Our nation is on the attack, with USA/Israel

Our nation, I think is attacking Iran, Gaza, Lebanon, the West Bank by failing to be outspoken in explaining to USA and Israel that their behaviour is totally unacceptable. There should also be BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) imposed where practical and possible. And, certainly no more iniquitous arms trading. Keep our weapons to ourselves. The popular arms trade is as wicked as 300 years of the British slave trade.

"Funding murderous wars", says Mick Freer

You wrote that we must stop funding murderous wars. How right you are. But we have taken an active part, alongside the USA in attacking Afghanistan in 2001, Iraq in 2003, less active against Gaza, Judea, Samaria, Lebanon - and now Iran with English airfields used by USAF. My nation's values are rotten to the core, setting a very bad example for other nations to also be aggressive! Keep up your sterling work Mick and best wishes.USA in attacking Afghanistan in 2001, Iraq in 2003, less active against Gaza, Judea, Samaria, Lebanon - and now Iran with English airfields used by USAF. My nation's values

to Mick Freer

Dear Mick

For me, and this is all about my survival instinct to help slow human caused climate change and resource depletion, it would be a wise move to begin the long transition towards using our local countryside for locally produced food; and, to grow renewable, zero carbon timber instead of catastrophic and finite fossil fuels. For me, this is the most important argument to slow the incessant process of concrete, brick and tarmac poured over fertile soil that, one day, we may be desperate for. For the politicians' goal of 2 or 3% economic greed every year on a finite planet that ain't so greedy as us lot, how about this, below? The Enterprise Zone would be better created, either on the land at Moor Street, Brierley Hill (the site of the former Brierley Hill Steel Terminal) or, north of Pensnett High Street. I am asking (a futile and ignored request) for Moor Street to be the site for the Very Light Rail (VLR) project and Innovation Centre and, for the test track to use the branch line to the cleared land north of Pensnett High Street. This would then allow the 13 miles mainline Black Country Line (with reinstated extension to Lichfield) to be reopened, once more, for local and ICE (inter city express) trains on both tracks, However, our councillors (except wonderful Will) and transport officials want only one mile and one track to be used to shuttle passengers to the ICE line in the neighbouring borough of Sandwell. The other track is to be a test track for VLR. The Black Country has its own, unused ICE line but doesn't realise it! We have two brown field enterprise zones but don't realise it! Unless we use them, we continue to worsen all our road and rail congestion problems. We also fuel the cry for more motorways to give us land next to them for growth/greed from the take, make and throw away life styles that has made us all so rich. Rich from relentless industrialism and finite resource exploitation that one day must come to an end. Living more simply and constructively so that others may simply live. And, prioritising land use and transport projects. What do you think? Tim Weller

Legal and illegal immigration

Under the Refugee Convention of 1951, I don't think there is any such thing.  Fear of persecution or death in war is sufficient reason to flee to the first safe country - and, by any means.

Nowadays, such is the scale of OUR wars and the vast sale of our UK manufactured weapons which get used throughout the world to kill and maim, it is hardly fair for the first safe country to take the lot.

Those we have turned into refugees or, to begin with those seeking asylum or safety from us lot of renegades, need to be fairly taken in by all the Judeo-Christian nations.  After all, these nations are the most responsible for the horrors being fled from.

I heard on Radio 4, many years ago, that the EU has come up with a formula based on numbers already taken, area of habitable land available and other criteria.  The desperate who are fleeing need to be shared out as fairly as possible amongst us all.  Thus, safe and legal routes are needed.  And, us entitled lot, wanting the lot and ever more from ever less, need to be less demanding of ever increasing economic growth and wealth just for ourselves.

In addition, of course, we in the West are the most responsible for Climate discomfort, too.  By virtue of our prodigious burning of finite fossil fuels which give us our wealth and high standard of living but, the consequences of which we are now seeing.

Premier Christian News - my comment

"Sir Keir told MPs the government “does not believe in regime change from the skies", stressing that initial permission to join US-Israeli strikes was refused because there needed to be a lawful basis and a viable, achievable plan. He said the UK only later allowed use of bases for defensive strikes after Iranian missiles and drones targeted Gulf allies and RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus."

SELF: Defensive strikes are revenge strikes for our sides illegal and indefensible war on Iran.  Our aggression provoked the legal defensive strikes by Iran on our side for starting this totally unacceptable war of aggression on Iran.

"Meanwhile, Christians have been praying and celebrating after the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei."

to Corinne

Dear Corinne - and copied to Linda

Thanks for the email after we sent you our birthday wishes.

Is it tomorrow that you have the Femmes TdF Grand Depart from your beautiful Lausanne?  I think the men are due to come to Edinburgh in '27 for the Grand Depart.  Is that right?  But what about the heat?  We had mid 30s in June and this weekend in Halesowen it is mid 20s but is due to rise next week.  What were/are your figures in Zurich?

Linda cycles to and from church, as I do.  I cycle locally and occasionally into Birmingham for a meeting.  But they are fewer now.  We must have a longer cycle ride, soon - up Uffmoor Lane (with the short but steep huff and puff near the top).  But I'm 78 and Linda is 71 but we are still very fit.  I'm still going up to Scotland in April and October to visit more summit cairns.  I managed seven on four consecutive days of high pressure in April this year with the help of the invaluable mountain bike (29" wheel makes it faster over the stoney tracks but the bike is heavier, of course).  I then had two shorter, lower walking days before returning via my favourite, luxurious Westmorland Hotel in Cumbria as my reward for six nights sleeping in the car and washing in lovely remote mountain streams!

I'm doing lots of shorter walks in our beautiful countryside of Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Shropshire, South Staffordshire and clearing the overgrowth blocking stiles and gates.  I'm now realising there are so many stunning places we never took you to!  But Switzerland easily beats England, of course!

Out of our two, Becky is definitely more active on bike and running than Jonathan.  She has had a couple of bikepacking ventures with Anita, an old university friend, in the Brecon Beacons (Bannau Brycheiniog) National Park.  Both Becky and Jon have two youngsters and Linda is quite magnificent at helping out with our four grandchildren.

She is at a weekend Christian conference until Sunday afternoon.  I'm doing much guerrilla gardening at Frankley Services Northbound on the M5 to beautify the lorry park and branching out into colourful flowers at home, as well as at my main guerrilla garden - called Ben's Wood.  There, last year, they put up an enormous high metal fence but I'm simply growing climbing plants up it - Virginia Creeper, evergreen Honeysuckle and Russian Vine with flowers along the bottom!

At Merry Hill Shopping Centre, the canal embankment is used for the tram and threatens my guerrilla garden with more destruction when they build the final stage - unless I can stop them!

Becky and Tim are also keen followers of the Tour, as I will be this year with Irish born Ben Healy, but living in Stourbridge, racing.  But how will they all get on with the next heat dome?

to Evan Davis and team

We are responsible for our children's future.  Yet, not your good self, but your panel was complacent, apathetic and silent over our wealth made from hydrocarbon exploitation impacting on life support systems.  This comes from greenhouse gases (GHG), possibly, turning earth into uninhabitable Venus.  The dense GHG atmosphere on Venus makes it warmer than Mercury which is nearer to the Sun.

WIKIPEDIA:

"Venus may have had liquid surface water early in its history with a habitable environment,^[27][28] before a runaway greenhouse effect evaporated any water and turned Venus into its present state.^[29][30][31] There are atmospheric conditions at cloud layer altitudes that are the most similar ones to Earth in the Solar System and have been identified as possibly favourable for life on Venus ... "

from email to Evan Davis:-

EVAN: "Reducing the burning of oil is not a ridiculous (thing to aim for) .

Thanks again, Evan for being a great broadcaster.  Perhaps, be a little more challenging over Climate impacts and our foolish species discovering hydrocarbons and living infinitely on a finite planet and unnaturally on a natural planet - so, unlikely to outlive the dinosaurs in length of our occupation!

Ecology must trump theology

Morality, conscience and personal integrity must tower over 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, in this decade, an equally deluded Trump .

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 which 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 Jewish-Zionist terrorist gangs defeated the the largest Empire the world has ever seen. 

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 too saw decades of violence for the White man to have total and complete control for the last 250 years. Only the last 78 years in the case of America, Britain and the Jews well and truly imposing the Righteous Way of the West on the land once known as Palestine.

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.

The borders of OUR God's Promised Land is all that matters

Would Israel stop encroaching on more and more land if the antisemites/Arabs/Muslims gave up their nukes and weapons?

What/where is the border of the Promised Land which God says Israel must have before the Lord Jesus will return in glory to wind things up? Linda and I are with six other Christian friends in Bannau Brycheiniog National Park for the week.  My stance is totally beyond the comprehension of my friends but we can all live together in peace, harmony and good humour with the occasional short exchange of views!

Love to you both, Tim

to Tony Verduyn re 'Oh, just blame God'!

Dear Tony - sorry for the length.  I lack your wonderful eloquence but love writing too much!

Many thanks for this link.  Thank you for your generosity, once more with your contribution to a wonderful day and another excellent best man's speech.   My own thoughts from our enjoyable chat on Friday evening:

Did I hear you say on Friday that you don't consider Jerusalem to be any more holy than any other city?  From the latest book I'm re-reading, Jeremy Bowen's 'The Making of the Modern Middle East', God is at the heart of all the horrors by the three monotheistic faiths in the unHoly Land.  But my god, the Jew, Jesus, and His life and teaching shows a better Way which is universally ignored and, in practice, ridiculed .

On page 44 Bowen wrote, "What happens in Jerusalem ... always starts with God, with power, possession and loss following close behind."  The three great Abrahamic faiths have fought over the city for the best part of two thousand years.  The Muslims have had it for nearly all of the last 1400 years, and the Jews/Christians since 1948 with more land added after the Six Day War of 1967.  

On Radio 4's 'Sunday' this morning, I heard that "many" prominent Israeli right wing nationalists are wanting their third Jewish Temple to be rebuilt on the site of Islam's holiest site in Jerusalem - Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque (ibid p51).  Yet a further example of the unholy nature of Abrahamic religion and the utter impossibility of non-violence, compromise and tolerance to feature amongst the believers in God!

Jeremy Bowen wrote that Jerusalem has changed hands violently 37 times, quoting an Israeli General.  All three Children of Abraham have had control over it at different times, as have many different empires.  The sound of sanctity, however, was drowned out by the noise of war and death since 1945.

Since the Judeo-Christian West, led by Britain and France excusing themselves from their Mandate responsibilities, we (with the Americans) have helped to fund the Jews/Zionist attacks from 1945 and the many wars of aggression from 1948 to the present day.  Only the Jews and Christians were rewarded with our friend and ally, Israel being allowed to keep, settle and occupy the lands they have taken in war.  Everything is done to ensure international law is excused if it is to our advantage - the aggressor is rewarded if it is us powerful lot doing the aggression!

In Jerusalem, God is held hostage by three world faiths to bring mayhem, murder and many hundreds of thousands slaughtered since the unfortunate/foolish/biased 1917 Balfour Declaration from a Christian nation, to delight and encourage the Jews.  We were already halfway there, of course, with Christian believers sharing the Jewish Scriptures.  It has brought God into disrepute for me.  Even ridiculed, as here:

The Bible, in too many parts, shows God commanding killings and even the sword taken to suckling babies and their mums in 1 Samuel 15 v 3 (my 1964 RSV but modern translations put it less starkly).  Israel's War Cabinet now uses such texts, which you never find in the Quran, to justify acts of aggression, slaughter and genocide in Gaza, Lebanon, Iran, Judea and Samaria.  This is outrageous and totally unacceptable.  I think the Bible needs a re-edit in light of the men of violence in the two most powerful faiths weaponising their Scriptures.  God's Bible has His commands to slaughter being used instead of His Son's life and teaching.  A teaching and practice followed by a handful - like St Francis of Assisi and the Muslim boxer, Mohammed Ali going to prison instead of going to Vietnam to join in the mass slaughter there!

BTW, Jesus' talk of taking the sword could hardly have meant a literal taking the sword to kill and maim.

46 years of work on trams instead of trains has been a catastrophe for Climate and congestion

The main emphasis on rebuilding tram networks on railway lines and bus routes since 1980, with Manchester leading the way, has been a disastrous diversion from rebuilding our unused and partly used railway lines to address Climate, and congestion from wrong growth, problems.

Since Manchester's unfortunate lead with trams instead of trains and buses rebuilt and modernised and made fit for a response to lessening rather than increasing Climate problems, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have increased even faster, road congestion and pollution has worsened and we appear to have seen no growth in car commuters leaving their cars at home and using a more popular bus and railway provision to get to and from work.

Too much of our West Midlands railway network is still available for commuter and regional trains or, is freight only.  But the childish emphasis is on wealth-flaunting, chest puffing out, keeping up with the Joneses of great international cities, prestigious tram extensions to impress and to give the poor Climate another punch in the solar plexus!

We must get our priorities sorted in the ways I've been arguing for over the decades.

to Alex re Cadent

Please could you attend to a previous email from me about Cadent wasting taxpayers' money in yet more unnecessary expenditure by the authorities.  I had yet another umpteen visit from Cadent this morning.  They are still unable to locate a gas pipe to disconnect our gas a little further away from the house.  It was professionally sealed in the garage in 2023.  There is a residue of gas in the pipe under the drive between the main pipe and where it enters the garage, under the floor.  It cannot possibly be a danger to anyone.

Cadent wanted to dig up our new drive, a very costly resin bound beauty laid down in October 2025.  I did not give them permission to dig it up, of course, when they could not guarantee finding their little pipe - still!  The House of Commons needs to work on changing out of date and draconian regulations which are superfluous, anyway.

Please read my earlier email.  Are you able to act, Alex?

to Campaign for Better Transport

Dear Michael and friends

I tuned in to Monday's excellent webinar, again today but then I realised I had not registered, so missed it.  I have a wedding to attend on Friday so will miss that one, too.

I have two attachments, here:

 6 scandals on the 45th anniversary of the W Mids Metro!

 Trumpland Transport in the West Midlands since 1981

TWO PHOTOS:

Before the destruction of the great canal embankment for the tram:

 6 glorious white trees.jpg

What it looks like now, as they build for the tragic tram on the top of the canal embankment over 100 metres from the main entrance of the Merry Hill Shopping Centre:

 6 trees felled, grass embankment lost.jpg

They built the monorail, forgot to connect it to the principal mainline railway between London and Edinburgh via the 1 million population of the four Black Country boroughs and then closed it after only three years!  It took shoppers from the nearby free car park to different parts of the centre and Central station was in the heart of the stores.  The half used Worcester to Derby railway 

 "of national strategic significance".pdf

has been broken up into light rail Metro, a Very Light Rail test track, a National Innovation Centre for VLR, a cycle-walkway, a freight line and fresh air.  And this on a former principal mainline railway, too!

Better buses are better than "bus on rails" trams and regular buses must be vastly boosted with regional Fare-Free Public Transport for all, not just for my old crocks age group of ancient OAPs!  Paid for by abandoning multi-modal public transport and Mixed Use Railways so beloved of my Mayor Andy Street and the new one, Richard Parker, too.  More photos of the railway being converted to a 17 Kms cycle-walkway between Walsall and Lichfield.

 M6 Toll banner 01.jpg

Near Brownhills.  Track nicked by metal thieves many years ago!

 M6 Toll 03.jpg

Please explain why you disagree.  Thanks so much!

to Evan Davis - British journalist and presenter

Dear Evan

We are responsible for our children's future.  Yet, not your good self, but your panel was complacent, apathetic and silent over our wealth made from hydrocarbon exploitation impacting on life support systems.  This comes from greenhouse gases (GHG), possibly, turning earth into uninhabitable Venus.  The dense GHG atmosphere on Venus makes it warmer than Mercury which is nearer to the Sun.

WIKIPEDIA:

"Venus may have had liquid surface water early in its history with a habitable environment,^[27][28] before a runaway greenhouse effect evaporated any water and turned Venus into its present state.^[29][30][31] There are atmospheric conditions at cloud layer altitudes that are the most similar ones to Earth in the Solar System and have been identified as possibly favourable for life on Venus ... "

My transcript:

EVAN: 28:00 mins - "How long do we think we will be using oil? ... It won't always be, potentially, part of the world economy."

LUKE: "The technology must catch up to allow us to exploit more difficult locations.  We didn't exit the stone age because we ran out of stones ... the earth has plenty more hydrocarbons.  The question is, what we want to use it for.  The shale oil in the US is a great example of that. ... Now, we are making enormous amounts of production out of it.  The deep water was a hostile environment that wasn't touched until the late 90s.  We constantly can continue to backfill that wedge."  Luke 

EVAN: "How does the glide path out of oil operate or is there never a glide path?"

ED:  International Energy Agency.  With them peak oil is always imminent.  Now they've increased their time span. ... There is limited technology to replace oil.  You can reduce how much you need but you can't fully replace it.  You need it for too many different products."

"To make the electric car you need hydrocarbon (I'm not going to use the word oil) derived products.  The anode in a car battery, the most efficient anode for a lithium iron battery is made out of petroleum coke.  We make it at Humberside and ship that coke out to the other side of the world to get it turned into a battery.  We bring it back as a battery electric car.  The best lubricants are hydrocarbon derived.  Most cars are manufactured from rubber and plastics, even electric cars."

EVAN: "It would make a massive difference for us not to burn oil in heating our homes."

CONTRIBUTOR: "When you look at where carbon emissions are generated from, it is big heavy industry, in smelting steel and making cement.  It is important to move the narrative away from oil into hydrocarbons.  Today the oil refineries are running hydrocarbon feedstocks which are not fossil fueled.  The world will become more complex in its sources of energy.

My rougher notes:

China is increasing more coal use and everything - staggering increases in renewables and fossil fuel.  China is becoming a bigger consumer of hydrocarbons.  We will not reach a terminal endpoint of energy production.  We don't have enough renewable energy at the moment.

Hydrocarbons are a very important despatchable power source.  We are a long way off from finding a solution to meet that balance (SELF: of rising consumption demands with the supply of finite fossil fuels??)

EVAN: "Reducing the burning of oil is not a ridiculous (thing to aim for) .

Thanks again, Evan for being a great broadcaster.  Perhaps, be a little more challenging over Climate impacts and our foolish species discovering hydrocarbons and living infinitely on a finite planet and unnaturally on a natural planet - so, unlikely to outlive the dinosaurs in length of our occupation!

Better Transport Week 2026

Could the billions going into the national tram revival be better spent on giving everyone regional Fare-Free Public Transport which I have enjoyed for 18 years.  Why not the workers like you youngsters?

When will you make the funds available for completing the last 5 Kms, in Dudley borough, in the W Mids, of the 20 Kms Black Country Cycle-Walk Active Travel Route?  It is the UK's longest and easily the most important, urban-rural-urban cycle-walkway. Longer than Bristol to Bath but they were the first, I'll concede!

Can your success be imitated by other companies and organisations?

PLEASE, Do what Prof Dr Kevin Kendall writes here.  This man is a world expert on hydrogen-electric-battery buses and has written books on the subject.  A professor with his head screwed on the right way, with much of his working life in industry and inspiring his students.  In answer to my question about his former job title, he wrote:  "I was Professor in Chemical Engineering at Brum Uni.  I was committed to getting all students working with industry.  Without that, the Unis are not so beneficial."

Hi Tim,

I now use the Bham buses every day because it is a very regular service and is free for me as a pensioner.   I avoided buses for 60 years before I saw the light.

My recommendation is to change the payment method so people get a free card.

Of course it is not free but the idea that you take as many journeys as you want makes a big difference to peoples' reactions.

My emphasis:

The buses should move to 2000 hydrogen-electric-battery buses ASAP.  National Express has got it all wrong as have many other bus companies.  And WMCA with City Council are not well-informed.

Wikipedia has of him:

"Kendall's invention of fine cell tubes allowed rapid start-up and led to many academic papers and two books that were highly cited.^[28][29][30] Kendall moved to the University of Birmingham in 2000 and built a substantial group in Chemical Engineering working on hydrogen and fuel cells.^[31] He and his colleagues, Prof. Dr. Bruno Georges Pollet and Dr Waldemar Bujalski opened the first UK green-hydrogen station refueling five fuel-cell-battery-taxis in 2008^{[23][32][30][33]} and has continued since his retiring from teaching in 2011 to encourage city/industry leadership in clean-energy transport, not achievable by academics, linking with Asia where the growing car population nearing 1 billion is a desperate problem.^[30] He was first in showing that the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle used 50% less energy than a comparable combustion car.^{[34]"   (my emphasis)}

On Friday, 12 June 2026 at 08:53:18 BST, Tim Weller <timweller1@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear friends

Can your success be imitated by other bus companies to get more people using buses than their own private, individual cars?

What do you consider is your very best practice in attracting bus passengers?

Have you ever compared and contrasted and talked with other companies as to who has the best model for making public transport more popular at the expense of private, individual travel?  Especially, to reduce wasteful, unnecessary, one to a car commuting when the car is not needed for the driver's employment.

Are you gradually moving towards more non-fossil fueled vehicles?  Hydrogen fueled cell electric buses, perhaps?  Or battery electric vehicles?  Which do you prefer and why?

How are bus companies helping isolated communities, like Clun in Shropshire, to be weaned off private car dependency towards more bus travel?

Should your spending priorities be more towards that than electric buses?  Or do both together?

Is there an academic study that shows how success is more likely in persuading car owners to choose some inconvenience and to wait for the community bus to Ludlow, Welshpool or Shrewsbury in the case of Shropshire?

Does a range of vehicle sizes help to get the right size for the right location?

Does regional Fare-Free Public Transport and, free nationally for buses for my pensioner age group make any difference or is it just a waste of taxpayers' money?

I would be glad to read, please, what you think is the best way towards saving finite fossil fuels, cutting greenhouse gas emissions and lessening the Climate Emergency.

Tim Weller   Halesowen  West Midlands

from David Gray

"You talk of “our” shame, but I personally have no sense of shame for what is happening in the middle east; only a profound sense of sorrow for all those affected by it.  You have sorrow but not shame.  I think they are very similar.  Shame, I think, is a stronger word to more accurately describe what our ancestors and fellow Christian believers have been up to over the centuries.  Every single one of them had a conscience, the clear guidance of more moral behaviour in the New Testament.  Living in a bygone age should no longer be an excuse for obvious immoral behaviour then.

Does your deep sorrow and my shame be about:

• the conversion of Constantine to Christ and forever after - disastrously - no strong witness for non-violence, non-collaboration to fight an unsavoury government?
• the Christian Crusades?
• the Church for centuries missing out on St Francis of Assisi pattern of Christ-like living of utter simplicity?
• Christian involvement in colonial ways of domination, forcing our style of doing things upon indigenous people who never invited us into their settlements and lands?
• making our wealth out of stealing other whole tribes and peoples to grow our cotton, tobacco and sugar?
• that we never paid them a pittance and housed them in hovels?
• two Bengal famines - one under Churchill who didn't want the Japs to benefit from food we sent to Bengal in the 2nd WW?
• our colonial ways meant we ended up with Palestine in the dying days of empire, when we were already taking on more than we could cope with - but never realised it;
• and then we had much more in common with the Zionists/Jews as they, at first, trickled into Palestine.
• then the flood of desperate people fleeing the worst persecution visited upon them after many centuries of despicable behaviour by the Christian nations towards Jews.
• Would we have had the Israel/Palestine problem if we Bible believing, devout Christians had treated them, each and everyone, as Jesus Christ Himself would have done?

Could our sorrow/shame drive us to question how it came about that two branches of the Children of Abraham both suffered under our British Mandate - the Muslims and the Jews?

"The British were carving up the Middle East and making contradictory promises to Arabs and Jews and setting them up for conflict" over who had the land. (Jeremy Bowen in the Radio 4, 'Our Man in the Middle East' series)

Is this is our shame and sorrow for our ancestors role in bringing about the Middle East mess?

That our close attachment to the Bible led the 1917 Cabinet to be more sympathetic to the Hebrew Scriptures story of the Jews and therefore to them wanting to return to Palestine?

Shame implies guilt, flowing from personal responsibility for a moral failing or misdemeanour. The Bible teaches that we are each held responsible for our own actions, but none of us can carry responsibility for the failings of others. Only one man took that on, when he was nailed to the cross for us, and for our salvation!"

You wrote,  "The Bible teaches that we are each held responsible for our own actions, but none of us can carry responsibility for the failings of others."

Where exactly does it teach us that we are each responsible for our own actions?

But is that always true?  If we know of clear wrong doing but do nothing, are we not to blame?

Are we not all implicated to a greater or lesser extent if we know but do nothing?  Or, even if 

For the person of honour and integrity, he or she has to say, "My first allegiance is to my conscience and to my Lord and Master who taught the way of non-violence."  And then, of course, honour and integrity demands resigning, rather than having anything to do with prosecuting an obviously illegal war on Iraq in 2003 which did not have that final UN resolution to authorise and make it legal in the eyes of man (NOT God!)

Only Carne Ross (in 2004) and one woman in the now called Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office had the honour and integrity to resign from their very much loved and well paid jobs in the FCDO.

I think, more importantly, our own sense of right and wrong or conscience should tell us how to behave.  Every individual Jewish and Christian believer has had all Ten Commandments to live by for the last 3,500 years.  For all those millennia the most important, Sixth Commandment has been broken by the very individuals, Jew or Christian, who so admire all ten and claim to live by all of them.

I call it the most important because we humans have been so enthusiastic in breaking it!  Even, in the Old Testament, claiming that we are only doing God's Will when slaughtering even the suckling infant and mum.  1 Samuel 15 v 3.

Even Jesus reinforced His Way of non-violence by suffering a tortuous death on the cross rather than to do what nearly every believer and follower of the Way of Jesus has done since the year 300 AD.  He refused to use aggression to try and save Himself.  He failed to call up the hosts of Heaven to come to His rescue.

The whole ghastly business of dispatching our fellow humans by crucifixion was so popular for centuries in the Roman Empire.  Only to be out done by our Christian and non believers all being involved in mass slaughter in two Bengal famines, 300 years of vicious slavery and 500 years of our British Empire founded on control, domination and occupation.  With the full knowledge and support of individual Christian believers - and everyone else.  The top people in charge all had the Bible!

Individual Bible believing, God fearing, devout, evangelical Puritan Christians were caught up in Cromwell's cause and army which ended in the only British monarch in a thousand years, being executed by the State!  Astonishing.  And, it was all about who had the right to rule, on God's behalf, on earth - King or Parliament.

During our side's quite despicable and illegal war on Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos from the 1950s to 1975, I never heard of an upstanding Christian believer in America going to prison instead of going off to cold bloodedly murder the people of SE Asia.  Only the Muslim boxer, Mohammed Ali!

Donald Trump's core base include the vast majority of evangelical Christians.  I heard on Radio 4 that 80% of them voted for him in 2024.  I heard Pastor Michael Youseff say he would vote for Trump because of his strong stance on abortion.  Never mind the slaughter of the living!

Is this the ugliest major roundabout in the land? But, to be fair, it has no weeds!

CELEBRATE - no landscaping here, not even grass or a pot plant - mine was removed and given back to me after a short period of confiscation!

PHOTO:

 A456 roundabout.jpg

2026 is the 50 year anniversary of this 30 metre diameter, A456/A459/B4551 monstrosity being upgraded from being all tyres to all concrete and tarmac - success.  But still no landscaping because of all the supposed myriad of pipes and cables just under the tarmac!

MORE DETAILS

Very odd, eccentric behaviour from Dudley councillors and officers

Dear Councillor Jeff

Many thanks for this and the S Staffs Water plan which is very helpful.

It does mean, from what you have written and from the route of the water main down Lapal Lane South that all the trees, on both sides of the lane, now need to be clear felled to prevent root penetration and leaks.  This would allow Tom Russon's idea in April that a footpath should be provided down that W side of the lane to the stile and network of paths.

May I have a similar plan, showing the utilities/services under the Grange roundabout, please?  Could you also ask the professionals why this appears to be the only major roundabout of 30 metres in diameter without landscaping in the whole of the UK, from my motoring around over these last 60 years?

Why is grass not even allowed?

We have never had a full written explanation from a senior officer for the strange anomaly.  Now is the time, please.

Why in the 90s or 00s did we see that thick planting of trees and shrubs where, eventually the lollipop cherry trees were planted and where the remnant remains at the Shell station (not Maybank, as I previously wrote) and on the E side of the Manor Lane traffic lights up to the cherry trees.  Yet, reinstatement is STILL not complete!

Why are you failing to give me the contact details of your tree officer whose predecessors I have spoken with in past decades?

This Grange House roundabout is:-

The Gateway from Jct 3, M5 to the Historic Capital of the mighty but barren, backward, bleak Black Country which has destroyed seven of its railways!  SEE

 6 scandals on the 40th anniversary of the W Mids Metro!

TIM WELLER   0791 380 4363   28 Hunnington Cres  HALESOWEN  B63 3DJ

Persevering with UK's Ugliest Roundabout

Dear Jeff

Many thanks for this and the S Staffs Water plan which is very helpful.

It does mean, from what you have written and from the route of the water main down Lapal Lane South that all the trees, on both sides of the lane, now need to be clear felled to prevent root penetration and leaks.  This would facilitate Tom Russon's idea in April that a footpath should be provided down that W side of the lane to the stile and network of paths.

May I have a similar plan, showing the utilities/services under the Grange roundabout, please?  Could you also ask the professionals why this appears to be the only major roundabout of 30 metres in diameter without landscaping in the whole of the UK, from my motoring around over these last 60 years?

Why is grass not even allowed?

We have never had a full written explanation from a senior officer for the strange anomaly.  Now is the time, please.

Why in the 90s or 00s did we see that thick planting of trees and shrubs where, eventually the lollipop cherry trees were planted and where the remnant remains at the Shell station (not Maybank, as I previously wrote) and on the E side of the Manor Lane traffic lights up to the cherry trees.  Yet, reinstatement is STILL not complete!

Why are you failing to give me the contact details of your tree officer whose predecessors I have spoken with in past decades?

Thanks for your help.  Can we still meet next Sunday at 9 am?

From Colin

Thanks for email.

We, in the UK, are terrified of Trump, perhaps with good reason. Starmer has had to steer a difficult path. I sense that nothing would please him more than to tell Trump to foxtrot oscar but he knows this would have dire consequences for the UK economy (not to mention our nuclear deterrent).Are we as a nation prepared to sacrifice our standards of living on the altar of principle ?

I can understand Starmer's need to genuflect at Trump's feet, although I don't condone it, but, what I can't understand is Trump's fear of Netanyahu.

Don't have nightmares, 

Colin.