Thoughts on Mandelson/Epstein?

What I really want to ask you is this, for your opinion and to put me right:

How can there be such a big row over whether or not the PM should resign when, ultimately, it is all about children/teenage girls under age having sex with much older men?  Should there not be some responsibility placed on their parents/guardians who should know where their children are?  Weeks ago I heard on radio of one dad rejoicing that his teenage girl had brought down a prince - Andrew Mountbatten Windsor!  The dad, or it might have been an uncle, had phoned in to the Jeremy Vine Show on Radio 2.  He had no shame about the behaviour of his daughter/niece.  The victim, if under age, is always totally innocent and blameless.  But the parent/guardian too?

Thanks so much for engaging and debating.  I have read and re-read your points which are similar to the ones that Linda has put to me.  My comment: We behave no better ourselves and, even worse, by selling them the ammunition and weapons galore.  What hypocrites we all are!  I am so horrified, I help fund the Campaign Against the Arms Trade.  The West is at the centre of the iniquitous international arms trade which is always great for the desperately needed economic growth/greed.  But it comes from rather finite gas and oil with, in addition, the most disastrous consequences from burning the stuff!

I am wanting my side, us lot, to accept that "judgement begins in the House of the Lord" (1 Peter 4.17).  That we have to start behaving ourselves and getting our own house in order, without pointing the finger at other nations, groups and tribes when there are three fingers pointing back at ourselves.

We are setting such a very bad example and have done so since the time of Elizabeth 1 in the 1500s when the Queen knighted Sir Francis Drake for piracy, warfare and for sailing slaving ships!

Thanks again for writing and for your thoughts on life.  Much appreciated.

Is our Western civilisation civilised or barbaric? Upstanding or brutal?

Is our Western civilisation civilised or barbaric?

Our Christian civilisation was responsible for enslaving 10 million Africans with many dying on the journey and ending up working for no wages, living in hovels, to enrich ourselves, still to this day!

There was compensation only for those responsible for 300 years of criminal behaviour.  What a nerve.  This is brutal Christian and Western ethics for you!

Our wealthy, Western ‘Christian’ civilisation calmly murdered 6 million Jews and every other minority to be found in Germany and Poland.  Quite barbaric, yet supposedly, Bible-based ethics, civilised diplomacy, from a Christian country!

In this decade, our taxes, our diplomacy, our good ol’ British values of justice and fair play, have seen nothing wrong in the cold blooded murder of over 70,000 mainly women and children in Gaza.  Done courtesy of our taxes and our unethical foreign policy supporting, without BDS, the Israelis.

The terrorists out of those 70,000 are simply the fighters using violence to defend the very land that international law allows.  The very land Israel handed over to them, lock stock and barrel, in 2005.  This was done without agreement from anyone on the other, the Palestinian, side!  This is so typical of our side so used to ruling and dominating , to controlling our colonies and brutally squashing any supposed rebellion.  Or none.  Like the despicable Amritsar massacre.  Or, Bloody Sunday in 1972.

The 70,000 Gazans slaughtered in Israel’s war of annihilation and revenge are not anywhere near in line with Hebrew/Jewish ethics of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.  About 1,200 Israelis were killed on 7.10.23, with 251 hostages taken to the tunnels.  The revenge killings by our side are hardly comparable and still continuing, in February 2026!

New Testament ethics from a wonderful Jew from Nazareth, specifically outlaws any kind of revenge killings of equal numbers.  Jesus is worshipped as God and Saviour but, quite blatantly, his teaching on being a Good Samaritan to all and sundry, has been totally ignored for 1700 years!

We are the robber, the Christian Western Civilisation of Law and Order, of Justice, Equality and fair play,

The beaten up man is the symbol of the victims of our perverted values reflected in our foreign policy and our forever wars of revenge and Christian military bases on holy Muslim soil which, in turn, invite yet more attacks from Islamist jihadists.

Every one of our enemies are terrorists from terrorist states.  But, we are the angelic, freedom loving states of Proper Law and Order and Democracy that must prevail around the world!

The Good Samaritan is an illusion, a nice figment of our imagination, a noble Example which the West shouts about but, can never rise to.  We can’t do any better than being the robber, as we see with our Trump/Netanyahu horror show of revenge upon revenge.

Our friend and ally, Bibi wrote, so very sincerely and meant every word, I know:-

“Yoni (his older brother killed at Entebbe) saw it not merely as a military conflict.  He saw it also as a political and moral struggle between civilisation and barbarism.  I now devoted myself to this battle.”  (Netanyahu’s autobiography, ‘Bibi. My Story’, published 2022, page )

It is our civilisation which is barbaric and not those of the hated terrorists in Gaza defending the scrap of  land given away by ourselves but still almost totally controlled by our civilised Western nation plus our cuckoo in the nest, dear Israel.

You and I are the real terrorists.  Our civilisation is not worthy of the name.

This is too outrageous to be true! Can we do nothing right?

Six million Jews dead at the hands of a Christian nation.  The rest, certainly the Zionists who led the campaign to have it, get given the Promised Land for the third time in their history at the expense of the Arabs/Muslims - more their region than ours, too!

Ten million black people enslaved by these same Christian nations, for 300 years.  But no compensation, reparations for them.  It was just one of those things.  Just hard luck on them.  After all, we compensated the slave owners with millions gone to them who had already accumulated a Mint of money from paying the slaves nothing and housing them in appalling conditions.  What more can you expect?  That the slave descendants should be compensated, too? Not on your nelly!!

Why so much for the Jews in compensation for what we did to them in the 30s and 40s but nothing for the blacks?  Ah!  But your wrong, Tim.  We gave millions to the wealthy, powerful slave owners seated in the House of Commons and Lords in the 19th century who dreamt it all up.

Please check the accuracy of what I have written here

PS  I'm reading and very much enjoying all 654 pages of this mighty tome - so far, got to page 107.  Hence:-

Bibi's autobiography says his 23 year old dad, in 1933, made an “astonishing prophecy” of the Jewish Holocaust.

Benzion Netanyahu wrote, “In the face of the Holocaust facing the Jewish people, our role is to repeatedly remind the entire world what Germany is inculcating to its own sons …” (p 107, ‘Bibi, My Story’, pub 2022)

It seems that the slaughter of six million Jews and other minorities in the Nazi Holocaust, in Christian Europe, was the justification for recognising the State of Israel, even though the land was claimed without agreement with the other parties and more land was gained in subsequent wars.

The Old Testament chronicles how the people of Israel became God’s Own Chosen Nation and how God gave them the Promised Land from wars of aggression, 3,000 years ago.  Canaanites were the main losers then.

There followed Exile and eventual Return to the Promised Land - a second gift of God to the Jews alone out of all the tribes and peoples in the Middle East.  The Roman Empire conclusively put a stop to the Second Gift when the Temple was destroyed in 70 CE.

The Third Return to the Promised Land for the Jews of Israel alone, came in 1948 CE.  But only after three years of USA funded Zionist terrorism to eject the Mighty British Empire from the Promised Land, which by now was known as Palestine.

Therefore, God has given the Jews, His Only Chosen Nation, the same Promised Land on three occasions.  Yet, in 78 years as the Middle East regional Super Power, possessing WMD and the sure and steadfast Iron Dome, they have never lived in peace even for a day, because of fear of attack from the people they violently ousted.

Where does the teaching of their most famous Jewish son, after Bibi, come into all this?  Sadly, nowhere to be seen.

Once again the good ol' West is best nations are to blame for the unHoly Land hell - now worse than ever!

We Brits, with the 1917 Balfour Declaration, even with its clever wording to satisfy both the Palestinians and the Jews/Zionists, must have resulted in the Zionists being greatly encouraged in their quest for a homeland in Palestine.

Next, as a Christian nation we were steeped in the Hebrew Scriptures as part of our Bible.  This meant that we tended, over the course of the next thirty years of the British Mandate to rule Palestine, to come down harder on the Muslims when they massacred Jews than when the Jews massacred Palestinians.  It seems we were not even handed and more often showed partiality in favouring the Jews on more occasions than the Palestinians.

There followed the Christians continuing to persecute and discriminate against the Jews which only encouraged even more of them to flee Christendom and to migrate to Palestine.  Especially, with the Christian nations warring against each other from 1939 to 1945 and one of them killing six million Jews and all other minorities.

Not surprisingly, the Zionists/Jews turned to violence to get a homeland in Palestine and their aggression was rewarded by the Western Christian nations fully supporting the state of Israel being founded in 1948.

Never mind that all this was against international law and, international organisations pointing out acts of genocide by our side over the last two years, with over 70,000 Gazans somehow ending up dead at our hands.

Therefore, Britain is to to blame, together with the previous centuries of the Christian nations persecuting the Jews in Europe.  Even though their founder was a Jew and, advocated non-violence to boot.  What a right ol' mix up!!

I am ashamed of my nation and of my Christianity.  From our track record, the most unChristian of the world faiths for 1700 years!

The Judeo-Christian world is ...

The Judeo-Christian world is cruel, immoral and hypocritical for centuries with our domination over other peoples in stealing their land, their resources and, even the people themselves with our iniquitous chattel slavery treating humans like dirt, as objects to be traded.

What our friends and allies in Israel are doing to the Palestinians is as bad as anything I have seen/read about in our history.

The Israeli 'Haaretz' daily newspaper describes its country's war, and it is ours too, as one "of annihilation and revenge".  The killings are fewer but our side remains indifferent and responsible for two million people living in squalid conditions with most in flimsy  tents in a cold and wet winter.  This is the Judeo-Christian world's interpretation of the story of the Good Samaritan.  Our wealthy powerful and greedy bloc of nations have acted, as my former church leader and pastor described it, as the robber in the story with the Palestinians as the man beaten up and left for dead beside the road.

Our side has much more responsibility to be the Good Samaritan to the Gazans, and Palestinians of the West Bank, then they have towards us.

SPRINT update

The Sprint corridor, Walsall to Solihull is being upgraded to allow the operation of articulated buses (aka Sprint). Much of this work is complete and existing bus users are benefiting from this infrastructure. Funding for the vehicles has been allocated, with procurement subject to final approvals. Service operating patterns will be integrated with wider bus services as part of bus franchising. 

Thank you for writing to us regarding this matter.

Kind regards,
 
Geraldine O'Sullivan

One great counter-productive UK foreign policy that makes enemies out of friends!

Why is it so impossible to expect a professional, competent and ethical, quite apart from lawful, foreign policy?

Our foreign policy is so incompetent and duplicitous that we have made enemies out of many Middle East countries, left them in chaos and, with their people slaughtered in the hundreds of thousands.  This is scandalous!  In addition, this immorality boosted the survivors fleeing the chaos we left their countries in and fled to the safe Western European nations, including the UK.  Unlike Gazans, at least they can use small boats to cross the moat from the Europe mainland to England.  There is never any attempt by Europe to share out equitably the asylum seekers we are responsible for with our Climate damaging lifestyles and wars.

We have sold WMD (chemical weapons) to Iraq and then attacked them for having WMD (nukes).  This is typical British duplicity, known for centuries by our French neighbours as "perfidious Albion".

We sold Iran a whole host of arms and armaments because from 1980 to 1988 they were fighting our big Middle East enemy, Iran.  Even so, we failed to win the war and it ended inconclusively.  "During the conflict, Iraq received an abundance of financial, political, and logistical aid from the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, France, Italy, Yugoslavia, and the overwhelming majority of Arab countries." (Wikipedia)

Counter-terrorism is overseen by judges.

Should the Islamic system be preserved?

2009 it had disputed elections

What should Iran's response be to bombing raids?

We have a foreign policy of making enemies of being dominant and triumphant and - rubbing it in, too!  Any sense of an ethical foreign policy, as Robin Cook MP and a former Foreign Secretary, is as absent as snow on an African beach.

Balance and fairness in foreign policy is also rare or unheard of.  In fact, torture is also used as Richard Moor confirmed with MI6 feeding questions to American torturers earlier this century.

13 Nov 2025 The Mishal Husain Show

For nearly 40 years, Richard Moore was a career spy in the UK's secret intelligence service. He was unable to tell all but his closest friends and family what he did for a living. When he was appointed chief of MI6 in 2020, that changed: The name of the person in the agency's top job is the only one made public. In his first interview since leaving the role in Sept. 2025, Moore talks to The Mishal Husain Show about managing China's security threat, the psychology of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and why spies shouldn’t expect recognition.

13 Nov 2025 The Mishal Husain Show

For nearly 40 years, Richard Moore was a career spy in the UK's secret intelligence service. He was unable to tell all but his closest friends and family what he did for a living. When he was appointed chief of MI6 in 2020, that changed: The name of the person in the agency's top job is the only one made public. In his first interview since leaving the role in Sept. 2025, Moore talks to The Mishal Husain Show about managing China's security threat, the psychology of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and why spies shouldn’t expect recognition.

The Church and State are Silent and Guilty of Slaughter - no exagerration

From my research, it seems irrefutable that since 1945, my Christian faith and my nation has consistently funded the fight of the Zionists and Jews to have and hold land gained by aggression.

My taxes have funded this one sided aggression for every year of my life since 1948 when I was born.

Outside of the 12 years of Nazi industrialised slaughter by a Christian/Western nation, Palestinians and Arabs have died in much greater numbers than Jews, especially from 1945 but, in truth in greater numbers throughout the British Mandate over Palestine.

Throughout the Mandate, my side and adherents of my Christian faith showed clear favouritism towards Jews/Zionists and were not even handed.

Was this because our Bible contains, in the Old Testament, the history of the Jewish people and therefore Christians know more about them and, which the Bible makes clear, the Jews alone are God's Chosen People.

I say one sided because since the close of the 2nd World War, Zionists and Jews banded themselves into three terrorist gangs to gain the land of Palestine.

One of those gangs, Haganah, merged into the Israel Defense Forces in May 1948.  The other two were Irgun and Lehi or Stern Gang, I understand.

Under international law, the Palestinians have always had the right to defend themselves from attacks by other groups and nations.

It seems clear that there has never been any kind of agreement between Arabs and Jews as to how the land of Palestine should be divided out between the two warring Children of Abraham, Muslims and Jews.

The Zionist/Jews used their American/Western funding to seize Palestine by coercion, force, violence and declared the State of Israel in 1948.

Not surprisingly, ever subsequent war funded by the most powerful Judeo-Christian bloc of nations the world has ever seen, has either been successful with yet more land gained by Israel and the West or, the outcome was inclusive but maintained the status quo.

To this day, Likud the governing political party in Israel has in their Charter that their ultimate aim is to have and to hold all the land of Palestine from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea.

International bodies call what my country, my side has done since 7 October 2023, as genocide.

My own politicians and people are unimpressed and the genocide of Palestinians and of Hamas fighters defending their land is not recognised as such.

Indeed, perfectly justified because we think we have every right to wipe out terrorists, as we call defenders of Gaza.

In other words, we have every right to use violence and slaughter because only our righteous, greater violence can wipe out, forever, the lesser violence of Hamas fighters.

The overwhelming acceptance of our unethical Christian teaching is one of using massive evil to utterly destroy evil.  This is palpably absurd and, as we seen for over one hundred years since the unfortunate foundation of Zionism by Theodor Herzl, is counter-productive and gets both/all sides absolutely nowhere.

The solution is clear.  The rather more ethical teaching seen in the Gospels of Jesus Christ of Nazareth two thousand years ago.  Sharing, generosity and non-violence.  All as applicable today and, rather urgent!

to Cllr Roger Bailey of Coventry

Dear Roger

Thank you so much for engaging and debating with me.  It is such a refreshing change to get someone writing back, from the normal silence, uninterest and even apathy and acquiescence!  Your reward is what has turned out to be a very long email.  Please persevere!

I've lived exactly fifty years in heavenly Halesowen and in the same house (and wife!)

Yes!  Do please pass on my emails to officers for them to correct or confirm what I've written.  I would be only too relieved to be proved wrong and that, in fact, LR and VLR trams are the best things since sliced bread.  Throughout the UK, the rebuilding of the tramway network, which your predecessors wiped out in the 1950s, has meant the money has not been there to finish electrification of the railways or to get our heavy rail network up to the standard seen on the mainland of Europe.  We went haring off into LR, VLR, ULR that then led to yet more taxpayer funding for tram-trains and train-trams to allow the use of LR on the HR (heavy rail) tracks and vice versa.  All I wanted, from our cllrs/MPs, was to work with the professionals to get the HR and the bus routes as least as good as the average in Europe.  And preferably, extend Fare-Free Public Transport (FFPT) from old geezers like me on our way out, to all you younger people.  This would be your reward for leaving your car at home to free up the road network for essential road users.  More here:

 Bus and businesses at the centre of a virtuous circle

There is a great barrier between the public and the professional officers.  At least, councillors have contact details for the public to see because all you elected members decide policy for the officers to implement.  In theory!  The practice is somewhat different!

From many years ago, delving into the history of Midland Metro on Wikipedia and in speaking last year with Cllr Phil Bateman of Wolverhampton, (copied in) I have always been under the impression that it was he and Cllr David Sparks of Dudley who first suggested trams for the W Mids in 1981.  Both are Labour Party members.  However, you good and very much better Conservatives have been equally enthusiastic to break up our railway network into LR and HR (and the HS tragedy into a dead end siding to the detriment of Coventry!) and to bring in more modes of public transport to complicate my journey.

I don't think it is true to say that HMG instructed or even suggested that our region should have Metro trams and, in addition for Coventry, VLR and LR.  But I don't know the history of how VLR got started.  My impression has always been that Centro/TfWM officers and members of the seven councils have always been much more enthusiastic for LR/VLR than the Treasury and the DfT.  I thought this was because of the enormous expense in turning roads into railway lines and good railway lines into tramways.  Even more waste of public money comes from developing tram-trains and train-trams on railway lines and tramways - yet more good money thrown after bad!!

Over ten years ago, I had talks with the guy at the Warwick Manufacturing Group - Nick Mallinson CEO, Black Country Innovative Manufacturing Organisation - in the failed attempt to get the VLR test track moved off the former, principal mainline Black Country Railway.  It is now at Castle Hill, Dudley and the BCIMO HQ is on the site of the former mainline station!  I was suggesting the site at Moor Street, Brierley Hill and using the 3 Kms closed railway from Moor Street to Pensnett High Street via Brockmoor and Bromley.  'Station Hotel' at Castle Hill needs to be renamed 'Tram Stop Hotel'!

Below is my weekend's attempt to summarise the sorry history of Midland Metro in a readable way for you.  A little fuller attempt, that has never been challenged or corrected when I sent it out to TfWM and Dudley, Brum and Sandwell councillors, is this:

 Trumpland Transport in the West Midlands since 1981

This is shorter, I think:

Rediscovering trams has been at the expense of reusing railway lines for railway trains!

ALICE IN WONDERLAND RAILWAY/TRAMWAY MIX UP!

Wot! Not another right mess they've got us into, surely?!!

The 200 Kms and ten lines of the West Midlands Metro drive began in 1981, according to Wikipedia years ago, to be completed in the year 2000 CE.

However, in that year, after 18 years, it came to a miserly 20 Kms with 18 Kms on the first, former mainline railway between Brum Snow Hill and Wolverhampton destroyed for trams! 

Work began in 1981 only twenty years after the first electric tramway network had finished being utterly destroyed to make way for more diesel buses.

The first three Midland Metro tramways were to go on two former mainline railways and one existing.

Perhaps, because of the shortage of railways because of their conversion to roads, buildings and tramways, the decision was made to build HS2 in 2009 by Lord Andrew Adonis and Gordon Brown.

Like Metro, HS2 has also been a fiasco, ever since!  Coventry may get a downgraded intercity service with the top priority for attention going to HS2.

Only in 2016 was the decision made not to put trams on the Bristol to Birmingham mainline through Kings Heath and Moseley but to rebuild the three stations demolished in the previous century - in favour of diesel buses of all things!

From an unknown date last century, the former principal mainline railway from Worcester to Derby of 120 Kms (74 miles) via the Black Country, was turned into a cycle-walkway on the section between Walsall and Brownhills in S. Staffordshire.

From earlier this decade, the decision was made to turn the rest of the railway, from Brownhills to Lichfield, into a cycle-walkway, too.

Yet, all the bridges, tunnels, flyovers and underpasses had been built to take freight and passenger trains BUT, they never put in an appearance!

Just evermore congested and slow moving motorways and roads as road transport and railways have trams taking them over or railways unused!

This London to Edinburgh railway is now to be a dog walkers' paradise of a railway line, devoid of any kind of train - and even trams!

However, trams are to go on this same mainline railway on the section between Wednesbury and Merry Hill Shopping Centre.  It is taking from 2019 to do the first half of 5 Kms and it's still not open!

In the 1990s, Leader of Dudley Council, Cllr Fred Hunt, in all seriousness told me, "Don't worry Tim, it will be up and running in 2000."  That was 26 years ago when half of it MAY open this year!!

120 Kms between Worcester and Derby via the Black Country on the railway

 "of national strategic significance".pdf

56 Kms unused between Stourbridge Jct, and Burton on Trent on the London to Edinburgh railway.

56 Kms of the Black Country Railway "of national strategic significance", according to Network Rail and the Dept for Transport, broken up into one tramway, one cycle-walkway, one Very Light Rail test track, one National Innovation Centre for VLR and fresh air!

In Jan 2020, ANDY STREET, Mayor announced 150 miles (240 Kms), 380 tram stops and eight tramway lines in total by the year 2040 for £15 BILLION in price and in weight of GHG emissions!

In 45 years of NOT getting Metro trams, about 100 Kms of railway lines in the West Midlands remain wasted - Camp Hill line, Sutton Line, Walsall to Wolverhampton, Walsall to Lichfield, Walsall to Sutton Coldfield to Water Orton to Brum.

You wrote, "I believe there are good reserves of both oil and gas. Its just that this country has decided to eliminate use of such fuels and is moving quickly to halt total use of such things asap and to totally focus on solar and wind only."

There are good reserves, Roger.  Great lagoons of oil in the Earth's crust.  But one day it will be too expensive to pump out of the ground and the ocean depths.  Then, we really will be snookered, very nicely.  Oil is far too important to be burnt.  There are 101 other uses in the petro-chemical industry for oil.  We are greedily burning it up as if there is no tomorrow.

We are foolishly living infinitely on a finite planet and unnaturally on a natural planet.  We are part of Nature and cannot survive without her.  Trump knows better, of course.  One day we will come a cropper and my wife and I are trying to be good ancestors (as is the King and, son and heir William).

Rediscovering trams has been at the expense of reusing railway lines for railway trains!

ALICE IN WONDERLAND RAILWAY/TRAMWAY MIX UP, aka, TRUMPLAND TRANSPORT!

Wot! Not another right mess they've got us into, surely?!!

The 200 Kms and ten lines of the West Midlands Metro drive began in 1981, according to Wikipedia years ago, to be completed in the year 2000 CE.

However, in that year, after 18 years, it came to a miserly 20 Kms with 18 Kms on the first, former mainline railway between Brum Snow Hill and Wolverhampton destroyed for trams! 

Work began in 1981 only twenty years after the first electric tramway network had finished being wiped out.

The first three Midland Metro tramways were to go on two former mainline railways and one existing.

Perhaps, because of the shortage of railways because of their conversion to roads, buildings and tramways, the decision was made to build HS2 in 2009 by Lord Andrew Adonis and Gordon Brown.

Like Metro, HS2 has also been a fiasco, ever since!  Coventry may get a downgraded intercity service with the top priority for attention going to HS2.

Only in 2016 was the decision made not to put trams on the Bristol to Birmingham mainline through Kings Heath and Moseley but to rebuild the three stations demolished in the previous century - in favour of diesel buses of all things!

From an unknown date last century, the former principal mainline railway from Worcester to Derby of 120 Kms (74 miles) via the Black Country, was turned into a cycle-walkway on the section between Walsall and Brownhills in S. Staffordshire.

From earlier this decade, the decision was made to turn the rest of the railway, from Brownhills to Lichfield, into a cycle-walkway, too.

Yet, all the bridges, tunnels, flyovers and underpasses had been built to take freight and passenger trains BUT, they never put in an appearance!

Just evermore congested and slow moving motorways and roads as road transport and railways have trams taking them over or railways unused!

This London to Edinburgh railway is now to be a dog walkers' paradise of a railway line devoid of any kind of train - and even trams!

However, trams are to go on this same mainline railway on the section between Wednesbury and Merry Hill Shopping Centre.  It is taking from 2019 to do the first half of 5 Kms and it's still not open!

In the 1990s, Leader of Dudley Council, Cllr Fred Hunt, in all seriousness told me, "Don't worry Tim, it will be up and running in 2000."  That was 26 years ago when half of it MAY open this year!!

120 Kms between Worcester and Derby via the Black Country on the railway​

 "of national strategic significance".pdf

​56 Kms unused between Stourbridge Jct, and Burton on Trent on the London to Edinburgh railway.

56 Kms of the Black Country Railway "of national strategic significance", according to Network Rail and the Dept for Transport, broken up into one tramway, one cycle-walkway, one Very Light Rail test track, one National Innovation Centre for VLR and fresh air!

In Jan 2020, ANDY STREET, Mayor announced 150 miles (240 Kms), 380 tram stops and eight tramway lines in total by the year 2040 for £15 BILLION in price and in weight of GHG emissions!

In 45 years of NOT getting Metro trams, about 100 Kms of railway lines in the West Midlands remain wasted - Camp Hill line, Sutton Line, Walsall to Wolverhampton, Walsall to Lichfield, Walsall to Sutton Coldfield to Water Orton to Brum.

"LR is too costly and problematic", says Sustainable Transport Manager at Coventry University

Brendan O’Reilly, Sustainable Transport Manager at Coventry University, said: “CVLR is a first-of-its-kind transport system that offers huge benefits, not just for Coventry but for other cities across the globe of a similar size who may find a traditional tram system too costly or problematic.

“We have collaborated closely with the city council and it is fantastic that Coventry University’s Technology Park will be the first stop on the demonstrator line. With our focus on sustainability, being able to offer transport from the railway station in the city centre to the Technology Park will help us encourage people to leave their cars at home.

Hydrogen Energy is Here

Citizens can make a difference and deliver the new clean energy horizon possible. It starts with cars, that we all understand but need changing fast. Then it shows that hydrogen beats lithium batteries by a big margin. But batteries are still essential, and integration of Wind, Solar, Batteries, Hydrogen and mini-Grids is defined as the way forward.

Coventry VLR

The money would be better spent by 

1. Investing in green hydrogen fuel cell battery electric vehicles and trains. More details in Prof Kevin Kendall's important new book, 'Hydrogen Energy is Here' (paperback last year, hardback out next week).
2. Extending Fare-free Public Transport from my old crocks age group to everyone. This would be an incentive and a reward for car commuters who don't need their cars for work to leave them at home and so free up road space for truly ESSENTIAL vehicle users. As described here:
3.  
    Bus and businesses at the centre of a virtuous circle
4. With a Climate Emergency, please use our roads for road transport and use our railway lines for only railway trains, especially the remaining ones that have not yet been destroyed for roads, buildings and tramways.
5. Obviously, don't do another 1950s and destroy the tramways now in use, but do stop converting our railway lines into tramways but do use them for passenger and freight trains together, if at all possible.
6. Do stop the destruction of our remaining railways. PLEASE!
7. We also need to invest in insulating the homes of the poorest and getting that money back from the landlords.

URGENT because of the Climate Emergency.

FROM my 'Coventry Observer' comment:

How can it be socially just and how can it reduce our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to be spending £15 billion (Jan 2020 figure) on building 150 miles and 380 tram stops for 8 tramways in the West Midlands? This is Light Rail (LR).
PLUS, more tens of millions on Coventry Very Light Rail (VLR), in addition to LR billions and heavy rail running well!  Is all this being greedy?

Especially, when that money could be better spent on extending free regional bus and train use to stop declining bus use and boost train use.

Especially when we need to invest in buses, trains and HGVs for green hydrogen fuel cell battery electric vehicles (HFCBEVs).

Especially when we need to invest in insulating the homes of the poorest and then get that money back from the landlords.

Nazis of us all - if meaning using hatred and violence to further our cause, as has been the case for centuries

Dear Alex and team

It might be sobering for our side to recognise that we were responsible for the Nazis because they came from Germany, a Western European nation steeped in Christian tradition and the Bible. 12 years of terror, from 1933, for mainly Jews and all other minority communities which soon led to tens of millions dead around the world.  We cannot blame the Russians and the Chinese but only ourselves.  Many centuries of Christian persecution in Europe.

Indeed, our tiny island with pretensions well above our station in the world would have been overrun by Nazi Germany if the Russians had not beaten them at Stalingrad* and if the Americans had not come to our aid.  We were rescued by both nations.

We cannot blame the Russians and the Chinese but only ourselves for the 126 years of religious violence in the unHoly Land, which culminated in our facilitation of the Jews/Zionists taking over Palestine in violation of international law that states that no country can take possession of land by violence/aggression.  The Jews did not wait for agreement and compromise with Palestine and the Arabs but just went marching in, with the Christian West funding the war of 1948 and every subsequent war.

Our side, we, are the new Nazis in laying waste to Gaza and still keeping the Gazans in the most appalling conditions in their cold and unusually wet winter in flimsy tents and still being picked off as cold blooded murder continues. This is ​y​ou and I, with STILL nothing like BDS against our great friend and ally​ doing the war crimes!

There is never any criticism of ​us​ white Caucasian, Judeo-Christian nations.  Nor for Germany for fueling Israel's aggression ​by exporting the second largest quantity of armaments after the USA.  The UK was to blame for the 1948 seizure of land by the Jews/Zionists.

We are the greatest threat to world peace with unpredictable and unbalanced men like Trump, followed by constant talk of our national security, and more of our GDP being spent on warfare. China just gets on with being the workshop of the world and leading the way on renewables.

Our track record for centuries of coercion, force and violence culminated in our side in the 20th century being the most destructive and evil in the history of humanity.

TIM WELLER

* The battle is commonly regarded as the turning point in the European theatre of World War II,^{[43]  Wikipedia}

Midland Metro Mess

John Drake  4 days ago

Very Superior beings or so they thought, refused to listen when asked to reopen Wolverhampton low level to Birmingham Snow Hill railway, they ignored the rail linked Dudley flyer heavy rail line to Merry hill too

The same superior beings used £ millions of West Midlands Tax payers’ money to buy European trams that broke down in the rain and replaced them with more European Trams whose brand new Chassis cracked

Those superior beings in the local councils & WMCA wouldn’t listen then they’re not listening now, their hard left wing ideology comes before common sense That unloosening bad judgment has left us with their £2+ billion unusable and not fit for purpose Tram transport mess

Emma Marshall

 Very well done, Emma. I particularly liked, “My faith teaches me not to compromise on truth or integrity. Through my work with local charities, I see the reality of what people in Redditch are facing every day — hunger, homelessness, mental health crises, and broken systems."

Thank you for your help for me, as here when I wrote on 17 Jul 2023:  You were brilliant last Thursday in mentioning the Kiddermnster bus station slum disgrace in full council to Mike Rouse. You also stood up to Fran and explained things to her so well. I watched you on the recording and that was just what was needed. WELL DONE.  I will continue to pursue the matter - if you could, too please! Worcs CC is losing out to the hundreds of millions spent on transport in the W Mids for luxury schemes (which have also destroyed two mainline railways) that are very nice but hardly essential, especially in the light of the climate/nature crises.

Today I went to pay my respects at the Holocaust Memorial. It’s a stark reminder of where hatred and dehumanisation can lead. Tragically, persecution is still a reality for so many across the world today — Christians in Nigeria, Congo, Mozambique, Sudan, Somalia and Eritrea; Persians in Iran; Uyghur Muslims in China; and countless others whose suffering rarely makes the headlines.

We’re also witnessing, in real time, how quickly antisemitism can surge when society lets its guard down.

So how do we confront this hate? For me, it starts with choosing to talk to people who see the world differently — with respect, honesty, and a willingness to listen. We won’t always agree, and that’s okay. Understanding each other’s perspectives is the first step toward breaking down division. And who knows… we might even discover some common ground along the way.

You wrote, Emma, "Tragically, persecution is still a reality for so many across the world today — " Yes, indeed! For me, it is persecution and violence by all faiths, by all nations and especially by the powerful and wealthy nations like our own, for many centuries. The last century was the most destructive and evil in the history of humanity, courtesy of the Judeo-Christian nations and contrary to the life and teaching of their founder and rabbi. We must learn to live in peaceful co-existence with one another, sharing out the resources of the world or, we will all perish as fools.

I like the blanked out soldier firing his automatic weapon to kill or maim. From my reading, that behaviour has no place in the four Gospels' of Jesus Christ. It must be blanked out from the lives of each of us, I believe.

Democracy is normally a rubber stamping exercise

Democracy, as we saw with bus franchising, involves a 500 pages report for senior councillors to read in an effort to understand the arguments.  The public had the opportunity to read in the papers and online all about the bus consultation process.  This is not democracy.

Who decided to start the whole expensive process, anyway?

Democracy is a rubber stamping exercise by volunteers becoming councillors who usually have full-time jobs which makes it difficult for them familiarise themselves with all the details of the lengthy reports that are placed in front of them by expert, professional officers.

They usually take the officers recommendations because it is so difficult to challenge, question and so, perhaps they feel, to be an irritant in the experts eyes.

With many matters there are no for and against statements which invites a debate and then voting.

Hence, wrong, foolish decisions are sometimes made.