Confession time

Dear Gerald - you are mischievously pricking my conscience!  Confession time!

You are so right, of course.  I have used train travel for visiting every Knoydart summit over 2,500 feet over the years but, mostly the Astra for sleeping, living and eating in for visiting each summit over 2,000 feet, once each, all over England and Wales and then Scotland.  In recent years, only twice a year, as my self-granted 'reward' for being so good at cycling to and from work almost every day for the last nearly 20 years of my career and using the bike for very nearly all my social work visits when I was officially classed as an "essential car user".

My 100% food-fueled mountain bike is also essential for so many of the remote summits miles up forest roads and tracks before I can start the big walk.  Becky Rosseff introduced me to mountain biking when she lent me her folding-in-two bike, in the early 90s!  That made me get my own in January 1995, which I still use.

I also drive more slowly on motorways.  Much of the time, with the lorries in order to get over 75 mpg with my guilt ridden conscience gnawing away, as I use up the oil and screw up the planet.  I've read in an XR book that it is called "cognitive dissonance".  I call it reducing my hypocrisy quotient to justify my wicked ways.

Better people than me do the round of over 1,000 summits in two or three continuous expeditions.  Even in my prime, that was always a complete and utter impossibility though, Gerald.  And, I've got so soft I'm using hotels more instead of a sleeping bag on the bare hill!!

Confession over and out for the count!

We're like mighty Emperor Trump demanding ...

We're like the Emperor in the Hans Christian Anderson tale - demanding yet more finery, a wish list of never-ending goodies and all at the expense of the welfare of the poor and the ill, so that waging war can be fully funded.

PLUS:

So that railways and buses can be replaced/duplicated with tramways.

So that we play our full part in funding war on Russia and the Palestinians. 

So that buildings and facilities can be regenerated as a status symbol of extravagance and flaunted wealth.

BUT, it is all vanity and prestige to cover our naked selfishness and greed and empty thoughtlessness. 

God/Nature had the first word in our creation and if we don't live in harmony with Him/her, we will be simply dispensed with.

But the Emperor is as naked as naked could be - and no-one tells him!!

CONCLAVE - the book - so entertaining but plausible throughout

I SPOIL THE WHOLE THING IN THIS SPOILER ALERT!!!

An outstandingly good read, so full of humanity and one of the most Christian books I have read.  Quotations from the Bible are appropriate but not overdone, as top Cardinals desperate for the top job, speak and pray.

Cardinal Lomeli as Dean of the Chapter, is in charge of the whole Conclave procedure.  He is genuine, so true to life and a real figure in being tempted and then being appalled at his thoughts about his fellow cardinals - such a lovely character in being so human and appealing.  He even stages a break-in of the last Pope's bedroom in a bid to find the evidence he is sure exists somewhere.  He asks for forgiveness for some of his most unworthy thoughts.  He is so genuinely not wanting and never expecting to be elected Pope.  To his astonishment, after different Cardinals are found wanting in different and devious ways and are ruled out, it is Jacopo Lomeli who comes a poor second out of only three left on the final eighth ballot.  Only in one ballot did he vote for himself and that was so out of character that the Good Lord made it coincide with explosions in Rome as an ISIS attack was launched that shattered glass where the voting was taking place!

Throughout, Lomeli confides much about the senior Cardinals being voted on and you are treated to his own preferences and why.  At the close of the book there is a surprising twist where the winning Cardinal seems the most unsuitable, is nearly never included in the ballot and then turns out to have been up for gender reassignment in a Swiss clinic if the Pope, in the dying days of his papacy, had not selected him for promotion from Archbishop of Baghdad to Cardinal.  But it is this Filipino who not only wins over the affections of the 117 Cardinals but the reader, too.  And hero Lomeli is so delighted, too!

Not a single Catholic could be offended - even by the impressive array of misdeeds and interesting incidents that are unveiled to move things along so excitingly.

What sheer brilliance from top novelist Robert Harris who shows his careful and diligent research to unveil yet another gripping tale.  This is my fourth of his - so far!

Dead slow on urgent, obvious measures - even low hanging fruit ignored!

Dear Katie

Many thanks for this and for your concern and action on Climate, ecology/economics and simply wise spending.  In my old age and retirement I want to encourage and support you in every way I can.  As I do with my own 36 year old youngster and one 40 year old, both in environment paid work.

You wrote, "boosting efforts, and to inspire and support new groups."  This is fair enough but I would want the WMCA and all you full-time, professional officers to be taking a lead for the rest of us to follow.  And I really don't see that, Katie.  The CA and the seven councils are moving so slowly and you are all desperate for the 150 miles and 8 lines of tramways (LR), VLR in Coventry, now guided busways I've been told by Calthorpe Estates that will save the demolition of their fine HQ building.  Plus, Sprint buses and High Scam 2 that has no stations to be of any practical use at all, apart from for frequent flyers who will have the alternative of flying through the air on land, instead of the air!

All this, when there are existing railway lines lying unused or partly used alongside or near to congested main roads and motorways.  One purpose built, principal, mainline railway "of national strategic significance" is being turned into yet more of a cycle-walkway between Walsall and Lichfield.  Astonishing!  Perhaps 100 Kms in the West Midlands is available.  Only one railway station has been rebuilt this century and that was the existing University station that was rebuilt many times bigger for £50 m.  An enormous building when it was the platform that needed to be made three times longer, as it now is!

And, Metro and Sprint for wealthy Solihull town centre that already has very good railway and bus routes - and, an airport not far away!!  Billions spent by the wealthy, like me, at Tram/Transport HQ at 16 Summer Lane.  One billion £ in price = One billion lb in weight of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) is a very rough but helpful and stunning rule of thumb, such is our foolish but understandable addiction to finite fossil fuels in our lifestyles.

You are concentrating on groups and those speaking on behalf of groups.  One very important group is the Birmingham Route to Zero (R20) Taskforce, as here:

"The launch of the Birmingham Route to Zero (R20) Taskforce followed a cross-party declaration of a climate emergency by Birmingham City Council in June 2019, with the council’s Cabinet then agreeing in July 2019 to make tackling climate change one of the authority’s main priorities. Climate Change has been recognised as an existential threat to Birmingham, the UK and the World for at least the last thirty years or so. Now action is called for. This new climate change taskforce for Birmingham has drawn up a plan of action to tackle the causes of climate change to make our city and our world a better place for future generations to come. The taskforce works in partnership across the city, engaging with our many different communities, age/disability groups, and business, commercial and residential areas."   (from -  https://lunarsociety.org.uk/resources/ian-ward-presentation-the-future-of-transport-in-birmingham-and-the-west-midlands-july-2021/)

Are you engaging, inspiring and challenging this taskforce?

May I see their "plan of action" and are you working to it and on it, Katie?

Bob Whitehead's brilliant W Mids Climate Coalition plan of action is here:

 Action Points - 2024 version.pdf

This is Dudley FoE's:

 ClimateActionPlan DudleyD1.pdf

However, in 57 years of closely following transport affecting Climate/ecology/economics in Brum, nothing has changed.  Road traffic congestion, demolition/rebuilding, the destruction of nature for concrete, brick and tarmac and the exhaustion of finite fossil fuels has continued apace.  With Labour as the worst offender.

It was in 1981 that two LABOUR councillors, Phil Bateman and David Sparks, got cracking with getting a 200 Kms tramway network by the year 2000 to rival Manchester's.  By that year, they had got precisely 20 Kms with all but 2 Kms on the first mainline railway wrecked!  The Green Movement and Green Party are all in favour of this mish mash of different public transport modes when the urgency is, in fact, insulating and solar powering and making highly energy efficient the homes of the poorest in the W Midlands.  No redundancy or unemployment.  Simply, WMCA transport officers retrained and redeployed to work on Bob's Action Plan.

Best wishes

YOU YOUNGSTERS MUST GET A GRIP! Jo, please forward to John Street for his response

Dear friends - could Joe please reply?  And any others would be nice to hear from, too!  Especially, Raj.

"The Lunar Society is committed to stimulate ideas, broaden debate and catalyse action – heritage for the future."

It was great to see Joe chairing the meeting really well at the last Society meeting on the 3 April. He asked speakers from the floor to stand up and speak up.  I was one who did!  I said not one speaker had mentioned the Climate Emergency and there was a very audible ripple of approval/assent from others in the room.  UK national and regional governments each declared their own Climate Emergency in 2019 but, for the last six years, have continued with business as usual economic growth/greed, as the planet's life support systems have reeled from higher temperatures bringing extreme weather events and disturbed climate patterns that I first read about in the 1980s.  Ever since, things have slowly got worse as Climate scientists have been ignored and their predictions have come about.

One of our three speakers insisted that he had unintentionally included the Climate Emergency when he said that the people of Nechells are dying a few years younger than the wealthy parts of Brum.  That is true but that is more about social justice than Climate justice, although 'Loss and Damage' payments to the poor Global Black Majority by the rich Global White Minorlty nations are an essential part of both adaptation and mitigation of Climate.  He also thought that the Clean Air Zone was a direct response to the Climate Emergency.  It was not, although it is true that cleaner air does mean fewer greenhouse gas emissions but the introduction of CAZ was not a response to the Climate Emergency.  It was talked about well before the Climate Emergency was declared but is a good, tiny step in the right direction of getting car commuters onto bus, train, tram to free up the road space for essential users.  Something more effective, I think, is here:

Bus and businesses at the centre

The prestigious, famous founders of the Lunar Society unwittingly gave us immense wealth from their work but also the disastrous consequences of burning finite fossil fuels as if there is no tomorrow - and, on which our very well-being and way of life is now well and truly locked into as fossil fool junkies.

The Society was revived by Rachel Waterhouse who had first started the Birmingham Consumer Group.  In the 1980s, I was part of the group and on the committee and we all, as watchful and eagle-eyed consumers, saw that Metro tram expansion on three mainline railways was NOT a good idea!  Today, one is saved but the other two are lost.  First Andy Street and now Richard Parker are enthusiasts for Andy's January 2020 Metro plan to spend £15 BILLION by 2040 on 150 miles, 8 lines and 380 tram stops.  The original 1981 plan was for 200 Kms by the year 2000.  In 1999, only 20 Kms had been opened and that was on the first mainline railway destroyed to give us trams and, today the total is 23 Kms!!

All of this with not a murmur of disapproval from a single person that I have so far met at Lunar Society meetings.  Even when we have known since the 1980s that the fine, gleaming white, Calthorpe Estates HQ was down for demolition.  Apparently, this building is now saved by the tram extension to Bearwood being replaced by a guided busway, I have heard.

I would like the Lunar Society to be leading the way on Climate compliant measures to slow the impact of Climate catastrophe by opposing Metro tram expansion and, instead, for the money to be used to extend the Fare-Free Public Transport that I have enjoyed for 17 years, to be given to every other age group.  That is the reward for car commuters who leave their motors at home and use free travel on bus, train and tram.  However, there has to be a stick, too.  MORE DETAILS here:

 Bus and businesses at the centre of a virtuous circle

The Climate Crisis is deepened by every pound spent, such is our addiction to finite fossil fuels.  As a rough rule of thumb and to vividly bring home the predicament we are in: every £ spent = one lb in weight of greenhouse gas emissions.  Oil is far too valuable to be burnt as we are doing in ever greater quantities in a crazy Trumpian bonanza of idiocy divorced from reality.

Yet, we were inhabitants of Trumpland decades before the man became President.  We were Trumpians from the day we replaced electric trams with diesel buses - and, ever since, never looked back!  SEE:

Trumpland Transport in the West Midlands since 1981

The Bleak, Barren, Backward Black Country in a modern, civilised, developed, First World Nation!

Hi Beccy - and copied to another key player, Ninette (Sustainability Lead Strategy & Transformation at the NHS Trust.  The Trust HQ is only 500 m from the UK's longest, urban-rural-urban cycle-walkway but was not the first.)

Thank you for your note.  You wrote, you are "working with our partners at Sustrans and Dudley Council to arrange a session to discuss."

I would ask that you please include me in your session as someone who, last decade, started alerting the authorities to the quite disgraceful state of our 1980s Black Country Cycle-Walk Mudway.  Since then, things have only got worse in the Dudley section with former councillor, Chris Barnett, in recent months, reporting the presence of not only dirt/quad bikes but also 4x4s.  Chris might also be included to make use of his expertise, please.

Last decade, I was invited to a very well attended meeting called by Chief Officer, Matt Williams who has now moved on from Dudley MBC.  He was based at the Lister Road Depot, so the meeting was held there.  However, no changes or improvements were seen - only further deterioration.

Dudley's section of this important active travel route must be seen in its context of surrounding landfill hills that are popular with the dirt/quad bikers and the 4x4s.  The whole vast area has no security whatsoever and is a complete free for all.  Yet, it is contaminated and, with dangerous gases emitted.  Public rights of way (PROW) also cross it but one path is impossible to find on the ground.  Therefore, perhaps Dudley's Local Access Forum needs to be informed and included in the meeting.

I think the very many years of neglect by the authorities over this vast area between Gornal Wood and Kingswinford and next to the Dudley owned and popular Himley Hall, might well have led to the arson attack and bulldozing of the 'Crooked House' in August 2023.  It is a lawless and a 'wild west' land that the authorities lost any interest in a very long time ago. This includes the Police to whom I complained when I was threatened and abused by the quad bikers last month on this same cycle-walkway from Barrow Hill Nature Reserve, next to Russells Hall Hospital.  Even the Police are powerless to act, it seems and don't want to know!

My response to XR poll

Constant dialogue with officers and members of the WMCA and TfWM is essential to win them over to urgent Climate compliant decisions.  The W Mids Climate Coalition has 11 action points that must be implemented.  

 Action Points - 2024 version.pdf

However, almost nothing has changed since their pious Climate Declaration of 2019.  Hence, the charge of hypocrisy with their present business as usual policy.

FIRST STEP: Abandon Metro, Sprint, Guided Busways and pointless bus franchising.  Instead, regional Fare-Free Public Transport (FFPT) and 'Virtuous commuting'.  

 Bus and businesses at the centre of a virtuous circle

Next, use the funds saved to insulate, solar power, make highly energy efficient every home of the poorest in the region.

The honourable, prestigious Lunar Society must act

Our side (our firm ally and friend Israel) is indulging in cold blooded murder of even our own people when they are aid workers or paramedics.  Our friend's resumption of the slaughter is stopping the release of hostages that is only seen when Israel keeps to the Ceasefire Agreement.

I think the upright, early members of the Lunar Society would be horrified by our slaughter of all and sundry, including those who are trying to save lives in Gaza and the West Bank.

My taxes, my government, and my side allow the killings by Israel and the killings by Ukraine (for Ukraine, admittedly in self defence but where compromise is now essential). This is total hypocrisy, totally outrageous and total war that is never ending by all four countries! Except Gaza is hardly a country that WE have flattened with our weapons. And no-one cares a sod because we are safe and secure in our beds.

  

Should the prestigious Lunar Society be saying something - perhaps?

Treat Israel like Russia

Excellent speech, Alex.  However, the UK must get much tougher with Israel and implement BDS - Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions  - and do exactly what the Campaign Against the Arms Trade insists on.

Israel remains a rogue state, a murderous state and must be treated in the same way as Russia.  We should be having nothing more to do with this disgusting, lying State which commits war crimes with impunity.

Oak Farm Quarry Landfill

Dear friends, who are responsible for what is seen in impoverished, Third World countries that take our plastic and old tyres for burning.

Broken down fencing and insecure gates give open access for children, young people and adults (and old, worn out crocks like me) to enter the Oak Farm Quarry Landfill site, as here: 

 Landfill site unprotected.jpg

 Entrance to open landfill site.jpg

When is this area, alongside and including Dudley's shameful and disgraceful section of the UK's longest, urban-rural-urban, cycle-walkway of 20 Kms in the heart of England, in the bleak, backward, barren Black Country, going to be regenerated and, then professionally maintained thereafter?

Staffordshire County Council and Wolverhampton City Council can both maintain their 15 Kms of the UK's top cycle-walkway for business, commuter and leisure use.  Why can't Dudley look after their 5 Kms to make it usable, once again?

The law and order brigade ...

... of police and politicians need to act on their beliefs. The Police to get tough over the criminality on the UK's longest, continuous, urban-rural-urban, cycle-walkway. The politicians to show some semblance of morality over their peculiar priorities in using their 2020, £15 BILLION to replace yet more railway lines and buses with tramways. All, while the 20 Kms cycle-walkway remains a disgrace of a muddy mess in the 5 Kms section that is the responsibility of Dudley councillors and their electors.

to Raj Kandola

I'm trying to influence you!  Away from the £15 BILLION and 150 miles of tramway as the poor suffer and the Climate Emergency takes off.  Act for the poor and Climate instead!

We're like the Emperor demanding​ ...​ see photo, below ...

... yet more finery, a wish list of never ending goodies and all at the expense of the welfare of the poor and the ill, so that waging war can be fully funded.

PLUS:

So that railways and buses can be replaced/duplicated with tramways.

So that we play our full part in funding war on Russia and the Palestinians. 

So that buildings and facilities can be regenerated as a status symbol of extravagance and flaunted wealth.

BUT, it is all vanity and prestige to cover our naked selfishness and greed and empty thoughtlessness. 

Nature had the first word in our creation and if we don't live in harmony with her, we will be simply dispensed with.  She has the last word, too! 

SCRAP THE VEHICLES TRASHING THE PUBLIC HIGHWAY NEAR OAK LANE, KINSGSWINFORD DY6

This time, on Monday 24 March 2025, I saw two 4x4s and a further vehicle on the Ordnance Survey, Explorer map, named "traffic free" route for cycles, walkers and horse riders running alongside Oak Lane Caravan Park and the two scrapyards, all three on the north side of Oak Lane, Kingswinford DY6.

These vehicles churn up untarmacked surfaces to make them unusable by walkers, cyclists and horse riders for whom the path is intended.  This is the lawless, unpoliced, wild west of Dudley borough, the historic capital of the bleak, barren, backward Black Country.

This same 20 Kms Black Country Active Travel Route is tarmacked 2 Kms further north in Wombourne and so is well used.

Individuals must stand up for what really matters.  Our right to walk, cycle and horse ride exactly where we are meant to go.

The Police must confiscate and scrap these vehicles and, on every occasion a vehicle is reported on the cycle-walkway.  Much better, they must attend every day until the lawless get the message.  And the drivers must put right their damage to the public highway surface (or pay) - along the whole, long section.

Perhaps, allow dirt/quad bikers, 4x4s to access the vast Himley Quarry Landfill hills, aka Himley Environmental and Biffa Waste on Google Maps.  But, ONLY from the Crooked House Lane on the north side and, from the south, via the tunnel to Home Farm DY3 4DE, under the cycle-walkway from Oak Lane DY6.

NOTE on Public Right of Way status on the Dudley Definitive Map

The road via the tunnel (under the bridge) to Home Farm is a "Restricted Byway" on the Dudley MBC Definitive Map.

A very small part of the Dudley section of the Black Country Active Travel Route is Public Right of Way BRH0008 and, therefore, an official "public footpath".  This is at the 'dogleg' section where the two old railway lines meet.  This Public Right of Way (PROW) has long been a linear mudbath caused by the dirt and quad bikers and the 4x4s on a route that should be restricted to being a Public Right of Way (PROW) and be given a National Cycle Network number over the full 20 Kms from Fens Pool Avenue to NW Wolverhampton.

Hubris and complacency led to copy cat of 1973 on 7.10.2023

JEREMY BOWEN, from 'The Making of the Modern Middle East':

"The Middle East was at boiling point, and another full-scale Arab-Israeli war happened in October 1973.  Syria and Egypt launched a surprise attack when Israel had closed down for Yom Kippur, the most important Jewish holy day.  Intelligence reports that it was coming had been ignored; the crushing defeat Israel had inflicted in 1967 had induced hubris in its leadership.  Israel narrowly came out ahead, while Egypt still considers the war a victory.

"The war once again demonstrated that the Arab-Israeli conflict was a battlefield for the superpowers, who set up airlifts to support their Middle Eastern allies."

Feedback for the Police and authorities

Antisocial, we don't care a toss, attitudes and behaviour from the authorities leads to ...

We all know that the poor Police are powerless to do anything. Nothing will happen because they are rushed off their feet. Not even my photo evidence was asked for.  Simply no interest.  Reducing crime by raising the respectability of the UK's, second and longest, urban-rural-urban Active Travel Route is completely out of the question. A disgraceful, disgusting provision will invite disgraceful and disgusting behaviour of the kind I witnessed and was subject to. Because the authorities, including the Police, do not care one jot, of course antisocial behaviour will be rife, as I reported to you (Police and Dudley Council)

No wonder, in the same area, there was the arson attack and bulldozing of the Crooked House, 19 months ago.  And six Dudley railway lines were destroyed, too as we all sit in traffic jams and poisonous air.  The councillors and officers are asleep at the wheel.

NATO military exercise in 1983 made Russia so jittery ...

6 pm News on 21 March 2025:

BBC Security Correspondent, Frank Gardner:

"It is no exaggerration to say that Oleg Gorduevsky quite possibly prevented WW3.  As a colonel in Russia's KGB, he spent many years as a double agent passing vital intelligence to both Britain's MI5 and MI6.  In 1983 as the KGB resident in London at the height of the Cold War, he warned his British handlers that Moscow had become so paranoid about an imaginary surprise attack by the West, that the Soviet Union began preparations to strike first.  As a result of his tip off, NATO curtailed its military exercise, code-named Able Archer and the crisis was averted.

to Mr Goodman of West Midlands Police

Dear Mr Goodman

WORK TOGETHER TO ALL IMPROVE THE AREA for which we are all responsible!

Thank you for your conversation over the phone, although I had done the vacuuming of the lounge floor, especially in honour of what I thought was to be a personal appearance by your good self.

This is what I was trying to get over to you, very inadequately, in my stumbling speech just now:

1. We are all in the business of reducing criminal behaviour, not just the Police.
2. We can do this by working together - all of us - members of the public, the local authority councillors/officers and even the most junior police officers.
3. It is very difficult and unpleasant to track down the criminals, to prosecute them and then to have to punish them.  None of us like to be told off.
4. Therefore, it is much more constructive to make criminality as difficult as possible by making everywhere so respectable and attractive that dirt bikers and quad bikers would never dream of using the area.
5. However, provision must be made for them.  And it is the vast area of wasted wasteland between the Crooked House and Stallings Lane that is ideal for them.
6. THE DIRT/QUAD BIKERS PARADISE IS ... between Home Farm to the Sewage Works, centred on the arson attacked Crooked House - all marked on the Ordnance Survey, 25,000 scale, Explorer map.
7. ON THE NORTH SIDE is B4176 Dudley Road and Himley Road
8. ON THE WEST SIDE is A491
9. ON THE SOUTH SIDE is Oak Lane and, further east is the B4175 Stalling's Lane
10. Make this bleak, barren, backward part of the Black Country ideal for dirt/quad bikers but, through the middle, the UK's possibly first and longest, urban-rural-urban cycle-walkway, the Black Country Active Travel Route must be made usable for walkers, cyclists and horse riders but NOT motor bikes.

In this way, no more clashes, abuse and threatening behaviour from the dirt/quad bikers.  THUS, NO MORE CRIMINALITY AND NOTHING FOR THE POLICE TO DO!!

BUS FRANCHISING - TOTALLY UNNECESSARY WASTE OF PUBLIC FUNDS to get a worse outcome!

Spend the BILLIONS (for Metro, Sprint, franchising) on Fare-Free Public Transport for all.  "Stuff their mouths with gold" to get a right royal regional bus provision.  And, allow local councils to become shareholders of the bus operators.  KEEP TO ENHANCED BUS PARTNERSHIP (EBP) that has no financial risks for councillors.

from https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1w04vd7xdro.amp

17 March 2025

"A new funding deal to stop a number of West Midlands bus services being cut has been agreed."  SELF: Part of the Enhanced Bus Partnership (EBP) that gives full control to the WMCA already.

"The West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) board has green lit an extension of the Bus Network Support Grant which provides financial support to operators."  SELF: Thanks to the EBP of direct co-operation between the authority and bus operators.

"It will be extended from 1 to 30 April, with a new arrangement kicking in from 1 May to 31 December. The decision comes amid public consultation events on plans to bring services under public control."  SELF: The services are already "under full public control", thanks to the EBP.

"A report to the board revealed last month, that more than 30% of current commercially-operated routes would be put at risk without the funding, while fares would face bigger hikes."  SELF: This has always been the case, has it not?  For years, the £50 million to bus operators has kept fares lower and kept services running that would otherwise not be the case.

"West Midlands mayor Richard Parker dismissed claims that the network was "failing", although he has pledged to introduce a franchising system – to replace the current deregulated model – which would bring control of the routes, timetables and fares back under public control."  It is not failing because of the subsidy through the EBP.  IS THAT TRUE?

"At a meeting on Friday, Mr Parker said the authority provided about £50m in grants a year to operators, but despite the funding, bus fares had increased while services had been reduced."  SELF: Therefore, increase the funding for the operators by using the £50 m on totally unnecessary bus franchising.  And, use the billions in price and in weight of GHG emissions from scrapping the £15 BILLIONS going into trams and Sprint "bus that thinks its a tram."

Weird and wonderful priorities

Dudley cllrs for 40 years have had as their top transport priority the destruction of their principal mainline railway, even over and above, its reinstatement, that they definitely don't want, rather than the tiny fraction of funds required for updating their section of the UK"s, possibly first and longest urban-rural-urban, cycle-walkway.

from CAAT on Israel's war crimes

We demand a full two-way arms embargo with Israel.

We demand an end to trade and military cooperation with Israel.

We demand an end to the UK government’s complicity in and military support for genocide, occupation and apartheid.

Katie Fallon, Advocacy Manager at CAAT said:

“The genocidal attack that Israel has unleashed on the people of Gaza is designed to inflict maximum suffering and terror on Palestinians. Israel has been violating the ceasefire agreement for weeks, increasing attacks and blocking all aid for over two weeks including food and fuel. Our government continues to support Israel politically and militarily through arms exports, including for F-35 jets which are used to drop 2,000-pound bombs on Palestinians.

"We demand a full two-way arms embargo with Israel. We demand an end to the UK government’s complicity in and military support for genocide, occupation and apartheid.”