Whether or not you agree with me that the pro-HS2's advertising campaign (Their lawns or our jobs) is cheap and shabby, you must concede it is divisive.
This is ironic since one of the platforms – it is hard to avoid rail puns – of the government's campaign if that "it will heal the north/south divide". Their campaign is also misinformed, and I think sadly so: the government's own figures predict that 70% of the jobs created will be in the south. And how many jobs will that be? A total of 30,000 over, wait for it, 60 years!
As it happens, the Action Alliance opposing HS2 got its retaliation in first. In April they asked me, a copywriter living in the Chilterns, within 800 metres of the proposed route, to do an ad speaking to MP's in the Parliamentary Gazette. I was hesitant. I envisaged a meeting with shrill, anxious people waving placards at me. Instead I found a small group of highly intelligent and educated men and women. They asked me to avoid hyperbole and personal feelings and to concentrate on the factual errors in the business case for HS2.
At that time, a godsend: Kelvin MacKenzie buffooned his way on to the airways saying, "If HS2 can get the likes of me to Birmingham 25 minutes quicker, it will be fantastic." Not for Birmingham, I thought. He symbolises, as does the campaign quoted above, a blind belief that speed will solve this country's problems, and epitomises the sort of businessman who will benefit. However, the Action Alliance eschewed direct and confrontational ads when I showed some among a dozen or so concepts. Instead they chose one that addresses public servants in a tone of voice not dissimilar from the patronising voice of the Tories: Stop whingeing all you students, teachers, nurses. Someone's got to pay for HS2. It rings true because this is what the government is in effect saying to us all, tighten your belts, we have a train to catch.
Stop whingeing all you students, teachers, nurses.
Someone's got to pay for HS2.
In fact everyone's got to pay for HS2.
Every household will have to stump-up £1,200. Every constituency £52 million.
Yet The Financial Times can't see the case for HS2 and The Sunday Telegraph claims it's a criminal waste of scarce resources.
The Greens insist it isn't green and the government's own environment advisor says it should be abandoned in favour of improving local transport.
The tragedy is, all the important benefits of HS2 can be achieved at a fraction of the cost by improving existing lines, stations and rolling stock.
(And how they need it!)
To be fair, one man does speak up for HS2. Kelvin MacKenzie. If it gets 'the likes of me' to Birmingham in forty-nine minutes it's 'fantastic'.
So cheer-up all you who are out of work, out of cash, out of hope.
Your sacrifice is not in vain.
It would be good and fair and democratic if we could run the ad nationally, but we have no money to do so, unlike the pro-lobby which seems awash with cash. Their campaign is funded by businesspeople. At a dinner in Leeds addressed by the transport secretary Philip Hammond, who discreetly left after his peroration, they were each asked to chip in £10,000 and so built up a war-chest. As for myself, I began as a nimby but, having studied all available documents, I am now a sceptic. The fact that both Hammond and the businesspeople of the north are resorting to insult and rhetoric rather than facts, show us that their business case is compromised and will not bear scrutiny.