising sermons, preaching that in order to reduce the release of harmful gases into the atmosphere, rubbish must be recycled - and so it began. 

Unfortunately the society we live in today with it’s over use of packaging etc, produces rubbish at a far greater rate than the recycling plants can manage. Yet, in the usual political, vote chasing, idiot kneejerk response to a perceived global warming problem, that consideration was not deemed important. So waste gets piled up. And up. And up.

Recycling is a good idea in theory; however the practicalities of it are immensely difficult. I refuse to believe there is much demand for all this recycled plastic and paper. Glass and metal, yes I’ll go along with that but plastic, no, sorry. When did you last buy something that had been made out of recycled plastic? There isn’t much, trust me. If you Google recycling you’ll see the very limited number of things made out of recycled plastic. Its not stuff the average person would use anyway so it starts to become a total waste of time, maybe we should go back to burying the whole lot.

Greens will argue the environmental issues mean we must recycle. We’ve had lots of these enormous fires recently and the environmental damage and pollution they cause must be horrendous. Oh and don’t forget to take into account the energy expended initially collecting, sorting and transporting the waste, so not exactly carbon neutral is it?

Looking at the images, and seeing the smoke plume myself, I just wonder how much environmental damage was caused by this week’s Bredbury recycling plant going up in smoke, and that’s real, actual, measurable environmental damage. The news reported inhabitants east of the cloud could see, touch and taste the ash, smoke and whatever else it contained, many having to clean it off their cars and property.

It would be refreshing if those responsible for commissioning these places would pause to consider the irony of what they’ve done. By jumping on the little understood bandwagon of global warming they have managed to achieve exactly what they set out to prevent. But there again, who needs to think when there is preaching to be done?

Incinerators
Incinerator proposals are constantly being rejected by council planning authorities as environmentalist plant it in the head of the locals that they’re unsafe - and these recycling centres are? Thirty going up in flames in eighteen months floors that argument. If there was no danger to anyone from 10,000 tons of plastic rubbish burning away then incinerators just have to be safer. Why not use them to burn our rubbish?  A much better idea to have a controlled blaze than to have thousands of tons of rubbish piling up to be recycled and catching alight.

The Cynical View
Of course, we’re assuming that all these fires are coincidental, but are they? Cast your mind back in history to the Sixties and Seventies, throughout the North the arse had felt out of the textiles industry as it moved abroad. Mill owners were set to lose everything, so what did they do? An insurance job of course, they burned the mill down. 

Back to the present. You get paid to collect all this rubbish under the green ‘recycling’ banner, now what do you do with it? You’re supposed to sell it on to companies and countries that can re-use the waste but that’s not easy. 

With the number of fires at recycling plants in recent months. I wonder if the bottom has dropped out of the market for our crap plastic, maybe India and China no longer want it?

So what’s the quickest and cheapest way for a recycling plant owner of disposing of this unwanted waste? An accidental file would be very useful, nice insurance payout. You take the money and walk away - Rich.

There's Something About Harriet

The more Harriet Harman opens her mouth to preach to us what we should be doing, the more often she does something different herself. To understand why she's such a hypocrite you have to understand who this champagne socialist is and where she comes from.

Harriet was born the daughter of a Harley Street surgeon and the niece of an Earl. However, despite being born with a silver spoon in her mouth, she sees her self as a class warrior who nobly champions the poor. Now, despite disagreeing with virtually everything that comes out of her mouth, I still admire her support for working class people. What I don't like is the fact that she's so willing to tell us all how we should live our lives whilst doing none of it herself, indeed her preachings often fall strangely silent when all her left wing ideals prove to be inconvenient to Harriet herself.

Schools - Hypocrite !

First time this hypocrisy showed its face was back in 1996. Labour had spent years campaigning against private and selective schools. Harriet actively supported and promoted this policy, but then her son Joe, reached secondary school age. Did Harriet send Joe to the local, bog standard comp' where most of us went? Not a chance !! No, Joe went to St Olaves's in Bromley, St Olave's being a grant maintained grammar school, the very same type of school Harriet wanted rid of. Hypocrisy ! So much for Harriet's ideology there then.

Women in Politics - Hypocrite !

The abject hypocrisy of Harriet Harman knows no bounds. Following the death of Lady Thatcher, Labour’s deputy leader paid tribute in a tweet, saying: ‘First woman PM, a towering figure.’ Nice touch you might think, but Harriet the Hypocrite had come out to play again. It was only a few years previously that Sister Harriet omitted all mention of Mrs T from a major document she had commissioned to salute the role of women in politics over the previous 100 years. Lesser figures were included though, among whom were 

• Labour’s Baroness Uddin. The first Muslim woman in the Lords, who was later suspended from the chamber for wrongly claiming more than £125,000 of expenses; 
• Sirimavo Bandaranaike. The world’s first female head of government, who became Prime Minister of Sri Lanka in 1960; 
• Reina Emily Lawrence. Britain’s first woman councillor, who was elected in Camden in 1907; 
• Diane Abbott. Britain’s first black woman MP.

The only reference to Lady Thatcher was: ‘1979: UK’s first woman Prime Minister.’ But, pointedly, there was no mention of Lady Thatcher’s name !! Most embarrassingly, officials at Harman’s Equalities Office, which produced the ‘female milestones’ list, were forced to amend it in 2009 in order to add Maggie’s name. Obviously, left wing feminists such as our Harriet only tend to celebrate the achievement of women on the Left, so much for equality! 

It seems, Harriet can’t bear the fact that Lady Thatcher was elected Prime Minister three times by voters while Labour, despite its devotion to patronising stunts such as all-women shortlists, has never had a woman leader !! Why Harriet believes a woman must be given preferential treatment purely because of their gender is odd anyway. Real women want to get to the top because they are good enough, not for some PC reason. Mrs. Thatcher did just that, she proved she was not just as good as any man, but 100 times better, and she proved it three times. The Harriet Harman's of this world will be forgotten whilst Lady Thatcher will go down in history.

All Women Short-lists - Hypocrite !

Which brings me onto my next ‘Harriet the Hypocrite’ story. Our heroin, the ultimate feminist, is very vocal over her total support for pro-women short lists, that is until it comes to her husband being slipped into a safe Labour seat after he retired as a Trade Union boss. Mr Harriet Harman is a guy by the name of Jack Dromey who was a senior official with the Unite union. 

Jack Dromey was one of four final contenders for the Labour nomination in the Birmingham Erdington constituency. The vacancy was created after Siôn Simon announced he was leaving Parliament to seek the (as-yet non-existent) post of Mayor of Birmingham. Erdington is one of Labour’s safest seats. Mr Simon held it with a majority of 9,654 in his last election so a shoe-in forever stood.

At the time, Labour’s National Executive Committee usually insisted that safe Labour seats must select candidates from all-women shortlists. As you'd expect, Harriet Harman, a member of the NEC, was always an enthusiastic backer of such lists. How very strange then that Harriet's dear hubbie, Mr Dromey was able to make the list after Harriet and the rest of the Labour NEC unusually decided not to restrict the seat to female candidates only. Jack was ultimately elected in June 2010. Good old ‘Harriet the Hypocrite’, looks after her own with a bit of nepotism while dictating the complete opposite to the rest of us.

Gambling - Hypocrite !

Skip forward a few years and our Harriet, the people's champion decides she's going to campaign against bookies, the very industry Labour actively legislated for and encouraged when in Government. She lead a ferocious assault against the working man's, and traditional Labour voters haven. In August last year, she admitted that Labour had been wrong to liberalise gambling laws (Harriet admitting Labour was wrong is a rare occurrence in itself), she claimed it has led to poorer areas being over run with bookies. At the time she appeared on Channel 4 News telling them "If we had known then what we know now, we wouldn't have allowed this, because it's ruining people's lives." Since then, Harriet has continued to demand a new law to block betting shops.

Harriet continued this tirade against the bookie into 2013. In a speech earlier this year, our heroin denounced the bookies as "predators ruining people's lives", in the speech back in January she referred to a 'Proliferation of gambling shops..is causing a blight on people's lives, but it's also causing a blight on our high streets". Misguided, but admirable conviction, and then in June, with no publicity whatsoever, our Harriet left her role as Labour's gambling spokesman. Strange move you might think, why would someone who felt so passionately about an issue quietly walk away ?

Well ‘Harriet the hypocrite’ had come back again. Her other son, Harry got himself a job in a senior role at Paddy Power. Now in a report she published back in November 2011, Harriet singled out Paddy Power for targeting poor areas with it's bookies. She said "Paddy Power has three shops in Tottenham High Road but none whatsoever in Highgate Village or Muswell Hill." 

So what does Harriet have to say about this latest entrenched ideology that she can't live up to ? Does she still think Paddy Power are predators who destroy lives ? Is her own son a life destroying predator ? Well she has said absolutely nothing. A stony silence from Harman Heights. Come on Harriet, you're still Deputy Leader of The Labour Party, we'd love to know what you think. 

Harriet the Hypocrite

The only time I've seen Harriet well and truly had over was in an interview on Newsnight during the 2011 Riots. Education Secretary, Michael Gove well and truly had the measure of her, she came out of it with more egg on her face than Ed Milliband has had on the back of his head recently. It's well worth a watch if you can find below from YouTube.

What next for Harriet? Does her hypocrisy know no bounds? It appears not. We wait with baited breath for the next time she preaches something to us whilst doing the complete opposite herself. At the end of the day, nobody does pomposity and hypocrisy quite like champagne socialist man-hater Harriet Harman the High Priestess of political correctness.

Smash The System With a Song – The Death of Political Pop ?

After recently listening to some of my music collection from the seventies and eighties I find myself asking, where has all the edgy, protest and political tracks gone from our charts and air waves?

Growing up, there was always some band or artist protesting about something or other, whether it was war - Vietnam and the Cold War being common themes; the Government; the welfare state; deprivation;  ban the bomb; racism; there was always something to sing about. Not now, it seems we’re all so content with our perfect lives and our Government that there’s no need to protest or sing about it.

So How Do You Define a Protest Song ?

Well for a start it’s a piece of music that in its own right is a great song. Good words and fine sentiments are not enough. The music must move you.

It needs to be a song with a purpose; a song that doesn’t confine itself to commenting on or bemoaning the ills of the world, but looks in some small way to change things. It may do this by directly calling for something to happen – remember Free Nelson Mandela? It must do it by informing us, but also it must appeal to our hearts and our emotions.

A true protest song should really address a specific issue or issues that are current at the time. Songs about wars and revolutions in days long gone don’t really count.

The song should really provoke the listener; it should shock us, unsettle us, amaze us, inspire us, make us angry, make us sad or make us optimistic. If it doesn’t do any of these things, it hardly deserves to be called a protest song.

Thirty of my favorite Protest Songs include:

Edwin Starr – War

Sam Cooke – A Change Is Gonna Come

The Special AKA – Free Nelson Mandela

Peter Gabriel – Biko

Billy Bragg – Between The Wars

The Levellers – Battle of the Beanfield

Bronski Beat – Smalltown Boy

Prince – Sign of The Times

Nena – 99 Red Balloons

Marvin Gaye – What’s Going On?

Neil Young – Rockin’ In the Free World

Bob Marley – Redemption Song

Bob Dylan – A Hard Rain’s a Gonna Fall

The Beat – Stand Down Margaret

Morrissey – Irish Blood English Heart

Black Sabbath – War Pigs

Pat Benatar – Hell Is for Children

Pink Floyd – Another Brick in the Wall

The Bobby Fuller Four – I Fought the Law

U2 – Sunday Bloody Sunday

Yes – Don’t Kill the Whale

Sly & The Family Stone – Don’t Call Me Nigger Whitey

Marillion – Forgotten Sons

UB40 – One in Ten

The Clash – White Riot

The Specials – Ghost Town

Rolling Stone – Gimme Shelter

The Pogues – Streets of Sorrow/Birmingham Six

John Lennon – Imagine

Frankie Goes To Hollywood – 2 Tribes

Whether it's old classics passed down through generations or the scream of angry young voices, protest has always been at the centre of rock'n'roll. It might still be, but I’m just not hearing it.

Anti-Tory Pop

You very rarely hear pro-right wing protest songs, they’re usually always from the Left and, as usual the Left have the most to preach to us about how we should be doing things.  The pop stars of today though, are very quiet about politics, rarely indulging in political comment in case it wrecks their career. It wasn’t always so, remember ‘Red Wedge’ in the eighties where people like Paul Weller, Jimmy Somerville and Billy Bragg got together to hold concerts around the country protesting about social depravation and the policies of the then Tory Government? We’re in a similar boat now but I don’t hear the likes of Olly Murs doing much protesting.

Some of the songs back then proved quite prophetic too, Eton Rifles by The Jam told the story of a group of unemployed socialists being heckled on a march by a cadet corps from Eton College. Conservative leader David Cameron is reported to have said: “I was one, in the corps. It meant a lot, some of those early Jam albums we used to listen to. I don’t see why the left should be the only ones to listen to protest songs.” Prompting Paul Weller to ask “Which part of it didn’t he get?”

Galvanising

Protest songs like I remember, the kind that galvanized thousands at a time during, anti-nuclear and civil rights marches, the anti-Vietnam war rallies, the Northern Ireland troubles and the economic upheavals during the Thatcher years, seem to have disappeared from the landscape. At least they have from the commercial airwaves.

It’s true that some rap music contains elements of social consciousness, part of a continuing commentary and protest that goes back to the earliest blues forms, but there’s a disconnect between rap and what went on before largely because of the Rappers own image.

The last mainstream, protest albums I can remember are probably Green Day’s ‘American Idiot’ and Neil Young’s ‘Living With War’. Both American, both very successful. So the demand is still there.

Bigger Pictures

There’s a bigger picture now which all revolves around the internet and social media. There are still plenty of protest songs out there, but they just aren’t part of the cultural mainstream any more. Radio doesn’t play them, and people don’t seem to do things together, as a community. We’re all connected individually to some kind of device, working alone, amusing ourselves alone, and enlightening ourselves alone.

People are still concerned about the issues that have always troubled us. Nowadays though they’re more likely to wear a coloured ribbon, or turn to Facebook to find a like-minded community than to march or sing songs in the streets, the way they did in the 1960s. It also reflects the now common disconnect between politics and young people.

Today’s ‘plastic’ manufactured pop stars are more interested in getting their picture in the paper wearing next to nothing than trying to change the world. They’re a meal ticket for their management and they don’t want to stop that money coming in by letting their little stars voice their opinions and rock the boat. This has lead to political and protest now being addressed in music by independent and internet artists, they don’t get the air time though, so we don’t hear their work.

Is Anyone Really Listening Anymore?

We do seem to lack a groundswell of popular protest songs today, when, from recession, poverty and controversial wars through to bankers and politicians screwing us all, there is surely so much to sing and protest about. But the manufactured likes of X-factor and today's boy bands, are the inheritors of the sanitised pap of old, and have crowded out the old rockers, folkies and ageing punks.

In reality, protest and political songs haven’t disappeared, we just have to hunt them down, they’re alive and well, they are just hiding in plain sight. It seems that we just don’t hear them. We don’t hear anything worthwhile these days unless we go looking for it. Which then begs the question, are political and protest songs effective anymore if nobody’s listening to them ? 

The answer is sadly ‘No’

Career Politicians, They Need To Go !

I was reading an article recently with the headline:

“A lack of commercial experience among politicians is holding back British business, say FTSE 100 leaders.”

It appears that the latest "Boardroom Pulse" survey, conducted by Korn/Ferry Whitehead Mann, shows that 89% of chairmen agreed that a lack of commercial experience among our politicians is inhibiting British business. One FTSE 100 company chairman stated “Our standard of political assistance to businesses is truly appalling and the major parties should ‘sub-contract’ this element to tried and tested business professionals (retired if necessary)”. Another put it more bluntly: “This is a wider concern than just about British business. The current crop of politicians has very limited experience of the world outside the corridors of power.”

They’re absolutely right !! We have a breed of politician today that is worse than all the others and that’s the career politician. A particularly untrustworthy, ruthless and self obsessed individual, they have never had a job outside of politics and treat conviction like it’s a contagious disease. The poll was right; they are the worst type of people to run our country.

‘Real World’ Experience

There is a trend these days towards politics being seen as a career move rather than the more traditional call to public service. What this leads to is a lack of ‘real world’ experience amongst our leaders, and when I say leaders I mean this goes right to the top.

One in seven MPs has never had a proper job. Many more have worked only briefly as lobbyists, speech writers or PR advisers. Lots of good people do go into politics with a desire to benefit society. But the recent trend for career politicians has changed the makeup of the House of Commons and ultimately diminishes the standing of Parliament.

Mr Cameron went straight from university into a job at the Conservative Research Department when he was 21, and has held only one job outside politics, with Carlton Television. Ed Miliband joined the Labour think-tank, IPPR, when he was 24, and went from there to Tony Blair's private office before being selected for Parliament; he’s never worked anywhere but in politics. I can’t be the only one who feels a party that purports to represent the working class should perhaps be led by people that have actually worked in real jobs?

Our modern career politicians now leave Oxford or Cambridge; serve their apprenticeship at a think tank or an MP’s office and then graduate into Parliament at a relatively young age. Gone are the days of Mrs Thatcher, who worked as a chemist and a tax lawyer, John Prescott working in the merchant navy or John Major, who not only worked in business and banking but worked on the buses.

There are the odd exceptions around today, Vince Cable was chief economist at Shell, Theresa May worked for the Bank of England, Chris Grayling was a lawyer, Michael Gove was a journalist, Philip Hammond was involved in manufacturing and consultancy and Ian Duncan-Smith served in the armed forces. 

George Osborne may have gained some experience with his family’s wallpaper business but does that qualify him to be Chancellor of the Exchequer? We need him to lead us out of the economic crisis but his policies don't create the growth we desperately need, he’s already lost us our AAA rating. Therefore it’s not just a lack of experience and competence that’s the problem. It’s fundamentally a lack of judgment born through not having lived in the real world. 

Liars

A particular trait of the career politician is the ease with which they lie to us. We’re almost resigned to the fact that they lie about their policies these days. However career politicians who change their minds with every new focus group are the worst culprits. It’s strange how believing in nothing and an insatiable lust for power can do that to people isn’t it? 

Sometimes they are just unashamedly blatant about it. Take the Lib Dem’s election broadcast that had Nick Clegg promising an end to broken promises, only to set about breaking as many of his policies as possible, as quickly as he possibly could. Add that to the expenses claimed for moats, duck ponds and other such ‘necessities’, and they wonder why, us the people don’t trust them.

Incompetent

Why do these career politicians who’ve never even worked let alone run a company, think they’re competent at running our country? They’re not! It shouldn’t come as a surprise to them that basing their policies around what their chums in Notting Hill think isn’t a reliable way to run a country. That’s how you end up with enormous debt and a school system that’s worse than Egypt is at crowd control. It’s the combination of a complete lack of experience of the real world outside Westminster and their general disregard for the concerns of ordinary people that makes career politicians so bad at their jobs. I mean how else do you explain how otherwise bright Oxbridge-educated individuals keep messing up so badly?

No Party Distinctions

It used to be that the Tories stood for one thing and Labour usually the opposite, but you knew who they were and what they believed in. You respected their beliefs because you knew they actually believed it.  Today you can’t tell the difference between any of them. I’m not just talking about the fact that they all went to the same schools. But they all sound the same and act the same. They’re more interested in their image than in ideas; more interested in the polls than what is actually best for the country. This could be written off as the inevitable result of a lifetime spent crawling up the slippery slope of politics, but there’s more to it than that. They’ve all climbed the same slope, and come out the same tired political product, all as a result of not working in the real world before moving into politics.

What this ‘sameness’ has created is a political bubble outside of reality. Whatever party they’re in, the politicians in this bubble mix in the same social circles and get invited to the same events. Inevitably, this has the effect that they start to care more about what these social circles think about them than what the voters think. It’s all about what policies will impress the host of the next dinner party. This means that not only do they sound and look alike, but they start to think alike too. And they don’t think anything like the rest of us do.

Pleb-Gate

The whole Andrew Mitchell scandal and Cameron’s protection of him went along way to showing the true colours of the career politician. That is the simple fact that they think they’re better than the rest of us and that they simply don’t like us, us the little people, us the plebs. Yes, they need us to vote for them but they don’t like us. Again it’s cross-party. It’s not just Cameron’s thinly veiled disgust for all those ‘unimportant people’ demanding EU referendums. The same disdain for the ordinary man on the street is just as prevalent in the Labour leadership, which contains its own fair share of small-minded millionaires; you must have heard Harriet Harman preaching to us how she knows best.  Us ordinary people have an annoying habit of holding different, often not politically correct opinions to them and that, they just don’t like. 

What We Need

We need a sanity check. That’s what we need. We should legislate that before entering parliament a prospective MP has worked outside of politics for a minimum of ten year. This will allow young new blood to enter but they would bring with them that true ‘real world’ experience and an element of common sense we’re sorely lacking in today’s parliament.  

We need people from a range of backgrounds and experiences representing us in parliament, we need them from business, the armed forces, scientists, teachers, the NHS, shop workers, these are people who have that real world experience and who know what living in the UK today is like and know the common sense laws we so dearly need. And it’s not just the rich and/or educated we want. We need more MPs in Parliament from a wider pool of backgrounds; people who know what it is to worry about the rent collector's knock, or the fear of being laid-off, so that the decisions taken reflect the realities people face. 

It’s deeply unhealthy for our political class today to be drawn from such a narrowing social base and range of experience. Career politicians can’t empathise with the lives of the electorate because they don’t know about ordinary working life. To me, their engagement feels false and undermines any trust we might have had in them. They need to go !