In calling them terrorists, they are fair game to be exterminated

This is it in a nutshell - not bloody likely, say the people who rely on violence!

Yet again, my side is behaving abominably in supporting our friend and ally in wiping off the face of the earth his enemy and ours - Palestinians, whom we call terrorists to make it easier for us to do the murdering.

After 2 years of onslaught, Trump has slowed our inhumanity to our fellow humans. But it continues at a slower pace in all parts of the Palestine we governed for 30 years. And gave up in 1948 in the face of Zionist/Jewish terrorism. Their reward for aggression was the land now called 'The State of Israel'.

Israel is OUR Western nation in the heart of the Arab, mainly Muslim Middle East, along with all our military bases that STILL are unable to stop all the many wars!

Please tell Faith that my definition of "our side" is the freedom-loving, wealth-flaunting, permissive, liberal democracies. This includes genocidal Israel whom we back to the hilt with every kind of weapon imaginable to maintain their dominant and domineering position in the Arab Muslim world.  The left behinds are the BRIC nations and the rest of the world, who actually have a better record over the centuries than our side!

We are the problem, God forbid!

Hardly surprising that bus use is so low!

THIS REFERS TO KIDDERMINSTER,  Andrew - why cars are more popular than buses:

Success! Well done! No more rain dropping gently down on our heads as we wait in your slum disgrace of a bus station. 2 new plastic panels are in place - wonderful. But still no lighting, even at the drivers' end, called 'The Staff Room', would you believe!! Not one driver, it seems, is a member of a trade union - not even the unions can be bothered. No-one cares a toss, so bus use remains in the doldrums and the Climate/Nature crises worsen!

Calls to investigate why people aren't using the bus

RE:  'We need to get more people to use buses in the West Midlands': Calls to investigate why people aren't using the bus | Express & Star https://share.google/9z5BOfLDymli73Q6b

THE PROBLEM:

It was brilliant to read of your concern about the low take up of buses.  How do we get more people to use them?  Far too many people are driving into work instead of using the bus.  They must be bribed and educated and penalised to use them, as Nottingham does - continue reading:

THIS IS URGENT:

I think that you and your colleagues at 16 Summer Lane (aka Tram/Transport HQ), need to be very much stricter over cars coming into the city centre, ie inside the CAZ.  I suggest car parking in the CAZ be only for residents, traders, taxis and essential vehicles like midwives/nurses/doctors attending patients.  Commuters, shoppers and visitors must use bus, train, tram to free up road space for essential users.  Council and business owned car parks in CAZ must have a workplace parking levy, as Nottingham has.  SEE:

https://www.nottinghamcity.gov.uk/information-for-residents/transport-parking-and-streets/badges-and-permits/workplace-parking-levy/

Fare-Free Public Transport for all ages in the W Midlands and not just for my old geezers age group.  Paid for by abandoning the conversion of railways and bus routes into tramways.

Violence leads to more Violence - a never-ending cycle

The foolish, unnecessary, inexplicable 1WW led to the unjust Treaty of Versailles which punished and humiliated Germany alone. It must have led to the Nazis and the first Holocaust. Yet more slaughter with Jewish terrorism to bring about the State of Israel ... and still to this day in the former Palestine.

Your up and coming young farmer

Dear friends of Wingfield Farm

I bumped into him in Hinton Lane last Tuesday as I was walking to Pontesbury from Lea.  I quickly thanked him for growing my food - I know which side my bread is buttered!

Being an ancient, old geezer with four grandchildren who is very concerned about the future for life on earth, we chatted about farming and Climate friendly changes that the authorities say are needed.

• As a big cycle commuter before retirement and still cycling and walking the high hills today at 77, I suggested, next time, a non-electric bike to get to Hinton Lane rather than the very modest sized diesel tractor he used!
• I was suggesting transitioning to growing oats, barley, rye, chicory because I enjoy oat milk, porridge and Barleycup drink from Holland and Barrett.
• I suggested a gradual move to farming in tune with nature, meaning organic/regenerative/non-tilling ... 
• My wife and I still enjoy dairy and meat products but now have a flexitarian, more plant based diet.  We avoid bacon and sausages and are happy with vegetarian sausages.
• I am troubled by so many sheep and still can't figure out why the large number when we eat so little lamb and mutton and have fewer clothes made from wool than past centuries.  I must re-read the chapter called 'Sheepwrecked' in George Monbiot's book of years ago!
• I'm a guerrilla gardener planting suitable trees and shrubs in the right places to beautify the odd forgotten space.  And, as an urgent Climate compliant measure.

It was great to have a chat with a young farmer, especially for me as an urbanite and townie.  As he did, please give me your side of the picture and put me right, if you would like to reply, please.

Thanks for growing our food and giving us our milk.

Best wishes

Out on a limb!

There is nothing more urgent or cost effective than phasing out finite fossil fuels by not using them to totally unnecessarily convert mainline railways and bus routes into tramways and tram-trains, John.  And, at the most colossal expense in price and in accelerating the Climate Emergency and, thus our downfall!  £ spent = lb in weight of GHG emissions.  I really am the only one who thinks this.  Why am I so out on a limb from the rest of all of you?!  Please explain why I am so deluded and so wrong, John!

Europe v Russia - both are as bad as each other from the historical record

This is my frank, no holds barred, 'ticking off' of my own 'Christian' faith, my own country and culture.  It is totally unpatriotic and will cause offence.  So do not read it.

We have been way out of order and brutal in our behaviour around the world from the 1500s - towards millions of black indigenous populations first and then we added Communists and Muslims to that list in the 1900s.  Earlier, the shocking and shameful slaughter of the Christian Crusades.

The Russian Empire, including Ukraine for 1,000 years, has been the same but has not been all over the world as we have been.  However, it has been equally brutal in slaughtering their own people in the last century.  We Europeans slaughtered six millions Jews and other minorities in the 1930s and 40s.  What was Stalin's figure?  More than that.

In that century, the whole of Europe and their empires died in their tens of millions from an inexplicable, foolish and totally unnecessary war.  Those to be slaughtered let their foolish, gun toting leaders, like the BBC'S 'Greatest Briton Who Ever Lived' winner in 2000, to take them to their deaths from August 1914 - and it went on to 1945, with an interval.  The violent leaders wanted war.  The people submitted, rushed to war instead of resisting and using non-collaboration, and non-violent resistance.

In his book, 'Stalingrad', Antony Beevor wrote of that carnage:

"The whole story of folly, pitilessness and tragedy is revealing ... " (Preface)  I think that could apply to the whole human story.  Certainly, for the Great Powers unable to live in peaceful co-existence.

In this decade, in just over two years, our side repeated the Nazi holocaust - we Europeans, all members of the Eurovision Song Contest, too! - in killing and maiming an unknown figure but it must be well over 100,000 Gazans.  People like you and me, with their fingers crossed, dreading a horrible death in their tents and concrete apartments by OUR missiles.  Our friend and ally, Bibi Netanyahu, did the deed in razing to the ground the tiny country of Gaza in an OTT and Old Testament blitz of revenge for 7.10.23 that greatly exceeded the OT ethic of an eye for an eye and, a tooth for a tooth.

What the early Israelis did to Jericho and to Sodom and Gomorrah, the modern Israelis, with our military assistance, have done to Gaza.  And, with members of the Israeli Cabinet openly boasting that they were following God's command to exterminate the Amalekites by annihilating Hamas and the Gazans.  Yet, we don't mind, one jot, provided Bibi doesn't turn his extermination intentions on ourselves.  Gazans are dispensable.  We are not!

At this Christmas time, we remember what King Herod did to the baby male Jews of Palestine.  He wiped them out - Bibi's boast, too.  And, he carried it out.

To Herod's disgusting record of genocide, we have to add our very own Bibi Netanyahu, who is our Little European Hitler and, Russia's Putin, to whom we have set a very bad example.

For military historian, Antony Beevor, war meant, “The greatest sufferers were the civilians, and above all women and children.”  So true in Gaza.

The arrogance and brutality and greed of our Judeo-Christian civilization leaves plenty of room for improvement in 2026.

Gandhi, when he arrived in London - 

Journalist: What do you think of Western civilization?
Gandhi: I think it would be a good idea.

Giving the deprived E Brum a swanky £1 bn tram is disgusting

It is rather like the often quoted comment: "Let them eat cake" when the starving peasants had no bread.

Let them have a wealth flaunting billion pound tram when we know they want help with food and energy bills and warm, Climate friendly homes.

Converting two mainline railways and bus routes into tramways is equally an immoral, shocking waste of resources and deepens the Climate Emergency.

Our friend Bibi literally swims in the blood of the innocent

Haaretz   Israel News

How Would the Bible Tell the Story of Netanyahu and the Gaza War?

Terez

 • 01:56

Netanyahu is truly a transgressor of biblical proportions.

He is the one who has unleashed the greatest apocalypse of recent memory upon a people,

wreaking the largest bloodbath in the history of Israel.

He literally swims in the blood of the innocent, and, the very embodiment of sacrilege: in the blood of children.

In the Bible, he can only be compared to Manasseh, King of Judah, by far the most evil king ever.

And as we know, the Bible holds Manasseh directly responsible for the later downfall of Judah and the exile of the Jews. And so Netanyahu must bear responsibility for the downfall of Israel.

Only that, unlike Manasseh, Netanyahu will never repent.

His wife Sara, by the way, would be none other than Jezebel herself—only Jewish. And then there is Gaza, for which the Bible offers no precedent, for never has a city nor a region mostly innocent ever been leveled to the ground .

Such a thing does not exist in the Bible.

SELF: Jericho, Sodom and Gomorrah were levelled to the ground

SJ

 • 23:59

God would say Remember the Commadments I gave you? What about the land and animals I told you to look after? You have turned your land into a,Sodom and Gommorrah. A land of evil not as my Son taught you at all. Oh yes, Christ's teachings too was part of the Bible. He would say, what have you done to my people and land of Bethlehem and the Holy Land? You have made it into a murderous den of thieves just like when my son overthrew the money changing tables when you defiled my temple, you have learned nothing.

3

get real

 • 21.11.2025 | 17:50

It's not a war, it's a genocide. And who cares now the Bible would characterize it? Get your heads out of your fantastical myths and narratives. Look to the tangible here and now. Netanyahu is a war criminal, leading a genocide against an unarmed population of predominantly children. A genocide against the native people of the land israelis are actively stealing. A genocide that most Israelis have supported or participated in, either directly or indirectly. This is one of the single greatest atrocities. Israel, along with the Western ruling class that arms and funds it, are worse than Nazis.

2

Paul Joseph

 • 21.11.2025 | 16:43

In today's world, facts matter. On the whole, the Hebrew Bible is hardly factual. Its authors used invention or distortion to suit ulterior motives. Speculating on how the Bible would portray October 7 and the subsequent genocide in Gaza is a bizarre and fruitless endeavor

And how Israelis narrowly interpreted NEVER AGAIN not as preventing genocide but as legitimating it.

Christianity is not Christian enough, not moral enough, not true to her God/Man founder, JC of Nazareth

​People's belief in God makes it, for them, even more difficult to share the land and resources.  Because: 

God gave US/Jews ​the Promised Land of Palestine​ to us alone, not and never to you bunch of infidels and reprobates!

The US was formed out of settler colonialism and violence.  Ironically, the early European settlers were pious, prim and proper Puritans who were fundamentalists when it came to the Bible.  But non-violence was an alien concept for nearly all.

"The fruits of the earth belong to all of us and the earth itself to nobody." 

Preposterous that a God of love and justice should have created us humans who are acting like a virus on the planet, to destroy life for all.

When the history of the planet is written at the End of Time, homo sapiens will have turned out to be the shortest lived of all life on Earth.

People's belief in God makes it, for them, even more difficult for them to share the land and resources. 

God gave US/Jews the Promised Land of Palestine to us alone, not and never to you bunch of infidels and reprobates. 

"The fruits of the earth belong to all of us and the earth itself to nobody."  Not even Emperor Trump.

Linda and I, took one of our grandchildren to see the Giants exhibition in the Gas Hall at BMAG this morning.  It reminded me that humanity is in no way immune from extinction, too and, we are doing such a good job of it, too!

Waterstone's review of 'Putin and the Return of History'

This eye-opening volume explores the Ukraine war and the change in Putin’s take on the West – from the early days of his presidency as an advocate of the free-market and democracy to his current imperialist nationalism – in the context of Russia’s thousand-year past.

An original history of Russia's thousand-year past, tracing the forces and the myths that have shaped Putin's politics and rekindled the Cold War.

Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has reshaped history. In the decades after the collapse of Soviet communism, the West convinced itself that liberal democracy would henceforth be the dominant, ultimately unique, system of governance - a hubris that shaped how the West would treat Russia for the next two decades. But history wasn’t over.

Putin is a paradox. In the early years of his presidency, he appeared to commit himself to friendship with the West, suggesting that Russia could join the European Union or even NATO. He said he supported free-market democracy and civil rights. But the Putin of those years is unrecognisable today. The Putin of the 2020s is an autocratic nationalist, dedicated to repression at home and anti-Western militarism abroad. So, what happened? Was he lying when he proclaimed his support for freedom, democracy and friendship with the West? Or, was he sincere? Did he change his views at some stage between then and now? And if that is the case, what happened to change him?

Putin and the Return of History examines these questions in the context of Russia’s thousand-year past, tracing the forces and the myths that have shaped Putin’s politics of aggression: the enduring terror of encirclement by outsiders, the subjugation of the individual to the cause of the state, the collectivist values that allow the sacrifice of human lives in battle, the willingness to lie and deceive, the co-opting of religion and the belief in Great Russia’s mission to change the world.

Stanford on Teme bridleway

I have spent a couple of days 'snipping and cutting' on this important bridleway that, further west, has a trial of four different horse gates on it.  It was blocked for horses and their riders in three places.  The trial started in 2023.  In Bickenham Wood, there remains across the bridleway, which is actually more of a footpath, two fallen branches at knee height which I could not move.  Horses and walkers should be able to step over them.  At the Rectory Cottage, eastern end there is a branch that a horse rider may not be able to get under.

I believe in walkers like me, who have had a lifetime of glorious hill walking in the UK, should give something back by helping to keep our PROW network open and available for future users, as well as protecting and conserving this important part of our nation's transport infrastructure.

Please ask the landowner to finish clearing the timbers off the bridleway, and encourage the British Horse Society and walkers' groups to use it.   THANKS!

Today's caller with the "disgusting" views ...

 ... to whom you gave short shrift.​  She talked about the Ukraine/West v Russia as a continental or border war and feared that the UK would be drawn in more than we are already.  She did not want us to be targetted or increase our engagement.  Was she meaning that it was more of a civil war between Slavs from Russia and Slavs from Ukraine?

You were certain that she was defending the Nazis of the 1930s and 40s and that she was agreeing with Russia that they were fighting Nazis in Ukraine.

You were insistent that the real Nazis are the Russians and that they are intent on further expansion once they get their hands on E Ukraine.  The 1930s aggression by the Nazis was cited as what the Russians will do in this century.  There will be no stopping them, and they will be all over Europe with the UK included.

Was the 1914 war that started in Europe also one that was about European empires defending their territories they had won for themselves around the world?  In other words a border war?

Did that border war or that war between the European empires over who had what bits of land around the globe, lead onto the 1939 war after Germany was solely to blame and the punished for the '14-'18 war?

Did the Nazis come out of a Western European nation, faraway from Russia?

Has Russia been noted for Communism rather than right wing nationalism?

Would you consider the Israeli Cabinet to be more like right wing Nazis rather than left wing socialists wanting justice for the workers and peace and harmony for all classes and nations?

Are there any similarities between the continuing punishment of Hamas and everyone in Gaza, with what the Nazis did to the Jews and the other minority groups for those 12 years of horror?

What was the reason for Putin taking Crimea?

What was the cause?  The ABC, the Antecedents to the Behaviour leading to the Consequences?

Has Russia been invaded twice by W European powers in the last two centuries?

Is it three former Warsaw Pact countries that are now members of NATO?

​Was NATO formed partly out of fear that Communist Russia would expand westwards?

Was the Warsaw Pact a response to NATO?

Would you consider that with only one great military alliance now left standing that Russia may have some grounds for disquiet?

Was there a balance between the West and the USSR in the years between 1945 and 1989 and the collapse of the USSR?

Was it called Mutually Assured Destruction or MAD?

Ukraine got its independence in 1991 but even then she remained so much closer to Moscow than Washington, do you believe?

Have the last 1,000 years seen close ties but also intermittent wars between the peoples of Ukraine and the people further east?

Is it only fair and right that our Western sphere of influence should extend to every corner of the planet because we have democracy and capitalism and freedom?

There really is no longer any room for any other alternative, is there?  Is it the end of history, therefore?

Was it the Russian Empire that had the most far reaching empire in the history of the world?  One third of the land area and one fifth of the world's population?

Which empire has been the most rampant over the most land area in the centuries of its existence?

Which country has been the most aggressive, responsible for the most killings and wars?

Was it the capitalists or the communists?

We play down our own sins and concentrate on our enemies' sins which are as long as your arm!!

SUMMARY - Our own greater aggression for centuries has set a very bad example to Russia.  Our side has invaded their country twice over the last 200 years - Napoleon and Nazis.  Yet, 30 million Russians killed as they helped us 'win' in 1918 and 1945.

MORE DETAIL:

Many Westerners were far too bellicose and not even a pinch magnanimous after OUR mighty victory in the Cold War - that was actively ended by the Russians.  YES!  Actually, their victory.  Instead, we stuck the boot in by expanding NATO with some former Warsaw Pact members being allowed in.  No wonder Putin was not best pleased.

I am always so suspicious of expanding our empire or sphere of influence to take over more countries and islands like Taiwan.  We are so greedy for countries.  (In the W Midlands, also for multi-modal public transport of seven kinds!)

The Judeo-Christian world is a little too enthusiastic for other countries to come under our sphere of influence and to be like us.

Since the time of Queen Elizabeth 1 in the 1500s, we started our expansion with piracy on the high seas, looting the treasure ships of Spain and Portugal.  Britannia soon ruled the waves.  We became ruthless conquerors and a major player in the Scramble for Africa by W European nations in the later 1800s.

The Judeo-Christian nations were slow to embrace democracy because the rich and powerful, the proud self-regarding, were determined to maintain their wealth and power.

Our side was responsible for the one World War in two halves, from 1914 to 1945.  That led to the Cold War against Russia and their empire called the USSR.  Foolish decisions in the 1990s by our leader, America led to resentment in Putin and, eventually, the 2014 war against Ukraine because we wanted them part of the West, our side.  For 900 years there has been war between Russia and Ukraine.  See the Sixsmiths' book, 'Putin and the Return of History'.

The Top People who govern us explain that their wars are to fight terrorists or Communists in Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, S America.  In recent years, we end up fighting terrorists in Afghanistan (five wars lost to the Afghans since our total rout in 1839 when one British soldier survived), Iranians and Iraqis fighting us reprobates because we attack them.

Our foreign policy, even after 500 years, remains the problem.

We are the problem; not Russia

It is natural for us Brits to believe that we are pretty good throughout our history.  Unfortunately, the record is not as good as we kid ourselves into thinking it is.  In fact, the facts show that we have been much bigger aggressors for much longer than the Russians.

We also like, quite naturally, to think of other nations as worse than us, clean living, honest Brits.  So we end up pointing a finger at others we consider for worse nations, like Russia and clean forget that three fingers are pointing back at us.

The BBC International Editor, Jeremy Bowen wrote,

"Western imperialists did not invent intervention but they perfected it."*1  That was particularly true of the English who had the biggest empire the world has ever known.  That meant domination, control and forcing ourselves onto unwilling people for 400 years.  Nothing to be proud of.

Our enemy throughout the Cold War was the USSR, with Russia at its heart.  We deceive ourselves into thinking that we won and so crow about our victory.  Our misplaced triumphalism and the wrong kind of economics, which we persuaded Russia to adopt throughout the 90s, were the breeding ground for Putin's bitterness and anger towards the West.  It reinforced his Russian nationalism and distrust of the West.  It led to the current war on Ukraine.*2

Russia invaded Afghanistan in the 1980s, so we started funding and arming the Mujahedin to see them off - in 1989.  This was a repeat of the Great Game, fighting with Russia over control of Afghanistan in the 1800s.  The Mujahedin went from our friend to our enemy and we ended up fighting them.  The perverse Brits - "perfidious Albion".  Why can't these pesky foreigners understand that when we invade it is always for their good!  Full-scale war was launched on Afghanistan and the Mujahedin after 9/11 in 2001 because they hosted Osama bin Laden.

I've heard, so measured and fair, Jeremy Bowen call our intervention in both Afghanistan and Iraq "catastrophic" for their populations.

*1 'The Making of the Modern Middle East', p 18

*2  'Putin and the Return of History' by the Sixsmiths

County Council policy of MAKING visitors get lost, never to return!

Our neighbouring Shropshire CC, part of our own WMCA, through at least 13 years of negligence, boldly publicises MEOLE BRACE/SHREWSBURY PARK AND RIDE on the A5 to start drivers off on the impossible to find P&R!

Fruitless search because of wrong and missing direction signs.  Drivers, as I did on the first occasion, get lost!  Adding to the congestion and air pollution it is meant to relieve.  And accelerating the Climate Emergency and future shortages of oil and gas.

Thus, empty P&R and overflowing town centre car parks!

White poppy Red poppy

White for surrender and peace from the murderers.

Red for the shedding of blood.

The white flag hoisted to signify no more slaughter. 

White for peace instead of killings.  

Surrender is the failed violence that all too often simply leads to more violence and revenge, as in 1914.  Finally, full unconditional surrender was only achieved in 1945.  However, that led to the Cold War against our new enemy who had helped us win in 1918 and 1945.  How perverse!

White to take up non-violence, non-collaboration, diplomacy of talking and compromise.  These are rarely tried.  The gun is always reached for first or early on and, then, is very difficult and costly to stop!

What is so perditious is that the supposedly Christian/Good Samaritan/upright Western nations have been in the field of coercion, force, violence for many centuries.  It started with Queen Elizabeth 1 in the 16th century against Spain and Portugal with piracy and war on the high seas.  This led to 400 years of colonialism, violence against indigenous people and even despicable slavery (but just think how rich it made us!) for 300 years.

Settler colonialism is still seen to this day with our Israeli friends and supporters taking over so much new land in settling the Occupied West Bank.  When achieved, our side will have, for ourselves, all the land from the River to the Sea.  That started 108 years ago with our capture of Jerusalem.  David Lloyd George, described the capture as "a Christmas present for the British people".  Wikipedia. 

Over 400 years of violence and war to maintain our domination.  Even in Palestine and part of Syria, too, since our victorious entry into Jerusalem in 1917.

Red, the symbol of blood and 'Lest we forget' to wage war.  Always celebrated, approved of and praised.  But how pathetic!

The red poppy to kill and maim to protect our freedoms - the lie to ensure the war industry keeps its prominent position in society.  Good for economic growth, too!

Centuries of warring on foreign countries have made us rich beyond measure.  And, now for decades, those foreigners are desperate to get away from the legacy and actuality of foreign domination and want to come to the home country, with some drowning in the process in our useless moat!

Scandal over Park and Ride in Shrewsbury - getting visitors lost!!

ALL THE PARK AND RIDE OFFICERS/MEMBERS NEED A NON-VIOLENT BOMB PUT UNDER THEM!

Please, can all you people who want to promote Shrewsbury businesses unite to do something about Park and Ride?

Thank you for writing.  Below is the email (no reply from Liz, as yet) I wrote after my visit to your traffic choked town on Wednesday.  Choc-a-bloc Frankwell car park but pretty empty P&R car parks - and most inadequate signage and incentives for the drivers who do know where they are to use them!  And I thought that your County Council was short of money.  It is wasted on P&R.  And, on Highway head office staff being paid but no money for the subcontractor to actually buy tarmac to put in the long troughs of water where there is meant to be a road in Hinton Lane, near Pontesbury, which my family uses on their bikes and on foot!

Always lots of empty spaces at Park & Ride car parks!

Subject: Re: Park and Ride Signage Query

To: Liz Keirle <l.keirle@shropshire-chamber.co.uk>

Dear Liz

Thanks so much for writing.

I am very concerned about the value for money and the impacts on Climate and FINITE gas/oil reserves that the county's Park and Ride sites are worsening instead of helping.  I am concerned that vehicles still dominate the centre of Shrewsbury from Monday to Friday - and Saturdays' pedestrianisation has never been extended.  Is this correct because I don't visit Shrewsbury often?  I live in Halesowen and it is my daughter's family who live near Pontesbury that brings my wife and I into your attractive town - apart from the Climate worsening traffic in the town centre.  Gloucester and Halesowen do much better with traffic control.

On the A5, the Meole Brace P&R is called both by that name and as Shrewsbury P&R. I did not check on Wednesday if, after all these years, the correct signs are finally in place.  I somehow doubt it.  It would be wonderful if I was wrong!

What ls the point of P&R if it cannot be found by drivers new to Shrewsbury wanting to do the right thing? As I did on the first occasion, before I discovered the new site, they will drive around looking for the non-existent signs and adding to the congestion, wasting fuel, time and getting exasperated.  What a dreadful way to welcome visitors, tourists to your town - getting them lost!

Meole Brace P&R is NOT at Meole Brace Retail Park as some drivers new to Shrewsbury are likely to think.  In recent years, you go via a housing estate and both are hidden away from the A5 and A49/Hereford Road by woodland.  Therefore, signs at every turn are essential.  Signs in ALL the right places really are needed to avoid guessing and being led on a wild goose chase!  Are they now in place?  You get to it via Beagle Road.

QUESTIONS

I see little-used P&R buses and a full Frankwell car park.

Would more frequent minibuses from P&R sites help to keep cars out of Shrewsbury?

What is the subsidy per person that the County Council is paying?

What is the impact on congestion/air pollution/Climate in Shrewsbury?

What can be done to make P&R more popular?

What is the point of them if they are not used?

Why is my old person's fare-free English bus pass not valid on P&R buses?

Is it essential that there be a hefty financial inducement and effective publicity to use P&R instead of driving into town?

Would Fare-Free Public Transport for all ages help as seen in other places in Western Europe?

What are the statistics for ALL the P&R sites in Shropshire?

Shrewsbury may be one of the top ten tourist attractions in the UK.  Visitors will be put off Shrewsbury by useless P&R sites when they could be part of weaning us off our present over-dependence on cars at this time of depleting oil/gas reserves and a deepening Climate Emergency.

Please reply and put me right over what is going wrong/right in Shrewsbury and Telford P&R sites.

I AM FIRMLY ON THE SIDE OF THE BBC - my unbiased, national public broadcaster

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/nov/13/bbc-apologises-to-donald-trump-over-edit-of-speech-for-panorama?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other 

Watch the video clip comparison.  Nothing for the BBC to be ashamed about.  Nothing to show.  A storm in a teacup.  Ludicrous!  54 minutes thankfully and sensibly cut out!

I feel I am almost being bludgeoned into accepting these "serious mistakes", misleading edits" and the "BBC is not impartial/unbiased".  Putin, Netanyahu, Trump and his spokesperson Starmer are the problem, not the BBC.  These named men are slaughtering tens of thousands of people like me.  Let's get our concerns right.  Only recently have Netanyahu/Trump & co stopped the war on Gaza on the previous massive scale.  But the killings and horrors continue at a slower rate.

Did you spot, when watching 'Newsnight', that they also had a big gap in Trump's speech?  They also made the 'wrong' edit that supposedly denigrated Trump or gave the impression he was calling for violence.  Why did this ghastly man fail to make it clear that he was a man of non-violence when encouraging his people to "fight like hell" (non-violently he should have said)?  I seem to be the only one who is forever going on about non-violence like the Quakers, the Amish, the Mennonites, Mohammed Ali, Donald Soper, Martin Luther King Jnr, Jesus Christ and many others.  When will Donald and Keir join me?

Questions for Mayor on 17 December 2025

 When our country has a deficit between £2 and £3 TRILLION and the interest alone, each and every year, is equal to the total yearly budgets of both departments of Education and Defence/War (Jeremy Vine himself on his show, Nov 2025) ...

Why are you wasting more public funds to add to that deficit by spending £15 BILLION* to 2040 to convert yet more existing railway lines and bus routes into 150 miles, 380 tramstops and 8 lines of tramways?

*January 2020 figure from former Mayor Andy Street.

"Polanski is making a splash" Jeremy Vine on 13.11.25

"Everything he (Keir Starmer) ends up doing seems to be more left-wing than he wanted to."

"If you make a promise at an election that you are not going to raise VAT or income tax and you know there is a black hole, a deficit in the economy.  You say, 'Well sorry everyone, actually we are going to.'  You have to have another election, haven't you?"

Anthony Seldon - good stuff, but ...

 https://observer.co.uk/news/opinion-and-ideas/article/in-1945-we-said-never-again-yet-already-weve-forgotten 

... the Warsaw Pact was a reaction to NATO, I understand. Certainly, NATO came first. I'll check, however.  See PS.

And, magnanimity instead of triumphalism, together with the disbanding of NATO and more generous and sensible economic help for Russia (see the Sixsmiths book) would have all helped Putin to avoid or, to extinguish, his terrible, jealous, hate-filled feelings towards the West. We (USA) well and truly put the boot in after 1991, it seems. No wonder we got Putin. Partly, a monster of our own making. 

This charge of bias at the BBC is like the charge of institutional AS at the Labour Party under Corbyn's leadership. Tiny errors at the BBC blown up out of all proportion by its enemies/opponents or overcritical/zealous listeners/viewers. One of them was a man who went to set up GB News.

Perhaps, Tim Davie was like Corbyn - totally unable to hit back strongly and effectively to call it out for what it was - ridiculous OTT overreaction, in my opinion. My Linda is like those Messianic Christians who are so pro Israel's vicious governments for 77 years of expansion at the expense of the Palestinians, that they have always been against the BBC with its lies and bias, as they call it. They have their own pro Israel broadcasters - like WIN! (World Israel News)

Linda believes that Israel was freely given the land in 1948 and that Ariel Sharon in 2005, gave Gaza to the Palestinians out of the goodness of his big, generous heart!.  I thought, he did it to make it easier for his air strikes to miss Jews living in Gaza, mainly in the south. But, I've heard this from the pro Palestinians, Biased Broadcasting Corporation programme - a man interviewed who lived in Gaza.  What is the truth?

If you cross Israel, you are bound to get it in the neck.  I found that out from Lord Ian Austin who wrote to me!

Tim

PS

"The Warsaw Pact was formed on May 14, 1955, as a military alliance of communist states in Central and Eastern Europe, led by the Soviet Union. Its creation was a direct response to West Germany joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The treaty was officially known as the Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation and Mutual Assistance."

My Remembrance Sunday diatribe

For the sake of freedom we must kill and be killed and then we are called the 'Glorious Dead'.

Only by killing and being killed can we lay down our lives for our friends and be called 'Glorious' in the annual Remembrance Service at the Cenotaph. 

Do you have the guts to resist warfare and to renounce our 80 years of weapons manufacturing to enable the slaughter to continue in the unHoly Land? If so, you will be called a loonie leftie or a Communist or a "cheese-eating surrender monkey".

Our soldiers so love their wars they play them down as 'conflicts'. These deluded aggressors think it brings a just peace and freedom for their side. It leads to revenge as we saw from 1919 to 1945.

Our war mongers forget that the irrational, foolish 1914 World War, ​w​as encouraged by the winner in the year 2000 of 'The Greatest Briton Who Ever Lived' contest on TV. The '14 War led to the '39 War. That led to the Cold War, ​with many more millions slaughtered by our Judeo-Christian Western weapons in the Far East, Middle East and our Western-backed coups in South America.

All these catastrophes by the fine, upstanding, freedom-loving, Democratic nations. Our democracies excuse warfare and the horrors WE bring to people, like Palestinians​. We may never give them their land back but at least we can end the export of everything military to Israel and to so many other countries​ to fuel war.

Palestine is now Israel which is our great friend, ally and part of the all-dominating, domineering, warring West.  Can Israel ever transition to a multi-faith, multi-cultural, truly international and inclusive State of many peoples?  That seems unlikely as the world's only Jewish state with Jews alone in control. Can the Jews/Christians ever be able to share the land with Muslims and other faiths?  Religion is part of the problem when it should be part of the solution. 

Remember - "Lest we forget" to wage War to bring our Freedom and Democracy throughout the world. And end up like Israel - the epitomy of everything unfortunate and different from the life and teaching of the man who walked over their ground 2,000 years ago​.

Mythbusting Climate Denial from cacctu.org.uk/yoa

Climate breakdown is affecting us already

UK temperatures reached a 40C record in 2022, and our homes and workplaces are badly equipped to deal with heatwaves, contributing to excess deaths. In the UK, and around the world, farmers' crop yields have been hit by drought and floods, driving up food prices. Firefighters are having to battle both wildfires and floods. If we don’t take action on climate change we will see climate disasters getting more frequent and more severe

Drilling for fossil fuels won’t give us cheap energy

Gas prices are set by the global market so oil companies (who own the oil and gas extracted) will sell it on internationally for the highest price they can get. And North Sea oil fields are running out. Whatever decisions are made about new oil fields, in just 15 years’ time they will be able to supply at most around a sixth of the gas we currently burn. Meanwhile, the cost of renewable energy has fallen dramatically - sun and wind are now the cheapest forms of power generation. We need to invest in energy for our future and a transition that secures decent and sustainable jobs for North Sea workers - not false promises.

https://www.cacctu.org.uk/sites/data/files/sites/data/files/Docs/five_things_flyer_0.pdf

Just watched the 2021 film 'Belfast'

It reminded me of the violence and killings of last century's horrors in Ireland from the Catholics and Protestants.

Then, this week's new David Olusoga TV series on the coercive, forcing ourselves upon the native populations of far-off islands and one subcontinent. Violence at the core of my ancestors' activities!

Next, every single day of my life has seen my Christian nation caving in to Jewish terrorism and allowing our Jewish cousins to gain (or keep) more land from every war they have fought since 1948.

All of this violent force by Jews and Christians to oust or slaughter their fellow humans.

I am ashamed of my ancestors and of my country, which behaves so abominably - STILL TO THIS DAY!!

The followers of the non-violent Christ have, for centuries, set the most disgraceful example to Muslims and all other peoples of this planet. They have let the side down - and their faith, which became corrupted when followers of the Way of Christ were joined by Emperor Constantine in 300 CE, and soldiering became much more popular for Christian believers.  Similarly, from the outset, for Muslims in 600 CE onwards.

Why are our highly paid top officers and politicians insisting on wealth flaunting tramways through deprived areas?

Why are our highly paid top officers and politicians, admittedly well-meaning but, so out of touch, in insisting on wealth flaunting tramways through deprived areas of Brum and Cardiff?  And so deluded that they think that two mainline railways in the heart of England must be reopened for slow trams, only twenty years after finishing the total obliteration of the first tramway network.  Exchanging electric trams for smelly, polluting diesel buses!  What a joke!

National tram promotion group, Tram UK, call trams "buses on rails".  Trams are the second most expensive transport mode to construct after High Scam 2. Why have I called it a dishonest scam, do you think?

Why are deprived people, deprived of food and money to keep warm, getting flash, fancy, very extravagant, "bus on rails" trams, of all things?

Have you ever asked your deprived taxpayers what they want?

What is wrong with using the funds for Fare-free Public Transport, especially buses, which I have had for nearly 18 years?

Are your priorities perverse and immoral, contrary to Climate considerations and our rapidly depleting gas and oil reserves?

Climate cooling for all

The climate impact of the richest 1%, globally, is the same as that of the poorest two-thirds of humanity.

We have to invest now in using finite fossil fuels to cut use of them in the medium to long term, as we rapidly use up our reserves of oil and gas.

Yet, our wealthy society still wants more public transport modes to cut congestion, air pollution and Climate problems - 7 different rail modes, alone plus regular buses and high expense Sprint buses!

Just get the regular trains, not trams, on our existing but unused railway lines, with FFPT for all, not just my old crocks age group.

FFPT = Fare-Free Public Transport

Net Zero = using Nature thickened up and extended to absorb CO2 = Climate Calming.

"Climate breakdown is affecting us already UK temperatures reached a 40C record in 2022, and our homes and workplaces are badly equipped to deal with heatwaves, contributing to excess deaths. In the UK, and around the world, farmers' crop yields have been hit by drought and floods, driving up food prices. Firefighters are having to battle both wildfires and floods"

From:  https://www.cacctu.org.uk/sites/data/files/sites/data/files/Docs/five_things_flyer_0.pdf

Reform now accepts the UK's £2-3 TRILLION deficit

 The yearly interest, alone, now amounts to the total yearly expenditure of both the Depts of Education and Defence/War.

STOP the foolish, irresponsible waste of spending billions on your 40 years of converting two mainline railways and bus routes into tramways.

NO MORE tramways, just railways with TRAINS not trams and Fare-Free Public Transport extended to all with the billions saved.  Stand up to your Snr Leadership Team at Tram HQ.

WE ALL LOVE TRAMS, but ... !

... but they destroyed railway lines and bus routes to create more changes, hence delays, in the multi-modal plethora of public transport modes - 7 rail modes, alone!  2 modes for buses - regular and Sprint.  What good is that?

THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN:

High speed rail - High Scam 2 for the frequent flyers to give them a break from planes all the time.

Heavy rail - regular trains steadily destroyed for roads, buildings and trams.

Freight rail - they don't allow passenger trains on our freight only railway lines in the West Midlands, only trams!

Light rail - trams taking over former, successful for 100 years, railway lines.

Very light rail - Coventry is the Electric Bus City of the UK but they also get VLR and LR!

Ultra-light rail - sensible for the 1.2 Kms Stourbridge Shuttle in the West Midlands

VLR test track over 2 Kms of the railway​

 "of national strategic significance".pdf

​on one of only two north-south railways between the Irish Sea and Birmingham.  On the Black Country Railway between London and Edinburgh, no less!!

Richard Guttridge Agenda Editor 12:26, 31 Oct 2025

A huge tax shake-up could see drivers charged based on how far they travel.

The Government is reportedly considering a new pay-per-mile system to replace fuel duty.

It comes amid concerns over falling fuel duty revenue as more Brits switch to electric cars each year.  Instead, motorists could pay tax based on how many miles they travel.

It would result in higher costs for those who rely on their cars for work or long commutes, though ministers argue these drivers already pay more for fuel.

It's unclear what the charge would be, with estimates ranging from 3p per mile to 15p, and an announcement could come at November's Budget.

The average driver covers 7,000 miles annually. They would face an outlay ranging between £210 and £1,050.

Those who do a long daily commute could be left paying thousands under new rules.

Rhydian Jones, motoring expert at Confused.com, said: "Ahead of the Chancellor’s Autumn Budget, discussions continue around the possibility of introducing a pay-per-mile tax for drivers.

"This kind of system would mean motorists pay road tax based on how much they drive, rather than a fixed yearly amount.

“This could benefit those who drive less, such as remote workers and pensioners but it could also raise costs for those who rely on their cars more heavily, including commuters and families in rural areas.

"A move like this would mark a major shift in how motorists are taxed and could redefine the cost of driving for millions across the UK, and could also give another boost to drivers going green in an effort to cut down on longer term costs."

FROM:

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/motoring/motoring-news/drivers-who-over-7000-miles-32788117?int_source=nba