News of the debate has spread far and wide across the land and not just the Borders. Curret;y exiled in Sheffield for 48 hours I can bring you the result.
The motion - “That the proposed rail link between Edinburgh and Tweedbank should proceed.”
For: 67
Against 206
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5 comments:
Great evening, great result.
Prof Harvey seemed determined to alienate his audience - he clearly does not like cars, especially SUVs, and car owners, and appeared to have a go at people from an ignorant country, and people from a region rooted in the past, and people who aren't German! He is a proponent of public transport, but always has a go at his fellow bus passengers, who seem to have a syndrome invloving alcohol, drugs and deep psychological problems stemming from what we used to call shell-shock.
I wonder where he learned how to do politics? Getting angry at being heckled and shouting through the microphone is hardly going to win over any meeting.
Nicholas would have won anyway. The pro-Waverley lobby was a small minority which only began to make a noise a few times.
Well done Nicholas! Well done everybody!
the man showed his true colours in his Guardian article, I'm surprised none of the other parties have picked up on it, He's a liability
It's a difficult argument to make, but Nicholas did it very well.
Of course all right thinking people recognise the threat from global warming and climate change. Of course trains are a Good Thing. Of course petrol and diesel cars have a limited future.
But we were not there to debate the benfits of railways per se.
Nicholas sucessfully broadened the debate to the wider costs of the proposed railway. The probable cost-overruns and who would have to pick up the bill. The development cost, with one part of the Borders facing an overheated spate of housebuilding and the rest of the region starved of investment. The environmental costs, not only of running near-empty trains to and fro to Edinburgh but also building the thing.
The audience was clearly sympathetic as Nicholas pointed out the limitations of a single-track, passenger-only service to Tweedbank.
In answer to a lady from Hawick who resented the Queen of the Borders being called an outlying area, I felt more could have been made of the central Borders Party theme of the need for balanced development.
I spoke to a gentleman from Newtown who had come along with an open mind. He had never met Nicholas before but was very impressed. Another Borders Party voter there, I think.
Some people are easy to fool if you make enough noise. The Railway Debate was a wonderful example of this.
In the middle of the debate the Border TV reporter spoke to camera and said:
"There are plenty of people here, but in fact I would say more or less the majority, who do in fact want the line. But there are still some who are insisting it will be an underused white elephant". (His actual words!)
The final count was 206 against the railway and 67 for. Is 25% "more or less the majority"? In fairness to the reporter, the pro railway campaigners did make far more noise at the start of the debate.
Come on anti railway contingent, time to shout!
Borders TV got some well deserved complaints about the inaccuracies made in their earlier reporting of the debate. I was there - the result was in no doubt whatsoever.
The pro-rail lobby will have to do a whole lot more than Professor Harvey did if they want my vote. It is facts, not rhetoric, which I was there to hear and it was from Councillor Nicholas Watson that those came, not the MSP for mid-Scotland and Fife.
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