The Hit Man and HS2
THINGS got a little loud in the Channel 4 news studio last night as Pete Waterman, the DJ off-off The Hit Man And Her, told the world of his great support for the HS2 high speed rail link from London to Birmingham – the one threatening demolition and disruption in a large portion of Camden. Britain he argued cannot consider itself a great country while it can’t ‘move its people around’.
Arms folded and hunched to one side, Waterman grows tetchy until it just gets plain silly. The studio debate starts at 5.15, fast forward to 11.10 for the following nonsense:
The Hit Man: Do you travel by train?
Protester Joe Rukin: I just told you I came here by train?
The Hit Man: Do you travel everyday?
Protester Joe Rukin: No not evvvvveryday
The Hit Man: Well I do. You see I travel three times a week.
Protester Joe Rukin: Three times a week is not every day.
And so on. They are still quarrelling when Jon Snow has to intervene with a ‘chaps, we have to leave it there…’
*PS just in case you forgot the delights of The Hit Man And Her, here’s Waterman and Her (Michaela Strachan) at the peak of their game from a time before both high speed rail links and dancing had been invented:
Richard Osley 
Now I know that understanding the HS2 argument demands a lot of reading, most of it
quite technical and academic. Now i’m sure that PW has done his very best and that he loves trains but isn’t that the same Pete Waterman who was effectively Illiterate until he was 38?
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What the anti HS2 man failed to pick up on is that we have Railways because Victorian investors thought they would make money – big time! They didn’t they lost their money and the railways went bankrupt and was nationalised.
HS1 built for 5.5 billion – sold off for 2.2 billion to Canadian pension fund. And the line continues to be subsidised by the taxpayer who is also paying the interest on the difference between the 5.5 billion and the 2,2 billion.
So tomorrow I will go to see the man at the Halifax, borrow money to build a house, build it, sell it to someone at a huge discount, carry on paying the mortgage on most of it and pay them towards living there. – sorted.
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Has anyone asked Pete Waterman why he’s a reborn believer in high-speed rail? In this interview with Railwaypeople.com at http://www.railwaypeople.com/rail-news-articles/pete-waterman-talks-to-andy-milne-1462.html, this little gem appears.
Surprisingly he’s no great supporter of high speed rail. ‘I wouldn’t do it. People want to get there cheaper not quicker. I want to keep the little lines. It would be a sad railway if we were all high speed trains and no locals.’
He was right then and is so wrong now. What happened Pete? Have you been bought or are you just a hypocrite?
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