HS2 accused of brainwashing children with ‘zoom trains’
THE firm set up by the Government to manage High Speed 2 has been accused of using Orwellian propaganda tactics to brainwash children on the proposed route.
HS2 Ltd has awarded a £280,000 contract to London-based Hopscotch Consulting to devise educational course for primary school pupils aged between seven and 11.
This included building a ‘zoom train’ from cardboard and looking at possible routes for ‘Zoom Rail’ from London to Birmingham.
Primary schools near the route have received an email from Hopscotch inviting them to ‘come aboard Zoom Rail, HS2’s Primary School Engagement Programme’.
The material contains HS2’s logo and ‘engine for growth’ slogan with no references to a negative view of the scheme, campaigners said. In one activity, pupils – some of whom will see their family homes demolished when HS2 is built – are urged to create their own ‘power train’ by cutting out a template of a locomotive and making it move with balloons.
Last night HS2 said the aim of the project was to ‘educate children so they can play a
‘This is blatant marketing’
role in the construction, development and ongoing operation of HS2 and other transport and infrastructure projects’.
But the tactics have infuriated anti-HS2 campaigners who have accused the government backed firm of stooping to a new low to push through the project,
Sally Kincaid, of the Wakefield and District National Union of Teachers, one of the locations where the programme is being promoted, said: ‘We know how busy teachers are, so when someone gives them a lesson plan, a lot will take it. ‘But this is blatant marketing.’ Joe Rukin, of Stop HS2, said: ‘Just when we thought HS2 Ltd couldn’t sink any lower, we find they are spending over a quarter of a million on targeting primary school children along the route of HS2 for brainwashing. The concept of state-sponsored propaganda – which is tailored so children in communities impacted by HS2 must come to the conclusion HS2 is a brilliant idea – is truly Orwellian.’