The 'Donald Trump' Tram is scandalous in every way you look at it.

It is as mad as Donald Trump because when you put a short tramway, called the Dudley Tram, on two sections of a a principal mainline railway, you then destroy the full 120 Kms between Worcester and Derby via Dudley.

The ready built but unused 56 Kms from Stourbridge Jct to Burton on Trent, could have been reopened for commuter, regional and national trains at a fraction of the price and in a fraction of the time taken for trams on 6 Kms (not 6 miles).  It could have reduced traffic congestion on motorways and main roads.  This must be the Donald Trump Syndrome of mental instability and destruction and slaughter.

A tragedy that the first tram network was destroyed to be replaced by smelly diesel buses with their cocktail of poisonous exhaust gases.  Courtesy of transport 'experts' and the members of seven W Mids councils in charge at the time.

A double tragedy when they destroyed the 100 year old successful Black Country Railway "of national strategic significance", between London and Edinburgh to build the Dudley Tram!

This stupidity took them 45 years, too. And, Council Leader, Fred Hunt, in all seriousness, told me in the mid 1990s that the tram would be running through Dudley by the year 2000, 26 years ago!  It finally opens sometime in 2026.  But even then, it is only Phase One of the 10.7 Kms length that they started actually building in 2019.  7 years to build 6 Kms on mostly an existing, unused railway.  Shocking.

The final cost, for both phases, is coming out at well over £100m/Km.  SCANDALOUS!  This is three times more expensive than any other tram scheme in the world, one transport consultant found.  Second in expense to foolish HS2.

AND,

Dudley's Station Hotel must be renamed Dudley Tram Stop Hotel.

What is so wrong with Judeo-Christian societies?

In the history of Britain, only once has the monarch been executed by the government of the day.  In 1649, on the 30 January, King Charles 1 was executed by republicans who were mainly Puritans.  They were upright, Bible-believing, evangelical Christians under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell, a successful military general.

Wikipedia has: The vast majority went to war in 1642 to assert Parliament's right to participate in government, not abolish the monarchy, which meant Charles' refusal to make concessions led to a stalemate."

It seems, there were intermittent civil wars in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1639 to 1653 but all were fought by men who took their inspiration from the Bible examples of battles in the Old Testament.  They were God fearing men who went to war.  Perhaps, not so contradictory?

In this present age of 90% reliance on finite fossil fuels, Britain and its offshoot, America have also been waging wars around the globe from 1897 to the present day.  The UK, USA and their friends and war allies in Europe, the Judeo-Christian nations have used their riches and power to impose their will on other nations and peoples - from stealing land and property to build their empires, to 300 years of chattel slavery and hundreds of wars.

For all these centuries, they were influenced and under the authority of Christian teaching and the Jewish Scriptures of the Old Testament.  The last 130 years have seen tens of millions slaughtered by the very people, like the Puritans in the 17th century, who take the Bible seriously and act on it.

From 1945, in the home of the Bible and the people featured, there has been a constant battle by one lot of Bible believing Jews and Christians to oust and then maintain the land they have gained from the other lot of the Children of Abraham, the Muslims.

What on earth is so wrong with religion?

Or, is it a false religion with coercion, force, violence and warfare at its heart, despite the appearance of great holiness and purity and spirituality?

Churchill's English Speaking World has the highest proportion of ...

 ... Evangelical Christians in its population.  Certainly in the USA.  But, this Judeo-Christian world, since the South African Wars from 1897, up to the present day, have been at the heart of most wars and the most serious wars around the globe.

This is a despicable record but far worse, of course, than the Israeli wars in the Bible's Old Testament and is in direct contradiction and contravention of the Way of Jesus Christ in the Gospels of the New Testament.

What is so pernicious about all this is that the white races have dragged the other races into their wars and it is they, the black peoples who have suffered the most!  Suffered the most in the 300 years of slavery with compensation by Britain for only the slave owners who had already made millions out of their nasty wickedness and then got even more millions!

And since the Ten Commandments from 3,500 years ago, what is right and what is wrong has never changed.  Those ten and the 2,000 year old directions of Christ as to how we are meant to live have never needed to be brought up to date.

Human nature is the same from generation to generation around the globe.  And always needing a literal interpretation of certainly Commandment no 6 and more St Francis of Assisi like living and less of the palatial living it up we see amongst ourselves.  We are so entitled; so privileged; so rich.  But at the expense of future generations.

Simon of Dudley Life mag

Thank you for your excellent magazine which my wife and I have read and enjoyed.

In the next issue, would you feel able to help Chris and I drum up support for our Saturday 8 August event to get Dudley borough people walking, wheeling and cycling the Black Country Active Travel Route from the Woodland Trust Himley Plantation car park to the two coffee stops in two beautifully preserved railway stations in Wombourne and Tettenhall?  The woodland car park is at the very top of the map, below, Simon.

Former councillor Chris Barnett and I are organising the event and we would value your help, please in publicising it in your publications.  Full details are below.  Do play down, or even exclude, the negative aspects of Dudley's section which we do not touch, and play up the positive of quiet, traffic free, smooth and dry surfaces on the South Staffordshire and Wolverhampton sections.  These are the only sections, going away from Dudley, which we will be using.  But we want, of course, Dudley people!

The aim of the day is to get all Black Country people walking and cycling more.  In the process, the authorities might be encouraged to also improve the Dudley section for our use in future years.

Very many thanks.    Tim

INVITATION TO OUR FOUR DUDLEY MPs and 72 councillors

Please will you work to get funding for our Dudley section of the UK's longest, urban-rural-urban, 20 Kms Black Country Active Travel Route from Fens Pool Avenue, Brierley Hill to our border with South Staffordshire at Himley?

The full 20 Kms runs to NW Wolverhampton to link with former councillor, Chris Barnett's circular cycle-walkway via canal towpaths and Netherton Tunnel for commuter, business and leisure use.  The surface is excellent through South Staffordshire, is adequate in Wolverhampton but is deplorable and unusable in Dudley's section.  In addition, the adjacent, poisonous and polluted landfill site is dangerously, fully open to the public and is well used by dirt bikes, quad bikes and 4x4s who gain access via the Black Country Active Travel Route in Gornal/Gornalwood.  Hence, Dudley's section is unusable for the vast majority of cyclists and walkers who want a quiet, traffic-free route for commuter, business and leisure use away from noisy, air polluting dirt bikes and 4x4 users who wreck the place.

Full details are here:

 MAGNIFICENT MUDWAY TO WALKWAY TRANSFORMED because:

Alex, would you and your teams like to join us on Saturday 8 August at 10 am, at the Himley Woodland Trust Plantation car park to ride or walk, northwards on the Black Country Cycle-Walk-Horse ride Active Travel Route?

Please will you come over?  It would be wonderful to meet you and your caseworkers, along with Cat Eccles, Mike Wood and Sonia Kumar to enjoy a relaxing morning cycling or walking to the two coffee shops/tea rooms in two old railway stations beautifully preserved.

MAP of Dudley's 5 Kms section:

Full of rogues and murderous maniacs in our Scriptures but only JC is the WAY out of our mess

It was good to have that brief chat.  But it means yet another email!  You are wonderfully eloquent in speech - a gift I don't have, so writing for me.

Have the evangelicals also gone rogue in being the biggest backers of the State of Israel that has gone rogue for decades?

Why did you choose the name of 'Zion' for the offshoot of Albert Road Gospel Hall, under Brian Cole, Leon?

'Your' choice of 'Zion' for a name proves evangelical affinity with the State and land of Israel.

Zion can refer to Jerusalem, the only capital out of over 190 which needs prayers for peace.  It has been fought over by invaders for very many centuries despite all that prayer yet, it is as divided as ever and, still no peace.

Leon, you are a successful, in demand and one of the most respected Christian leaders in the UK.  You have a duty to preach and teach the Way of Jesus Christ at every opportunity.  That means "70 x 7" refers to forgiveness and not revenge as every Israeli leader has believed and acted on since their first, David Ben Gurion, after the end of the World War in 1945.  Every Prime Minister has not even accepted the morality of their own Hebrew Scriptures of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth".  They are completely OTT in revenge for every attack on them.  Hence, they have never been able to live in peaceful and settled security with all their immediate neighbours.  A failed state.  Warfare and 70 x 7 revenge, or reciprocation as Bibi puts it in his Very Big Book of 654 pages, has never worked.  And every year cheered on by the USA.

This is the country with the highest proportion of Christian church going in the world - and the nation most disobeying, "not by might, nor by power but by my Spirit".  It has been arming Israel since 1945, starting with the three Jewish terrorist gangs which saw off the biggest empire in the history of humanity in 1948.  This is totally unacceptable and proves our church leaders have failed to teach their congregations the most basic teaching of Jesus Christ: love not hate; be fair and just on your own tribe and with those who don't share your beliefs or culture; and, live in peaceful co-existence with all your surrounding groups and nations.

The Way of Jesus Christ never undermines the Ten Commandments from 3,500 years ago.  Christ's teaching made it even stricter.  This proves that from millennium to millennium we humans are always up to the same vices and virtues.  The moral code does not change from age to age.  Yet, for centuries it is the Judeo-Christian world which has proved the most wicked, aggressive, colonial, promoting slavery the longest, and responsible for World Wars and WMD.  It has the Bible!  Or, is it because of the Bible?  See 1 Samuel 15 v 3 - shocking and unedifying for Holy Scriptures.  Yet, used by wicked Israel to justify Gazan genocide.  The Bible as a weapon to slaughter even the suckling infant.

We need the Gospel teaching and example of the JC of Nazareth more than ever before.

Best wishes and every blessing to you both.  By the way, please do support Joy Hardwick when you can, especially at the open air witness at Christmas and Good Friday.  Much better attendance this time.  She does it really very well.  Even a brilliant and appropriate A cappella.  A word new to me but you are a musician, Leon and must know what it means!

Climate, Energy, Greed crises!

Dear Laura, Mark and Jeff - it would be nice to have a response from each of you that tells me you have taken the trouble to read every word, below.  PLEASE!

You three were the three most important VIPs at the Town Hall yesterday so this is addressed to you three.  I came away thinking you were all pretty laid back and unconcerned about the IPCC warnings in their one every three years Assessment Reports since the UN set up this prestigious panel in 1988.

Can we really afford £20 million for something that is nice but not as urgent as waking up to actually ACT over rising greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions threatening life support systems and even our ability to water and feed ourselves as temperatures rise to bring floods, fire, drought, melting ice caps and retreating glaciers?

Our Western wars since the end of the 19th century are a fact of life as, right now, we are at war against Russia, Gaza, Lebanon and now Iran and their three proxies.  But it comes at an enormous cost of even faster declining oil/gas reserves, with only a trickle left in the North Sea that we can take and burn.  It is leading to rising prices at fuel stations, higher inflation, a greater percentage of GNP for the military to wage our wars and, the cost of borrowing for HMG is rising, too.  All disasters.

All these wars hasten oil/gas shortages and deepen the Climate Emergency.

HS2, Metro and Sprint are greedy vanity projects.  £20 million to deal with concrete problems in the Pool Road car park may be urgent, so that must be done, perhaps.  Otherwise, we must reduce the demand for energy - a double whammy because burning oil worsens all our Climate problems and, as we burn the finite fossil fuels, an empty, cavernous space is growing above the underground lagoons of oil and gas as they dwindle away.  I have heard on Radio 4 experts saying 7% from one and 8% from another of oil/gas left in the North Sea fields.  In 2023, I heard Keir Starmer on national 'News' say that almost all the gas has gone from UK fields in the North Sea..

I am so worried about the fast unfolding of the Climate and Energy crises that I am seriously thinking that I must cancel my April hillwalking trip to Scotland by car, even though I am so miserly in my driving I get over 80 mpg from the diesel Civic on a long motorway run to the high hills.  We need every drop of oil for the petro-chemical industry, for our descendants and should not be burning it.  Last week, my wife and I went by train and back to Scotland for a short break to see friends.

THE THREE Rs to bring HOPE:-

Much faster retrofitting, renewables and rapid or revolution of living simply so that others may simply live to bring a rapid reduction in energy consumption.

AND,

can you do more than 10 miles per litre of petrol/diesel in the car you drive; max 10 kWh per day over a year for home consumption and max 20C for the room you sit in.  Much lower in other rooms.

Sounding off over a little slaughter of holy war in the unHoly Land!

The paradox (contradiction, sin?) of holiness doing the most abominable war crimes -

What should be seen as an outrage is how God's commands to utterly destroy His and Israel's enemies 3500 years ago is taken as God's will, His serious command for today. Hence, many tens of thousands slaughtered, utterly destroyed in God's/Israel's wars since 7.10.23. An Outrage, an Abomination in my eyes.  No advance in 3,500 years of man's abominable inhumanity to man, woman, child and suckling baby!

What is so shocking is the acceptance, then the playing down and excuses offered for the violence and warfare. Read 1 Samuel 15 v 3.  All contained in what is supposed to be the Inspired Word of God.

But what is worse is how God's commands to literally do genocide, or holocaust, is taken seriously and imitated today by the modern Israelis with the full support of the evangelicals and the rest of Western society. 

Our opponent and threat, China, is positively angelic in comparison with the Wicked Wild West!

Porritt knows what he's talking about

Dear Stewart

Many thanks for your email.

I thought the case workers were the gatekeepers for Alex and that you three filtered what he must read and did not need to read. ARE you the first port of call to take the pressure off Alex and only send to him what he really needs to read?

Everything I have sent my MPs over the decades outside of that personal matter dealing with Octopus which you dealt with extremely well, concerned very serious matters inside the TfWM/WMCA that has gone on since the 1980s. I think I uncovered the biggest joint financial/transport scandal in the history of the UK. But very few have been interested. Even Alex, in the one appointment I was granted, had trouble answering one simple question, viz:

When you have built a principal mainline railway "of national strategic significance", according to Network Rail and the DfT, what are you meant to put on it?

Now that that very important railway has been destroyed, forever, all you youngsters need to read this from Sir Jonathon Porritt who is an old man like me but who definitely knows what he is talking about.

 

"suicidal food and agricultural system"

 Thanks again for your brilliant work in explaining to me why Octopus did what they did and how. 10 out of 10.

My soul laid bare!

Thanks so very much for your caring concern for me and, in particular, with the state of my soul.  We had a wonderful time last week with you both and, more briefly, Anna.  Thanks so much for such a delight.

I have read and re-read your email and do so appreciate and admire your principled stand on the rock of Jesus Christ.  He remains my Master and my Lord.  It is the Saviour part which Paul's letters emphasise which, over the last thirty or forty years, have gradually meant that although I love to attend church with Linda, I have to let pass the Communion bread and wine and don't attend our church prayer meetings.  I'm very happy with the talks, including from Linda every third Sunday, and love the hymn singing and Bible readings.

I have, from my teens, been a pacifist Christian or Christian pacifist and this very minority stance amongst evangelicals, liberals and the wider public has caused me some angst!  I have changed from soap box preacher of the Gospel of Salvation in my teens and twenties but still admire and love the other seven of you at Abercynafon retreats once a year who are so strong in Bible believing, salvation first, evangelical, born again Christian faith.  I love your talks, Pete, in particular, and do hope you will continue to be so well as to be able to join us from the 22 June.  Really, I would like you to do the talks over breakfast every morning because you are so blessed with eloquence and sound good sense from a biblical perspective.

I am anxious to hear again what you told me of the conversation with the doctor last November.  Linda was half listening, she told me and is also anxious to hear you speak about it, please over the breakfast table in June.  Please stay for as long as you can in that week of rest, recovery and retreat for all of us.

I wrote this, below, recently on my blog.  It reflects my lifetime love of having the Bible in one hand and the daily newspaper in the other.  There is much more on my blog as my commentary on what is going on in the world:

A mountain of corpses is mounting up in both the unHoly Land of Gaza, Judea, Samaria and in Lebanon and Iran. This is very largely the responsibility of the Judeo-Christian world because the power, the control, the governance of the Middle East has lain more with them since the British Empire beat the Ottoman Empire in 1917.

Prior to that, our naval arms race with Germany drove the desperate search for oil in Iran to convert our warships to oil.  Finally found in 1908.  And it was Iran's undoing as we greedily took control from the start, with Iranians relegated to the back seat or the boot.

We Brits, followed by America, have been intervening, mostly disastrously, ever since. READ Jeremy Bowen - 'The Making of the Modern Middle East', pub 2022.  Informed, accurate, balanced and moderate in tone but critical when necessary.

Yet, the Labour government refuses to impose BDS on Israel, gone rogue, despite the mounting death toll which makes the mountain of corpses - added to every day.

With our love and blessings to you both.

I oppose goodness and honesty. I support Bibi and Donald!

Why are evangelical Christians (and Catholics), in particular, so strong in opposition to killing the unborn and the dying but NOT the rest of us who want to live and not to be annihilated in Gaza, Judea, Samaria, Lebanon, Syria and Iran?  And, outside the Middle East, such as the Far East with USA/British Christians and all faiths in the military, causing murder, mayhem and misery from illegal and totally unnecessary wars, courtesy of the Judeo-Christian world.

Why is abortion and assisted dying a major campaign issue rather than honourable opposition to the mountain of corpses piling up in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran and, who continue to be murdered in cold blood by OUR leaders whom we vote for?  And pay taxes for them to do it.

Why are they using quotes from the Bible books, Exodus, Joshua (named after a former Israeli military leader) and 1 Samuel, to support current Israel and USA leaders in their extermination of people like me who simply want to live in happy, peaceful co-existence with never our enemies (only friends) and with everyone else, regardless of  their political or religious beliefs?

Why are there articles in evangelical Christian magazines about Christian nationalism which never mention Christian internationalism?  In one long article on the subject, I could not find any reference to Donald Trump’s MAGA movement which is selfishly about right wing Christian nationalism of putting the USA first, foremost and central in every possible way and to the major detriment of other nations like Gaza, Lebanon and Iran?

Why, in February 2003, was I the only Christian from any of the Halesowen churches who attended the one million people who marched  in London against the Blair/Bush war on Iraq?  The UN weapons inspectors had found nothing of concern; Saddam Hussein, our leaders knew, had nothing to do with 9/11; and our good friend Bibi wrote in his autobiography that he had destroyed Iraq’s nuclear weapons, anyway!  Our leaders got away with it then and now with attacking Iran and Lebanon, yet again.

Why do evangelicals go along with nukes for Israel, a country which is always so special in the eyes of God and, therefore, for evangelicals as well who are so ready to let Israel get on with it?  Hasn’t that set a very bad example for other countries in the region and simply makes Iran, very understandably for their security, wanting nukes, too?

Why are quotes from the Bible being used to justify the extermination of civilians?  “Utterly destroy” the Amalekites in my RSV Bible.  The Bible Society argues this was an exaggeration and God did not really mean it.  And not everyone would have been killed anyway.  Or, it would have been only the fighters.  But, no!  See I Samuel 15 v 3.

Have there been any evangelicals arrested in London (there must have been; well done), so far, for holding up a piece of cardboard with the words:

“I OPPOSE GENOCIDE.  I SUPPORT PALESTINE ACTION” ?

“Nearly 3,000 people (from 8 to 83 years last Saturday, I heard on Radio 4) have been arrested since the ban on Palestine Action was first imposed.  Hundreds face charges.”   From: https://www.democracynow.org/2026/4/13/headlines/police_arrest_over_500_palestine_action_activists_in_london

Why do the living get it in the neck?

Why are evangelical Christians, in particular, so strong in opposition to killing the unborn and the dying but NOT the rest of us who want to live and not to be annihilated in Gaza, Judea, Samaria, Lebanon and Iran?

Why is abortion and assisted dying a major campaign issue rather than honourable opposition to the mountain of corpses piling up in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran who continue to be murdered in cold blood by OUR leaders whom we vote for?

Why are they using quotes from the Bible books, Exodus and Joshua (named after a former Israeli military leader), to support current Israel and USA leaders in their extermination of people like me who simply want to live in happy, peaceful co-existence with, never, ever, our enemies (only friends) and with everyone else, regardless of  their political or religious beliefs?

Why are there articles in evangelical Christian magazines about Christian nationalism which never mention Christian internationalism?  In one long article on the subject, I could not find any reference to Donald Trump’s MAGA movement which is selfishly about right wing Christian nationalism of putting the USA first and central in every possible way and to the major detriment of other nations like Gaza, Lebanon and Iran?

Why, in February 2003, was I the only Christian from any of the Halesowen churches who attended the one million people’s march in London against the Blair/Bush war on Iraq?  The UN weapons inspectors had found nothing of concern, Saddam Hussein, our leaders knew, had nothing to do with 9/11 and our good friend Bibi wrote in his autobiography that he had destroyed Iraq’s nuclear weapons, anyway!

Discussion on the Bible used to justify and to legitimise USA/Israeli wars

FROM: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002tzl8

'Sunday' programme on Radio 4 on 12.4.26 - discussing the very vivid use of religious language in the rhetoric surrounding the war.  Also, Christian nationalistic religious rhetoric from Donald Trump and those who support him.  The president and Jesus over Easter.

Dr Toby Matthiesen, Snr Lecturer in Global Religious Studies at Bristol University said:

"We see an endorsement of a war of almost annihilation in a struggle between good and evil.  The blessing of troops.  American Minister of War, Pete Hegseth sees the American/Israeli War as a divine calling to fight against Iran."

Presenter, Edward Stourton said, "The regime in Iran is explicitly and rabidly a religious one but has not used the same level of religious rhetoric, have they?"

The Muslim expert, Kamin Mohammadi said, "Yes.  Iran has used the least religiously charged language ... and is leaning on international law rather than invoking any kind of holy war."

Stourton: Benjamin Netanyahu talks of Iran as Amalek, the biblical enemy of the people of Israel.  Is he using a shorthand or is he creating a narrative which associates this war with the history of the struggle of Israel in biblical terms?

Dr Klug, "PM Netanyahu is using the Bible to cynically promote a military campaign.  His use of the Bible is essentially instrumental."

Matthieson: The Pope reacted to the religious legitimisation of this war by key American evangelical preachers by openly denouncing the war and those who invoke God to wage war.  There is an absence of religious legitimisation on the Iranian side.

Presenter: Islam is unpopular in Iran because of its association with the government.  Is that the case?

Muslim/Iranian speaker: "Of all Islamic states, Iran has the lowest mosque attendance because it has repressed its people, killed them and disrespected their rights and dignity to freedom.  Iran is quite a devout Shia country and the people see these things being carried out by their government in the name of their quite peaceful religion.  In the region, Iran is possibly the most secular in terms of its population."

"Religious language and Bible texts are being used to promote war and destruction.  Speaking as someone who is Jewish, no-one that I know, fellow Jews, are anything other than as shocked as I am by how the settlers are behaving (in Judea and Samaria, aka the West Bank).  A political religious fundamentalism has taken over, treating the Bible as a political manifesto instead of a source of inspiration.  For Jews and others, it must be the latter and not the former."  Dr Brian Klug, Honorary Fellow in Social Philosophy at Campion Hall in Oxford.

Is 70 x 7 for revenge like Israel or, forgiveness like Christ?

The people of the Book, the Judeo-Christian nations, are all too ready to be guided by the bad example of the Old Testament Israelites in using warfare to get their way.

The New Testament life and teaching of Jesus of Nazareth, is not so appealing with its emphasis on forgiveness 70 x 7 instead of our Bibi believing 70 x 7 refers to revenge piled onto his war of aggression and disdain for what he's doing to his neighbours, even his immediate neighbours in Gaza, Judea, Samaria and Lebanon.

Friend Bibi is now in even closer partnership with Trump in starting an illegal, immoral war, that no side can possibly win but is causing tens of thousands of deaths and billions in pounds of pointless destruction to accelerate the Climate Emergency catastrophe for humanity.

Are Christian believers really on the side of God who wants what is good, right and just when I heard on Radio 4 that 80% of evangelical believers voted for Trump, a most unsuitable and unstable man to be a President of any country, let alone the USA?

Rogue Israel must give up its nukes for Iran to do likewise

A mountain of corpses is mounting up in both the unHoly Land of Gaza and in Lebanon and Iran. This is very largely the responsibility of the Judeo-Christian world because the power, the control, the governance of the Middle East has lain more with them since the British Empire beat the Ottoman Empire in 1918.

Prior to that, our naval arms race with Germany drove the desperate search for oil in Iran to convert our warships to oil.  Page 111, Bowen (read on for title): "The discovery of oil in southern Iran in 1908 changed everything, putting the Middle East front and centre in the minds of the leaders of the great powers, where it has stayed ever since. ... oil was much too precious to be left to the people who lived on top of it."

We Brits, followed by America, have been intervening, mostly disastrously, ever since. READ Jeremy Bowen - 'The Making of the Modern Middle East', pub 2022.  Informed, accurate, balanced and moderate in tone but critical when necessary.

Yet, the Labour government is subservient to Trump and refuses to impose BDS on Israel despite the mounting death toll which makes the mountain of corpses - added to every day.

Questions for God's nation - which is exceptionally wicked, immoral, violent

Is the USA's claim to be The One and Only Exceptional Nation really warranted?  "Is US exceptionalism warranted?", Ali Miraj asked on 5 April 2026 on LBC.

Why did God and the big majority of His Chosen People vote for, and for a second time too, the most foolish, immoral and even a convicted felon of a President of the USA?

The USA is a nation founded by devout, Bible-believing, fundamentalist, Puritan Christians which led to the almost total extermination of the native Indian population who had been there for many tens of thousands of years - and, living sustainably too.  How on earth could this have happened?

God's People have always been caught up in every activity of humans - from going to space to going to war.  Even pastors and evangelists caught in sexual immorality and unfaithfulness, traditionally seen by them as being especially wicked and sinful.

Why are the God-fearing Puritans, now known as being responsible for using their eleven years in government for executing the only monarch in over a thousand years of British history?

And it was these Puritans, like John Winthrop, who were the founding fathers of America.  They, with their Bible giving a mixed picture of sin, violence, immorality along with the noble example of Christ, led to the wipe out of the indigenous population and decades of slavery.

80% of evangelicals voted Trump in 2024, I heard reported on BBC Radio 4.

Why are those, closest to the ear and mouth of God who keeps the universe running, so blind and deaf to the entreaties of some of us over the need

to live more sustainably;

more simply to allow others to simply live;

to tread more lightly on the planet;

to use diplomacy, talks, give and take, rather than warfare;

to understand that what we take today in the way of non-renewable minerals, we won't have tomorrow;

to live in tune with nature for everyday living rather than, as the apex predator, thinking we can get away with anything and everything for ever and a day?

Why is the USA, with its satellite states like the UK and Canada, the apex predator in the world today?

Why is Iran being targeted for attack by the apex predator with the horrors of mainly civilians killed warfare, when they had agreed an international treaty over nuclear weapons in 2015 and they are tenth, NOT first, on Open Doors list of having the most persecuted Christians?

Is it really the most upstanding, exceptional nation, the shining beacon, set on a hill as the perfect model, the Exemplar for all other nations to strive for?

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."  FROM: In Congress, July 4, 1776 - The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

A curse on humanity when we are meant to be a blessing.

Such has been the devastating impact of the Judeo-Christian empires on the world over recent centuries, I think they have all been a curse on humanity.

The descendants of Abraham were meant to be a blessing on the nations of the earth. It has turned out nothing like that. Utterly shameful.

For me, it brings into question the authenticity or veracity or value of those parts of Scripture which are obviously suspect.

The Gospels, read by David Suchet are superb, however - socialist, humane, civilised.   RECOMMENDED!

"I'm not convinced that having nukes keeps a country safe from attack."

You made the point: "I'm not convinced that having nukes keeps a country safe from attack."

Safe from attack as 80 years of no attacks has proved.  But it has come close, with only Russia showing restraint at the time of the Cuban missile crisis.

Perhaps only safe as regards the major players - USSR/Russia v the West who have never used them on themselves because of Mutually Assured Destruction.  It seems to me that the worst culprit is the Great Western Powers who have abused their powers over the centuries.  If you sow the wind you reap the whirlwind.  In other words it comes back to haunt you as we found with Iran's nasty, vicious rulers on their people.  We taught them how to do it!  Treat other peoples cruelly, as we have done and they soon become just as cruel.  We treated the Jews cruelly and they are treating the Gazans, Palestinians and Lebanese cruelly.

MAD has kept the peace from balanced out power between the major players.  No peace with Israel because only they have WMD in the Middle East; yet, they remain so paranoid they have to maintain the attacks to maintain their hold on the land, so get understandable attacks back from the nations like Iran that they are so hostile to!

It is the fear of your deadly enemy getting WMD and using them against you that leads to war, as we have found this time - from 28 Feb with Bibi and Don: THE  men of violence.  It was the fear of Saddam having nukes that led our side to go to war with Iraq in March 2003 in the 2nd Gulf War.  Yet, I read in Bibi's book that it was Israel who destroyed Iraq's nukes years before!  In defeating Iraq we destroyed the MAD balance between Iran and Iraq.  It was a catastrophe for Iraq.  We are now trying the same tactic on Iran, to destroy them, leave chaos and Iranians desperate for the peace and security of Europe.

Remove Saddam to get peace and harmony in the region, "taking away the toxic fuel that powered Islamist extremism.  Democracy would replace dictatorship.  Israel would be safer."  Bowen p 129

"As of 2025, the nine countries possessing nuclear weapons are Russia, the United States, China, France, the United Kingdom, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea."  from Ecosia AI

It is very telling that our allies on our side are allowed to have them secretly, like Israel with no sanctions as a penalty, but not Iran.  As always, we favour our own friends over the others!  We are allowed to get away with wrongdoing because we are part of Donald's World Empire.

What follows is my understanding and conclusions from Jeremy Bowen's 'The Making of the Modern Middle East', especially the chapter on Iran called, 'In the Name of God'. From p 108

We cannot allow Iran to have nukes because, since the 19th century, Britain first, then with America, has dominated the Middle East with all our many self-serving interventions by "perfidious Albion" (us!).  Therefore, we set a very bad example with the decisions we took in Iran to show them that we are Boss.  My list of our sins:

1. In 1820 we took control of the Persian Gulf to prevent pirates from operating to disrupt our supply lines between our colonies and the motherland;
2. the overthrow of the Ottoman Empire to be replaced by the Western Judeo-Christian Empire;
3. the Arabs sidelined and losing out over the carve up of the Middle East by Britain, France and America, the most powerful bloc in the League of Nations;
4. Mandate for Britain to rule Palestine and Transjordan;
5. Mandate for France to rule Syria and Lebanon;
6. T E Lawrence was let down along with the Arabs even though they had helped us 'win' the First World War;
7. the major illegality under international law (land gained from aggression is kept) was America allowing our Jewish/Zionist friends to have the weapons to overthrow the British Empire in 1948 and, by superiority of everything, to defeat the Arab nations, too in 1948 and in subsequent wars.  Bowen on p 60 records examples of how "Like all wars it was a brutal business" in April 1948.  But it was Jewish David v Arab Goliath.
8. America and Britain replaced democratically elected President Mossadeq in 1953 with our man, the Shah of Iran.  "The shah was an autocrat at the head of a vicious police state that allowed no political freedom."  - Jeremy Bowen p 116.
9. American shooting down of an Iranian airliner in 1988.
10. In brief, the major injustices were: our side's hostilities to the people of the Middle East and our insistence on maintaining our importance to ensure we got our way in the region.

I think, all this must have led to Iran's hostile reaction to the American led West, including Israel.  It certainly could not have helped.  I think they have been more sinned against by us lot, which may have led to Islam becoming even more dominant and extreme in Iran.  Although with 9/11, 15 of the 19 hi-jackers were Saudi, an ally of the West.  None were from Iraq or Iran.

You mention "religious fanaticism" but we don't see it from Muslims in Britain or in other Muslim regions of the world.  Right wing, Christian nationalism in America is more of a problem, methinks.  They are fanatics, zealots for war instead of diplomacy and tolerant, peaceful, co-existence.  Peter Hegseth and Trump and Netanyahu don't know the meaning of those words.

Bible-believing Christians

Bible-believing Christians tend to give Israel a pass, an excuse, every sympathy because of the Bible and the land having a special place in God's heart. Different standards are applied to them, the Israelis - so they get away with murder, literally and the breaking of normal standards of behaviour. 

Mountain of Corpses

A mountain of corpses is mounting up in both the unHoly Land ​of Gaza and in Lebanon and Iran. This is very largely the responsibility of the Judeo-Christian world because the power, the control, the governance of the Middle East has lain more with them since the British Empire beat the Ottoman Empire in 1918.

Prior to that, our naval arms race with Germany drove the desperate search for oil in Iran to convert our warships to oil.  Finally found in 1908.  And it was Iran's undoing as we greedily took control from the start, with Iranians relegated to the back seat or the boot.

We Brits, followed by Britain and America, have been intervening, mostly disastrously, ever since. READ Jeremy Bowen - 'The Making of the Modern Middle East', pub 2022.​  Informed, accurate, balanced and moderate in tone but critical when necessary.

Yet, the Labour government is subservient to Trump and refuses to impose BDS on Israel despite the mounting death toll which makes the mountain of corpses - added to every day.

Scott Mills, sacked broadcaster - more sinned against than sinning

The people responsible, after all these years (going back to the 1990s), have been harsh, far too strict and merciless, have over-reacted and blown things up out of all proportion.  Is this Tim Davie, again?!

This is not the first time the BBC has shot itself in the foot by making a mountain out of a mole hill and failing to show some perspective, good sense and moderation.  The furore over the BBC Panorama edit, which seemed perfectly acceptable to me, is one example.  There was also the outcry over the teenage son of the Dep Minister of Agriculture, over what was left of the Palestine/Hamas government, being allowed to narrate a documentary film on Gaza.  Then we had medics in Gaza featured in a film and the BBC not broadcasting it, after being targetted by the Israeli side criticising the film!

Yet, again the BBC has behaved in a suicidal way and made things far worse than they need to be for themselves.  And, perhaps, wrecked a man's broadcasting career, at least for the time being.