This paperback is essential reading ..

to get Britain's (parlous, pathetic, counter-productive, duplicitous, perfidious, cheeky, self serving, disastrous, catastrophic, so well meaning for supposedly British interests alone, cuck-handed, war oriented, whoopsy daisy foreign policy meddling, revengeful - take your pick) interventions in the Middle East into perspective.

Fair on all players; properly sourced; first hand accounts, unsensationalised and sober - but devastating:-

FROM:  https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Making_of_the_Modern_Middle_East.html?id=AgM10QEACAAJ&redir_esc=y

"supposedly" in our interests because acting selfishly is never in the doers interests in the long term.

If you use ...

I think - but open to correction - if you use violence/war you are showing hate, are part of the problem and being a total hypocrite in not allowing the other side to use violence because only you are allowed to use it. I am thinking of Putin, Netanyahu, Trump. One is our 'enemy', the other two are our side with no BDS against them (double standards by our side).

If you use coercion force violence you are being anti Jew, anti Muslim, anti Christian, anti Russian/Ukraine or anti anyone else. You are therefore part of the problem. 99% believe in violence and war, astonishingly!

I think, they are all anti humanity and bringing us all crashing down to be one of the shortest lived species Earth will have seen. Corporate suicide and ecocide. 

If Zach Polanski had been strong on non-violence, he would never have tolerated the vile Nigel/guillotine tweet by passing it on.

to Gerald

Thanks for this excellent piece that was so good to read. And informative. I've also read Porritt's 'Hope in Hell'.

In often chatting to car drivers sitting in their cosy cars beautifully air conditioned in summer or heated in winter, with their engine idling - sometimes for many minutes - none of them seem to have a clue that the petrol or diesel will one day be no more. It is inconceivable for them to understand that fossil fuels are finite! And that electric cars are also unsustainable and little better than combustion motors. Everyone is in denial that we are foolishly living infinitely on a finite planet and unnaturally on a natural planet. 

For these people, understanding of Climate science is zero. Some think it is up to governments to sort it, if they have heard of Climate concerns. It's nothing to do with them, they think.

I read on Wikipedia that some scientists fear that earth will turn into our sister or twin planet, venus. Venus is hotter than mercury although further from the sun than mercury, because of its runaway greenhouse effect. As we are doing to earth. 

Our thoughtless, care-less drivers live it up today and to hell with tomorrow are hastening the end for humanity. But I am guilty, too but, at least, I'm trying to minimise my impact in many ways while not living as a hermit. Perhaps I should be!

I love your akrasia and must give it some more reading from other erudite authors. I read a book by an XR man who calls our guilty pleasures but knowing they are damaging and totally unsustainable as "cognitive dissonance".

Keep up the brilliant work you are doing.

2nd mail out for Sat 8 Aug 26

Cycle or walk, for coffee and back, on SATURDAY 8 AUGUST 2026 at 10 am, from Himley Plantation car park

Two of us cyclists and walkers are trying to whip up support for getting the authorities to finish the UK's most important and longest, 20 Km urban-rural-urban Black Country Active Travel Route from Fens Pool Avenue, Brierley Hill to NW Wolverhampton, to infinity and beyond.

The surface is fine from the Woodland Trust's Himley Plantation car park, going north through Wombourne and on to Wolverhampton.  It is a 5 Km winter mud bath going south from the Dudley/S Staffs border, which we do not touch!  But please help us to get it upgraded to the South Staffordshire District Council standard by joining us on the cycle/walk.  It needs more of us asking!

First coffee stop, certainly for walkers, is https://www.theplatformwombourne.com/ - at Bratch Lane, Wombourne in the old railway station.

Go to - https://maps.app.goo.gl/YdEszfAvqspUNMyP8

First for cyclists is https://cupcake-lane.com/ - at Smestow Valley/Tettenhall Railway Station, Meadow View Terrace, Tettenhall, Wolverhampton.

MEET at Himley Lane - entrance to car park at P, below:

TIM WELLER  Halesowen  Black Country  (0791 380 4363)

Why I've back slidden, fallen out of love with evangelical Christianity

Many years ago, you (60 year old friends) very kindly showed interest in why I had departed from the evangelical Christianity of my Westhill College days. At that time I gave a very brief and, an extremely inadequate answer. What follows is a better explanation. But, again not everything!

Politics is about morality and leadership.  Ecology trumps theology, as must morality, conscience and personal integrity rather than creeds and doctrine.

 

For me, heresy is when Christians get mixed up with arms production, with the armed forces and going to war at the behest of a  Bush, a Blair/Brown or an equally demented Trump in this decade.

Heresy is when nature's laws are dismissed as being of little consequence when compared to the magisterial monument which is the Bible.

The Bible is put on a pedestal for instruction in how to live. No wonder, the believers have got mixed-up in coercion, force and violence and in control, domination and occupation of other peoples' lands. So ruling over others, without a by your leave - just imposition from beginning to end.  

The Church gladly saw worldwide colonialism as a wonderful opportunity to save souls and extend the Kingdom of God for His glory. Never mind the million dead and the million forced out of their homes when the Jewel in the Crown, the mighty British Raj, came to an end in 1947.

The very next year saw the defeat of the British Empire as the three Jewish-Zionist terrorist gangs defeated the largest Empire the world has ever seen.  One of them, Haganah, became the IDF! 

Funded by America, the New State of Israel had its aggression rewarded in every subsequent war with ever more land conquered and occupied ever since.

This was a repeat of the colonial settler movement by mainly Bible-believing, God fearing, Christian Puritans of the 17th century who took over N America from the indigenous native Indians. That saw decades of violence by the White man before gaining total and complete control for the last 250 years.  Our total control over the last 78 years imposes American, British and Israeli ever so Righteous Way of the West on the land once known as Palestine.

95% of the followers of the Way of Jesus, for the first 300 years, had it dead right in understanding that total discipleship meant renouncing coercion, force and violence.

Metro history summary

The Wombourne station is the coffee shop, called 'The Platform'.

The Tettenhall station on the Black Country Active Travel Route is another coffee shop, called Cupcake Lane, as here - https://cupcake-lane.com/.

The three new stations on the Camp Hill line were going to be tram stops under the West Midlands Metro tramway plan from 1981 to 2016.  Only in 2016, before Andy Street was elected, did they finally cancel the tram plan and decided on reinstating the commuter trains instead.  It took them ten years to achieve it!

I was writing from the 1990s opposing existing, three mainline railways being turned into tramways.  The first tramway on the first mainline opened in 1999.  The second on the London to Edinburgh, principal mainline railway through Dudley opens in time for Christmas - for the last two or three years - perhaps this year!

Please take a look at riversimple.com and tell me what you think.

With today's talk of Nazis ...

 ... isn't it the Judeo-Christian world behaving like Nazis with still our massacres and slaughters, our genocides and holocaust, our past (unrepented) chattel slavery and world domination; nasty, cruel and callous ways towards the Arab/Muslim peoples?

For 120 years, the very people who call themselves the people of the Book, the Jews and Christians, have been by far the worst at following the civilised norms of the 3500 year old Ten Commandments!

This happy state of hypocrisy is perfectly exemplified in the Jewish Bibi (much beloved even by many fervent evangelical believers) and in Donald Trump with his strong, evangelical power base. 

Today's pathetic, way out of order, way out verdicts on our masters and betters who are only doing their best

We love to give our victims the opportunity to forgive us in our killing sprees down the centuries and round the world.  Just a pity the dead don't have a voice to say just that, "I forgive you for killing me."

Always 1 Samuel 15 v 3 and never the non-violence of the Christian's founder, leader, exemplar and Top, All Round Good Man.  Not even Commandment no 6 (unless God tells you to kill) which goes back, the archaeologists think to about 3,500 years, seems to have deterred the people of violence in wiping people like me off the face of the earth.  Silly me, all the killing was decreed by the Lord God so I just have to put up with being finished off before I can say, 'I forgive you.'

May 2025 Climate alarm IGNORED!

FROM: https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide

• Each year, human activities release more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than natural processes can remove, causing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to increase.
• The global average carbon dioxide set a new record high in 2024: 422.7 parts per million ("ppm" for short).
  • The increase over 2023 amounts was 3.75 ppm—the largest one-year increase on record.
• Atmospheric carbon dioxide is now 50 percent higher than it was before the Industrial Revolution.
• The annual rate of increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide over the past 60 years is about 100 times faster than previous natural increases, such as those that occurred at the end of the last ice age 11,000-17,000 years ago.  
• The ocean has absorbed enough carbon dioxide to lower its pH by 0.1 units, a 30% increase in acidity. 

Sooner we urgently stop burning fossil fuels the better.

Professor Caroline Lear, one of the report’s co-authors from Cardiff University’s School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, said:   “Atmospheric CO2 concentrations have varied naturally in the past. Although these changes were far slower than the modern changes caused by burning fossil fuels, we can use them to understand how our planet responds to changes in CO2.

Our findings tell us that we will continue to see the impacts of our emissions for thousands of years, as the planet continues to warm and sea levels continue to rise. Phasing out fossil fuels is our only option to reduce this harm, and has never been more urgent.

Professor Caroline LearDean of Research and Innovation, College of Physical Sciences and Engineering

The new assessment shows the last time CO2 was consistently higher than now was about 16 million years ago, at about 480 parts per million (ppm) – the unit used to report CO2 concentrations.

By 14 million years ago it had sunk to today’s human-induced level of 420 ppm.

The decline continued, and by about 2.5 million years ago, CO2 reached about 270 or 280ppm kicking off a series of ice ages. It was at or below this figure when modern humans came into being about 400,000 years ago, and persisted there until the effects of widespread combustion of fossil fuels by humans took effect on a grand scale about 250 years ago.

FROM -  https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/news/view/2794064-66-million-year-history-of-carbon-dioxide-shows-climate-is-highly-sensitive-to-greenhouse-gases

My matters of concern affecting our town and borough

We are between the devil and the deep blue sea but, there is still much we can do:

1. For my 50 years living in the town, McDonald's pair of traffic lights work independently on the morning major traffic flow to the M5 and Brum.  They can be fixed to work together so that the traffic allowed through on the first Green light is allowed through on the second Green light.
2. The Asda car park white stone roundabout can be put back to how it was - 100% nature to maximise the carbon dioxide captured by nature to slow the release of this global warming gas.
3. Instruct only an annual mow along the edges of the A456/Manor Way bypass to maintain visibility and for trees and shrubs to re-colonise the central reservation to sequester carbon dioxide to slow a warming planet.  Pine trees, we hear on Radio 4, are the worst for ready burning.
4. The present thick woodland on the central reservation shows how the full length looked like before the major carriageway restructuring of 30 years ago.
5. The 50 year old, tyres to tarmac, Grange roundabout could have carbon absorbing soil and grass without affecting visibility to bring it into line with every other UK, major, 30 metre diameter, highway roundabout.
6. Lapal Lane South corner by the 5G mast should have a professionally designed, landscaping scheme of CO2 sequestering trees and shrubs between the footpath and carriageway.
7. Order the scrapping of tram extensions which have brought the enormous cost, inconvenience and more changes between the half a dozen different rail modes under the DfT's Mixed Use Railways project.
8. STOP the dangerous practice of allowing the public to walk over the Gornal/Gornalwood landfill site which vent a cocktail of poisonous gases.  Himley Environmental Ltd (HEL) must be brought to account and put things right.
9. FINISH the UK's top in importance, 20 Kms Black Country Cycle-Walkway on the two old railway lines alongside the HEL site, so it is safe and attractive for walkers, cyclists, runners and horse riders to use it on the entire 20 Kms length between Merry/Brierley Hill and NW Wolverhampton.
10. Use the W Midlands remaining, existing or freight only railway lines for commuter and regional TRAINS not trams.

Tim    (Weller 0791 380 4363)

Climate problems arising fast, so ...

We all need to live more simply and modestly to allow other peoples and future generations to simply live on a planet able to sustain all life for all.

ALL as bad as one another!

I just can't get out of my head that our more 'virtuous' side, with our Judeo-Christian Bible and beliefs are ending up allowing aggression to pay in 1948 Palestine.

We Brits meekly withdrew in the face of terrorism by the Jewish gangs - one of which became the IDF!.  Now 80 years of slaughter in the unHoly Land by our side and still no BDS against Israel because she is our friend and ally.  Only Russia!

We are ALL as bad as one another - capitalist or Communist; West or BRIC nations; Judeo/Christianity or Islam!

All this can't be worth it to underscore a principle - aggression must not pay

Ukraine/Russian War - hundreds of thousands of casualties - suffering the most terrible deaths - all for being ruled either by Zelensky or Putin - Volodymyr or Vladimir!

We're all as bad as one another!

I just can't get out of my head that our more 'virtuous' side, with our Judeo-Christian Bible and beliefs are ending up allowing aggression to pay in 1948 Palestine. We Brits meekly withdrew in the face of terrorism by the Jewish gangs - one of which became the IDF!.  Now 80 years of slaughter in the unHoly Land by our side and still no BDS against Israel because she is our friend and ally.  Only Russia!

We are ALL as bad as one another - capitalist or Communist; West or BRIC nations; Judeo/Christianity or Islam!

This paperback is essential reading ...

... to get Britain's (parlous, pathetic, counter-productive, duplicitous, perfidious, cheeky, self serving, disastrous, catastrophic, so well meaning for supposedly British interests alone, cuck-handed, war oriented, whoopsy daisy foreign policy meddling - take your pick) interventions in the Middle East into perspective.

Fair on all players; properly sourced; first hand accounts, unsensationalized and sober - but devastating:-

FROM:  https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Making_of_the_Modern_Middle_East.html?id=AgM10QEACAAJ&redir_esc=y

Comment on Andy Street's Facebook page

Andy Street took responsibility for delivering the destruction of the UK's very last principal mainline railway "of national strategic significance" by allowing two short sections, totalling 6.7 Kms to be turned into a tramway. All he had to do was to stop the trams and to return the commuter, regional and intercity TRAINS between London and Edinburgh via Dudley in the Black Country. HE FAILED. He was told. He ignored the simple, cheap solution. He hankers after the HS2 of the North!

Octopus Energy gone haywire - again!

I'm an electricity only customer, we are two OAPs, using such a minute amount of electricity because we don't have central heating, no air conditioning and one primary instant electric water heater of 10/12 Kw for kitchen and bathroom which takes electricity only when switched on to give hot water.  A second unit is 3 Kw for hand washing in the small downstairs toilet.

Years ago, we invested in a 6.24 kWh solar array and 14.4 kWh set of batteries which should also explain that even £50/mth charge is too much, let alone £100.

This means we use only 3 to 4 kWh of electricity per day when averaged out over the full year.

Please check your arithmetic and computer for faults.  Or is your whole system of working somewhat inept?

Please explain your actions fully in writing.  And put things right.

Miatta Fahnbulleh, Energy Sec

Fahnbulleh is a rising star in the party who contributed heavily to Burnham’s policy ideas as he was preparing for government.

She previously worked closely with Miliband so was a natural choice for the energy role and will have a crucial task in Burnham’s mission of cutting bills while sticking to commitments in net zero.

FROM: 'The Guardian' today

Ed Miliband praised

... the rules Labour inherited governing the UK’s privatised power market, which mean that the price of electricity is set by gas-fired power stations, which can be highly profitable for them but disastrous for consumers.

Miliband has been trying to wean the UK off fossil fuels, to cheap renewable energy. This will require more investment, particularly in the grid. And the government is intent on decoupling gas and electricity prices, but this is proving a tough and slow process.

His move to the Foreign Office will prevent Miliband from following through on this project, and it remains to be seen whether his replacement, Miatta Fahnbulleh, will continue it with such enthusiasm.

---------

Teresa Ribera, a vice-president of the European Commission responsible for green transition, has been a close ally since Miliband began his first stint as energy secretary in 2008. “He is, by some distance, one of the most skilful and respected negotiators I have ever worked with, and one of the most honest and principled politicians I know. He commands respect in international institutions and among the world’s most influential governments, but equally among developing countries, workers, scientists and business and civil society leaders,” she told the Guardian.

This will help Britain, and the world, in his new role. “I have absolutely no doubt that he has all the qualities needed to become an outstanding foreign secretary,” says Ribera. “His experience in international climate negotiations, his understanding of the economic and social dimensions of the energy transition, and his unwavering commitment to fairness and social justice make him one of the most valuable figures not only in British politics, but in global public leadership.”

FROM:  https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jul/21/labour-briefed-against-ed-miliband-success-popularity