MY CONDITIONS FOR WITHDRAWING TO FAVOUR ANDY

And copied into the Mayor's Office for their information and action to get me on board, out of the running and well out of the way - please!  MAYOR'S OFFICE, please confirm receipt and action, quickly.

My conditions for withdrawing to help Andy in 2020

I also think Andy was an excellent choice and hope he gets in, again next year.  I do like him and support him whenever I can.  I really don't want to take votes off him, if I do go ahead with standing as an Independent.  But, he must be outspoken against tram extensions; but, for putting the commuter/regional trains and stations back, starting with the completion of the 120 Kms Black Country Railway - extremely urgently and before the Camp Hill line; and, introducing a sea change in our commuting habits.  That is, twelve month, A456 Hagley Road experiment of:

• never taking the car into Brum city centre unless it is essential for your major business livelihood or, there are at least two adult passengers in the car.  Strict enforcement by random roadside checks when traffic is stationary; and CCTV.  Hefty financial penalties for transgressing.  Once you are down to one passenger or solo, you must go into the slower, outside lane immediately.
• This is done by 100% bus lanes on every nearside lane of the no 9 bus route and traffic light priority for buses and other vehicles permitted in the bus lane.
• Cancellation of elite, very expensive Sprint to allow for every bus to be similarly favoured.  The roll out of Platinum buses makes Sprint unnecessary at this time.
• Electric buses, asap, must be the mass transit for commuters and not anymore tram extensions.

MASS TRANSIT FOR ALL AND NOT THE LUCKY FEW on a tram line.

Common misunderstandings over Metro trams

To be fair this isn’t my area of understanding.  If I get elected, I don’t believe this will be a subject I will be invited to contribute towards.  Because the vast majority are oblivious to the phenomenal cost of trams to replace buses and trains and to push buses out and to turn our local mainline railway into a piddling little shuttle tram line, a test track, a trail of trees and a cycle-walkway.  If the money can't be used to get Network Fail and TfWM/WMCA to FINISH the railway with the forgotten trains and stations, then the money should go to offset years of cuts to the Police, NHS/social care, education.

Trams of course seem to be very much part of WM combined authority vision. Because they have been improperly influenced by vested interests.  The national tram promotion group is in the same building as TfWM/WMCA that have easily been influenced to go for trams instead of the more obvious and sensible measures to reduce urban congestion and air pollution.  Earlier this decade, three top people in UK Tram Ltd were also top people in Centro.  Complicity + collusion = corruption.  And since their introduction they have been very popular as a form of rapid transport.  PTA/Centro got the money in the 1990s by declaring (exaggerating/lying) that passenger numbers would be 15 to 20 million every year.  Only with the extension, that misses out Snow Hill and goes straight to Grand Central Shopping Centre did it rise to 6 million a year.  They got the money because the sole reason for the extension was to connect Snow Hill with Grand Central - NOT to bypass Snow Hill as has been shown to be the true objective!  They have become the WM version of the Tube.  Yes.  The WM version of putting Tube trains on the Eurostar, HS1 line to Paris, in the case of the Wednesbury to Brierley Hill extension.  Pretty idiotic!  They have more money than sense.

Rail is an alternative means of transport and reintroducing the historic lines is an infrastructure cost that perhaps should be argued in addition to rapid light transport, from memory the Wolverhampton segment utilised a fair amount of former rail infrastructure.  Please read my:

 THE TRAGEDY OF TRAMS WRECKING OUR RAILWAY NETWORK

and,

 Railfuture's full map.pdf

 Raillfuture text 01.pdf

 Raillfuture text 02.pdf

Thanks for responding.  I am a fan of trams, although I don't like the cheap and nasty hard, plastic seats on our Metro trams!  If the 1950s was today, I would be insisting that the authorities should NOT dismantle the tram network for diesel buses.  Simply modernise the trams instead of destroying them.  Wise and sensible expenditure.  Like my proposals for seeing a sea change in social attitudes towards bus/bike commuting instead of car commuting to free up the road space for essential business vehicle users.  My family has started!

IAN AUSTIN'S ARTICLE ON CHURCHILL

Dear Ian - copied to Express and Star reporters who published your piece and to your assistant Cllr Keiran and to former Defence Secretary, Michael Portillo for comments/correction, please.

You are as enthusiastic for dear Winston as Andrew Roberts.  We all have our prejudices! But do take a look at Andrew Marr's book, 'A History of Modern Britain'.  My own thoughts on Britain's Greatest Briton are these that gives a different perspective and are influenced by Marr and the 99 year old interviewed on the 'Today' programme earlier this month.  I think we are all a mixture of good and evil and of hero and villain. We are all frail and flimsy. Please hear both sides of the argument.

1. Churchill loved action, militarism, imperialism, nationalism and the thrill of warfare.  He loved nothing better than a good scrap.
2. He would have loved the British empire to have lasted "for a thousand years" to rival Hitler's Third Reich.  But both were no more after the one World War in two halves. Winston's greater love for war did it for Empire - both Germany and ours.
3. He was a leading protagonist for war in the Cabinet discussions up to 4 August 1914 declaration of war, from what I have read.
4. Yet, this was a war that was nearly lost, by our side, in the first few weeks.
5. This was war, more than once, that could have gone either way.  Only the USA intervention in 1917 turned it in our favour.
6. There was a 'peace' treaty that seems to have failed to recognise the above facts. It was hardly a treaty that was magnanimous in victory - a wonderful phrase attributed to dear Winston.  Akin to "justice tempered with mercy."
7. Even IDS, the former Conservative leader, has spoken of how that disastrous war led to its sequel in 1939.
8. According to Marr, on the 28 May 1940 at the time of the Dunkirk evacuation, if it had been only Conservative politicians present who wanted to cut a deal with Hitler, Churchill would have been outvoted.  The Conservative Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax had found "Hitler most sincere and Goering frankly attractive." However, Clement Attlee and Arthur Greenwood, the two Labour men in the Government of National Unity, "were solid for fighting on and so, by a squeak, Churchill had his majority." (Marr)
9. Marr has most of the Establishment and many Conservatives, looking on Churchill as "a rather ridiculous, drunken, dodgy man with a penchant for wild speeches and silly hats.  Behind their gloved hands, they called him the rogue elephant, even the gangster." In Labour circles, he was seen as an enemy of the working class, a pink faced toff who called in the army against strikers.  Tonypandy, first time?
10. When he won his majority for war on the 28 May 1940, Churchill told the full War Cabinet, that they were all to fight on to the death.  There would be no parley or surrender. "Let it end only when each one of us lies choking in his own blood upon the ground."
11. Therefore, twice, Churchill wanted all out total war to the death.  The first half imperial war led to the second half in 1939. Surprisingly, two Labour MPs gave him his majority for our nation to fight on after Dunkirk.  One was the Labour leader, Attlee and the other was Arthur Greenwood.  The Conservatives, Halifax and Chamberlain wanted to parley and surrender.  It was the Labour Party that won the war (and lost the peace) and not the Conservatives!!
12. Much later, Attlee led us into the Korean War that had disastrous consequences for that peninsular to this day.
13. It was Attlee who gave us our own deadly WMD with their amassment and renewal by every government, including Labour, ever since.  So much for Labour politicians being wimps for glorious, heroic war! Only in 2015, did the latest new Labour Party leader pronounce that, for him, "war must be the last resort".  And the man still hangs on to this day. Extraordinary!
14. For Churchill and the War Cabinet, when victory was certain for our side in February 1945, it ended for 24,000 Dresden residents not in blood but in fire, flame and burning flesh.  Listen on BBC Sounds. My e-mail to Ian on 14 Feb, here: "Did you hear that 99 year old hero soldier, Victor Gregg, from the 2nd World War who was interviewed on Monday 11 Feb on the 'Today' programme?  He survived the war solely because Churchill and Harris ordered the fire bombing of Dresden in February 1945. His book is called 'Dresden: A Survivor's Story'. His interview starts at 0742:50 hrs."
15. Churchill might easily have lost the war in 1940/1 but the USA came to our rescue in 1941.
16. Radar was an important factor in us winning the Battle of Britain, together with the young pilots and not Winston's magnificent, morale boosting oratory.
17. As Margaret Thatcher was so lucky with her enemies (Galtieri and Scargill), Winston was lucky with his friends in North America and the Empire that won it for him.  Give credit where credit is due.
18. Was it Churchill who thought up the idea of convoys to protect our merchant shipping?  That was a real brainwave.
19. There was Hitler's massive mistakes, of course that helped the Brits and Americans and, the Empire to win.
20. The Soviet Union and Stalin diverted the Nazi war effort onto the Eastern Front.  Did Churchill ever formally thank the USSR for their invaluable help and sacrifice?
21. 20 to 30 million Russians died defending our shores from Hitler.
22. Have you ever bowed your head in silent remembrance of the death and sacrifice of those millions of evil Commies, Ian?
23. Correlli Barnett wrote something like, "In 1945, we were psychologically victorious but, materially defeated and economically bankrupt."

​Anyone is welcome to correct my history or to expand on these notes, here - please.

Will it take school children to shame us into action?

Dear Deborah, Laura and Waseem

I am hoping to stand as an Independent candidate in next year's election for Metro Mayor because I am so concerned that after fifty years of studying, working and living in the Black Country and Birmingham, road traffic congestion is as bad as it has ever been.

I am asking if you two chief officers and leaders in our community, would please consider giving bus passengers faster journeys into the city centre at the expense of car commuters.  Modal shift from car to bus, in particular is urgent, if only to free up road space for essential car users who need to get about on their lawful business.  Quite apart from the urgent action needed to drastically reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

My own suggestions are these:

1. An experiment on Hagley Road from Halesowen bus station to Five Ways where the nearside lane that carries a bus route is used in its entirety for buses, coaches, taxis, bikes and three to a car sharing.
2. Car sharing for the driver and two passengers over 18 to use the bus lane.
3. Legitimate vehicles in the bus lane to have traffic lights weighted in their favour to the disadvantage of the outside lane.  Or, only buses approaching a traffic light changes it to green.
4. Has this been tried anywhere else in the world?  What do progressive nations like Norway do to boost bus use?
5. Can we learn from TfL who seem to be more successful in getting people to use buses?
6. There is a total of £1.41 BILLION to 2026, for five tram extensions, now going into digging up roads on the nearside lane to replace some buses and to prevent commuter/regional trains from returning to our full 120 Kms mainline railway.
7. Instead of "buses on rails" on rails on roads, buses on roads.
8. Can this money, under devolution, be used to slash bus fares or to even give fareless buses for all and not just the few lucky ones like me?  And, the money used to speed the transition to electric buses?
9. Random or constant camera enforcement at traffic lights.
10. Every bus becomes a Sprint bus.

Is any of this practical?  There has never been an experiment of this nature, as far as I am aware.

Can my suggestions be officially put on the table for you all to discuss, please?  I welcome being put on the spot with difficult questions slung in my direction!

With best wishes

Report on 6 Feb 'Ask the Dudley Leaders' Question Time'

Four Dudley leaders.  These were the Police - Chief Superintendent Sally Bourner (she used the bus and ran to join the panel - brilliant!); Health - the Director from the Clinical Commissioning Group; Dudley College Principal; and, Cllr Qadar Zada, Leader of Dudley MBC

Cllr Qada's top three issues are rough sleepers, fly tipping and community trouble, said the Chair.

FLY TIPPING

"Assist those who want to do something about fly tipping", said Cllr Qadar.  "I have invested several hundred thousand pounds in a deep clean programme to target every fly tipping zone in the borough and will increase enforcement ... We will clean the borough up ... Clearing 7,500 gullies so we don't have flooding ... Together we can solve some of the problems ... empowering local residents to help them deal with anti-social behaviour and litter ... we are targeting troubled trees.

CAVENDISH HOUSE

Due for demolition ... dilapidated ... £664,000 from the Black Country LEP to demolish it.  £82m will be invested by the company to redevelop the site.  Qadar would like to demolish the building in person if that was possible.

SELF Can the site be used for one and two bedroom apartments to reduce the housing crisis and help rough sleepers?

DUDLEY HIPPODROME

Qadar said, "We have an exciting set of plans from a consortium ... with £9 m of investment" (for that site).

SELF: Keep the facade and convert to apartments, as above.

TRAVELLERS

"Travellers on Flood St for the last 3 weeks with a porta loo", said Qadar.  "This is an isolated case.  We have agreed a departure date for them" but we were not given the date.  "We do not want illegal encampments in our borough.  Our approach to travellers is very robust ... We will have a permanent travellers site with a range of other measures.  We are still committed to that.  W, e will have borough wide injunctions.  We will lock down the parks ... People are not prejudiced in Dudley."

SELF:  Flood Street is to have the swish, glitzy, glamorous "bus on rails" Metro tram gliding down it to Merry Hill.  £343 m to achieve this; yet, Qadar said that the council has been denied £71 m since 2010 in reductions in government grants to run their services.  The lost £71 m has gone to Metro to replace some buses and trains.

POTHOLES

"Talk to Dudley Council Plus website to report a pothole", said Qadar.  "We must make roads safe for people to drive on."

BURGLARY

"One of our top priorities alongside violent crime and organised vehicle crime", said Sally Bourne.  "We will use overt and covert resources to target these gangs.  Four or five burglaries a day.  Targeting car key burglary."

AUTONOMOUS VEHICLE CENTRE

"It will make us one of the leaders in advanced technology to make sure we don't get left behind" - Qadar Zada

"With it taking over the Hippodrome site it will become part of Innovation Park which will have the VLR centre, plus autonomous vehicles and the Institute of Technology" - Neil Thomas, Principal, Dudley College.

LOCAL TOWN CENTRES

"The High St is a challenge up and down the country ... with online shopping.  We are taking on board the Preston model by growing the local economy.  It adds social value.  Our contracts will purchase within Dudley.  Free car parking has not had a major impact on footfall.  No overwhelming attendance.  More people want to live in the town centre - Qadar

BRING BACK SPEEDWAY

Qadar: We are committed to bringing it back.  Tell us where it can go.  I have asked officers to look at those sites.

Self: What about bringing back the railway, to finish it, instead of the short tramway to cut it in half to make for a train-tram-train mainline railway - a world first?!

PROPER RECYCLING BINS WANTED

We will introduce in every ward, recycling bins for segregated waste in every town.  It is a massive part of our agenda.

ROUGH SLEEPERS

No mention by the four leaders or the public in Facebook comments.  Only by the Chair, once.

ENVIRONMENT AND TRANSPORT

My question was read out by the Black Country Radio chair.  Who was he?  He never told us!

Cllr Qada - copied into this e-mail - said, "I'm in constant dialogue with Tim".  CORRECTION: He might get constant e-mails from me (like the rest of you!) but it is all one way.  A monotonous monologue and no dialogue, so far!  He will not send a single e-mail or deign to see me - as yet.  He is not interested in hearing the other side of the case.  A one sided leader with a closed mind.

In his answer to my question, he said that "improving cycling routes is being worked on."  Does this include the 20 Kms Black Country Cycle-Walk Mudway; and, signs and leaflets for the Dudley town centre to Brum city centre traffic free cycling route to tell people about it and to keep them on the route?

Qadar said that he wants to reduce nitrogen oxides, a greener housing agenda and is getting more mobile air sensors.

"The environment is very important to us ... We can't deliver on what Tim would like us to do ... Lots of other people do want Metro trams and they are a modern way of improving public transport ..."

MY RESPONSE: I love riding on trams (apart from the hard plastic seats!) but their enormous cost of installation has been at the expense of commuter/regional trains returning to our existing urban, double track railway lines that have not yet been turned into roads, housing and trading estates by planning committees of Dudley MBC.

LATEST NEWS:

This week, the Birmingham Post reported that the Metro Eastside extension has now gone up to £152.2 m for 1.7 Kms and will not be opened in time for the Commonwealth Games in 2022.  Just think how the £1.41 BILLION to 2026 on trams replacing buses and trains could be used to reverse the decline in bus use and more greenhouse gases!

BBC NEWS SITE:  Roger Harrabin on 5 Feb -  Headline: "TRANSPORT WAS THE LARGEST EMITTING SECTOR OF GREENHOUSE GASES IN 2017  On aviation, planes are getting more efficient - but that’s being overtaken by the growth in the amount people fly – and the government is expanding capacity at airports.

It’s a similar picture on trains. Humble local trains help reduce motoring– but commuter services are starved of cash whilst billions are poured into HS2."

SELF: Yes.  Humble local trains help to reduce motoring but trains are not allowed on the 120 Kms Black Country Railway through Dudley because of the obsession with trams at UK Tram Ltd HQ at Transport HQ.  Vested interests at work, aka collusion, complicity, corruption.  Network Rail has also banned commuter trains until the 2040s at the earliest and, then, only freight trains are allowed - aka incompetence, idiocy, illogicality!!

Donald Tusk on his special place

There is a special place in heaven for all those who repent.  Especially, those bright sparks at transport HQ + every cllr, MP, MEP and one Metro Mayor who all think that Metro trams are the silver bullet to solve our road and railway congestion problems in Brum and in Dudley (rundown) town centre. Their sketch of a plan features the second most expensive transport mode after HS2. Tram extensions are up to 3 times more expensive, per Km than building a 6 lane motorway. All this to supplant existing buses and trains. Brexit just can't compete with this idiocy!

Brexit is costing us billions and ratcheting up fossil fuel use at the very time when we should be reversing this ecocidal behaviour.  Even more is being spent on vanity, prestigious projects like HS2 (£55.7 billion) and £1.41 billion, for installation alone, on replacing only a few buses and trains with trams at £3 m each.  This is ecocidal idiocy.  Retrenchment is urgent out of self interest, alone.  That means trains and stations, urgently, on the 106 Kms of surviving train lines.  Fareless, electric buses on 100% dedicated bus lanes with traffic light priority for them, not commuter cars.  SCRAP £112 m ​spending on ​SPRINT buses​ for the few​, too.  Put the money into existing buses​ for all​.​  BUS FIRST, NOT CARS or, trams for the lucky few.​

A sea change in social attitudes is urgent to free up road space for essential users, by commuters using fareless buses, trains on train lines, biking and walking.  Give businesses less congested roads to cut their fossil fuel use.

Moral choices are vital; not vanity choices - HS2, Metro and Sprint - that entrench us in enhancing the natural, protective greenhouse layer.

READ today's IPPR report on reducing our over consumption, over-fishing, decarbonising our economy, carbon neutral homes, carbon sequestration, the impact of human climate change and the loss of life giving habitats on the planet.  Halve our emissions by 2030.  "We have to do multiple things simultaneously in an integrated way ... working together."  ('Today' on Radio 4, 12 Feb 2019)

The Stumbling Block to Brexit

Your correspondent Peter Hill is gung ho about the success of Brexit - deal or no deal.  The snag is that our Disunited Kingdom is now split down the middle.  Our remain Prime Minister converted to leave has done her level best to sort out the wishes of the 52% but, after two years of talks, things are at a pretty pass.  She has failed miserably and MPs are taking over to see what they can do.

In addition, two of our kingdoms voted leave and the other two voted remain.  From last week's excellent Radio 4 programme called 'Brexit and Ireland: What's at Stake?', about 30% of N Irish voters vote DUP that is propping up London's government and there are about equal numbers of English nationalists in N Ireland wanting to remain with England, as there are republicans wanting nothing done to distance themselves from the Republic of Ireland.  Ireland and the border barely got a look in three years ago in the referendum campaign.  We now learn that this matter is a major stumbling block to Brexit.  A week or two ago, dissident republicans exploded a car bomb in Derry/Londonderry.  It seems that they are getting very on edge about English nationalists in their own community and in England voting for Brexit that may destabilise the twenty year old Peace Agreement that brought sensible compromise, a cessation of violence and Paisley and McGuinness being called the Chuckle Brothers they got on so well in government.

Will Brexit now bring about the 'Troubles, Part 2' in N Ireland?  Are we all a good deal wiser about a break up that may have deadly consequences for N Ireland, in particular?  I, certainly, am better informed.

Not Facebook but face to face on Mon 4 Feb 2019

Rough Sleepers and very rough justice  RAISE THE ISSUE ONLINE!

I know that Ernest and Clare are organising an official HGJG meeting for Feb.  This is an additional one for those who are as concerned as I am about injustice, idiocy and ignorance right on our doorstep.

Please come to my home, 28 Hunnington Cres  Halesowen B63 3DJ (3 storey town house with red car) at 7.30 pm on Monday 4 Feb - a week today.  The idea is for us to ask questions on Dudley Council's online forum two days later.  My ideas are below.  Let's discuss all our concerns and, perhaps, get some positive, practical and sensible action from our elected councillors.

"Online forums

If you are unable to join us at a community forum meeting you can still take part through our online forums which take place on the council's Dudley Borough Facebook page and @DudleyMBC Twitter feed, from 6-7pm ahead of each round of community forum meetings. Questions and issues raised via Facebook and Twitter are forwarded onto the relevant council service to be dealt with."  https://www.dudley.gov.uk/council-community/community-council/

For me, Ernest, you are one showing real leadership over what is going so wrong in our borough.  Rough sleepers are the iceberg because they are so visible on our streets.  I think they are symptomatic of inadequate housing provision, of overcrowding and desperate poverty that, regrettably means that voluntary food banks are essential to stop some from starving.  This, in an extremely wealthy nation - in the top five - out of over 190 nations in the UN.  THIS IS A SCANDAL.

Our nation is so obscenely rich, we are now seeing the spending of the grossly immoral £1.38 BILLION to replace only some buses and to destroy any hope of commuter and regional trains from returning, one day, to our own railway "of national and strategic significance" to relieve chronic road and railway congestion in the Black Country and Brum.

QUESTIONS FOR DUDLEY COUNCIL'S 6 FEB ONLINE FORUM - from the comfort of your living room

How about saving the facade of Dudley Hippodrome and building apartments, behind, for first time buyers, and tenants? Or, supported housing for rough sleepers?

What about a new Dudley Central Mosque to replace the shabby, shameful one when the flash, glitzy and glamorous and gloriously expensive trams come swishing by?

Ever thought of putting commuter and regional trains on your wasted railway at new town centre, Castle Gate?  A station there to get passengers to Walsall and beyond and, to Brum by TRAIN!

Is it really just and moral to spend over £343 m to build a most impressive looking electric tram through rundown Dudley town centre when buses are already doing the job just as well and there are many low income Dudley residents who might appreciate free bus use, as disabled and elderly people like me have had for over ten years? Or, the money used for the NHS? Or, free NHS car parks?

In addition, over £2.5 m for each new tram at ten times the price of a new double decker bus.

One disgraceful looking Dudley Central Mosque, a casino, an unusual looking JW Kingdom Hall, a martial arts centre and one wasted Hippodrome are all on Castle Hill dual carriageway. That line of interesting looking buildings is relieved by a smart and most presentable Station Hotel. Yet, the reinstatement of the station, opposite the hotel to relieve congestion and poisonous air and to slow human climate change is not even wanted by our leaders. They only want a piddling little shuttle tram stop to shuttle passengers on our former, half finished, mainline railway to our neighbour's mainline railway at Dudley Port that is in Sandwell!

Tim Weller   Independent candidate for W Mids Metro Mayor 2020 to instil some urgency into how changes in transport policy can reduce the impact of human climate change and postpone Attenborough's "collapse of civilisations" and "extinction of much of the natural world" warning.

3 others give their thoughts on same sex attraction

Hello Tim and All!

I have nearly finished Mark Dowd’s book, and have laughed and cried through it. It is very well written. You may know that my daughter is gay, has just changed her job at Lordswood High to becoming a housemistress in the Upper Sixth House at Tudor Hall School in Banbury and is happily married to Laura. In all their jobs they have hardly ever experienced any homophobic attitudes, but I am not naive enough to think that homophobia has been eradicated, but it impacts on lives much less than it did. Surely we have moved on from this bigotry so far into the 21st Century, and I am sorry your church members in particular have expressed their regressive views in this way.

I find it it distressing that CHURCH people found Mark Dowd’s Presentation offensive - I think the one thing to ask them is ‘What view would Jesus Christ take? We all know the answer! I actually find THEIR views offensive. As for promoting his book, I feel that your church members would have accepted a ‘plug’ for a book from a heterosexual!! In other words the advertisement  was not the issue. I agree with  all you have said, but think that you don’t have to justify Mark and his sexuality to them. I agree that some of the kindest most compassionate people I have met have in fact been gay.

Do let me know if anything further transpires from your conversations.

All good wishes

Margaret

Hi Tim

Thanks for your email. I was quite shocked that you felt the need to apologise or explain anything about Mark’s orientation.

I assure you that I was not offended by anything that Mark said. In fact I bought his book and read it from cover to cover. It was really interesting, albeit giving perhaps too much detail in parts! I am passing it on to a friend who is homosexual and Catholic who also wants to read it.

I agree wholeheartedly that we should love one another and treat everyone as we would wish to be treated. 

I am really pleased I met Mark. He is doing a great job bringing people’s attention to the problems arising from global warming. I am on the lookout for his name now whenever the subject crops up on the television or radio.

Best wishes and thanks for getting him to come to the meeting.

Helen

Dear Tim

I thought this might happen and I know the person in question and saw his body language, knowing as I did that he left The Ecumenical Study Group for the same reason. 

I think it is quite amusing that you would think that I would be offended (can't wait to read the book, which Helen or Margaret are passing on to me. I did offer to pay half towards it!) because I believe that all creatures are held in God's care regardless of creed, color, orientation or dare I say Political views.

I do wonder how people can go to church and recite the Lord's Prayer and then speak in this unforgiving way.

Tim I thought it was a marvelous evening and thank you for arranging it. 

Happy and Blessed Christmas to you, Linda and the family.

Don't forget to vote Labour next year!!!!!!??

Anne

Thoughts on same sex attraction

I have been saddened by the reaction of some of my friends to those with same sex attraction.  I am disappointed by the suspicion and mistaken ideas about them.  There is too much judgement and not enough understanding and tolerance of same sex people.  There is even hostility towards minority genders and, for years, even an official hostile environment to migrants/foreigners.  Perhaps, most Brits are not familiar with the four freedoms of the EU.  Our ignorance has fueled our little Englander approach that insists that we know better than the European nations whom we have fought in wars for so many centuries.

In some Northern Ireland churches, in particular, same sex attraction is seen as promoting sodomy, of fostering immorality and deviant behaviour.  Yet, I now think that Gareth Jones, my housemate and best man at my wedding in 1983 may have been of same sex attraction.  My ignorance of homosexuality and other gender issues - and my misplaced jealousy on one occasion - I now realise, may well have contributed or even caused his suicide four months after my marriage to Linda.

The practice of same sex attraction was an imprisonable offence right up to the 1960s, I believe.  This was outrageous.  As is the ignorance, even today, of the loneliness, the discomfort, even fear of those who know they are a tiny minority in a heterosexual culture that is so dominant and domineering.

It is important that we understand the difficulties and problems that comes from finding you are born with an LGBT orientation.  To understand that the discrimination and dislike, the prejudice and abuse from the heterosexual majority is the biggest and best argument against the very wrong idea that the minority same sex community is in any way enticing or promoting the majority into their own sexual orientation.  Would any heterosexual really want to change gender and so have to endure so much of the wrong, the weird and wonderful attitudes and behaviour from opposite sex people like me?  Homosexuals are not promoting their orientation.  Some, simply encouraging the closet gay to come out.  Is not the most important value that whatever our orientation, we all live in loving, faithful and honest relationships with our partners?

This is why the majority gender community must get up to speed on the LGBT community to correct the false ideas and attitudes the majority have towards them.  Mark Dowd's brilliantly written 2017 book, 'Queer and Catholic' does that.  Never judge a book by its cover, however.  Open and read Mark's memoirs.  Read of the funny events and enjoy the frank and, perhaps, too candid trials, tribulations and even sins of this former Dominican friar and, today, freelance journalist and Radio 4 broadcaster.  Once begun, you will have difficulty putting the book down.

The best social worker I have ever encountered in my 35 years in the profession was the gay, the excellent, the wonderful Martin Wager.  He got more compliments and was more loved over the four or five years I knew him than I ever enjoyed in my career of social work.

Plenty of good ideas for Dudley Hippo!

Dear Cllr Qadar - and copied to my powerful MP and influential councillors who are meant to decide on TfWM transport policy - I thought!

Dudley Hippodrome turned into "a driverless car testing site" - Express and Star 30 November 2018

Wrong priorities; a diversion from more important matters; and an irrelevance.  Who at TfWM came up with this idea?

Rather than demolishing the 1938 Hippodrome, can it not be used to house the homeless if the front facade, at least, can be saved?  Apartments for low income families and singles to help revive Castle Hill? A refit rather than demolition? A conversion job for housing units?

If it must be demolished, why not use it for something more worthwhile than a driverless vehicle centre?  A driverless car must still have one person in it. He or she might just as well drive the thing, in that case!  I suggest:

1. A research centre into making batteries better at holding renewable electricity from PV solar put on every roof in the borough.
2. Some deep thought into how your very own 120 Kms Black Country Railway can be finished with the final stages to rebuild the stations and to put the regional and commuter trains back through the new Dudley town centre at the foot of Castle Hill.
3. Some innovative thinking into how you can reverse the decline in bus use; bus fares have risen by 13% above inflation since 2010; and bus routes cut.
4. A electric bus and innovation centre for yet more electric bus developments, perhaps?  There is not one electric bus in the TfWM area, is there?
5. A research centre into how we can capture and store CO2 and how to reduce all our greenhouse gas emissions.
6. Or, a new Dudley Central Mosque to replace the shabby and unsuitable present, converted, Victorian primary school building on the same road.  Soon, supposedly, to have the glitzy, glamorous tram running past this blot on the landscape and that of shameful Cavendish House.
7. Again on the same road, use the only feasible site of Dudley railway station, to rebuild it for the desperately needed commuter and regional trains into Brum and on to Derby.  No need for trams first to get the trains later (actually, tram trains that are still trams) where you end up paying twice and still don't get the fast trains back from Derby to Devon via Dudley and Burton to Bristol via Brierley Hill.

Could I please be granted an appointment, urgently, to see you to discuss these more sensible ideas, Cllr Qadar?

Thanks and best wishes

Tim

Steve Eling opposes Clean Air Zone

Dear Steve - I believe, I have not had one reply to any of my emails or texts, up to now.  Just complacency, apathy and negligence.  But you are not alone.

I am sorry to be so condemnatory, once again of your council's lamentable performance.  Last summer, it was the loss of 72 leaflets that I had been led to believe were to be placed in the 72 councillors' pigeon holes but were thrown away, instead.  Last week, I was told that my new leaflets could only be put in councillors' pigeon holes if they were in envelopes with each of the councillors' names on the front.  Ruth Darby kept them and they have not been returned.  Not one other Black Country council has this oppressive, rigid and unreasonable policy.  I am asking for the cost of the lost leaflets to be paid to me, please.

This evening, I have just read the report in the Halesowen News that you are opposing the Clean Air Zone extension.  Wrong move, Steve.  You are in a closed mind, tram rut and, are paralysed with inertia over increasing road and railway congestion and pollution as the population rises.  The report says you have plans for cleaner buses.  What plans are these?  You and your fellow WMCA leaders are planning SPRINT diesel buses at huge expense in Brum.  All that is needed are swift moves to get electric buses on 100% bus lanes where there is a dual carriageway, with traffic light priority for all buses; and, FARELESS buses for all and not just the few in my age group.  Old crocks like me need our cars as we lose our mobility.  The young and fit like you, who help to run UK plc need free staff buses to get you into work to free up the road space for essential vehicle users.

Over your years as a councillor, Steve, I expect, along with previous and current West Midlands leaders, you are responsible for the following:

Here is corporate corruption and idiocy and, corporate incompetence and negligence.  I think these are the only words that can appropriately and properly be used to describe this never ending financial and transport scandal, viz:

1. Scandal One: At a time of austerity and last week’s UN report on extreme poverty in the UK, £1.38 BILLION from 2018 to 2026 is to replace some buses and trains with the second most expensive transport mode after HS2. Tram extensions are even more expensive than nearly all Maglev train projects in China, Japan and South Korea. Proof here:
   
   
    Transport costs per kilometre
2. Scandal Two: building roads, housing and trading estates and retail units on over 100 Kms of urban railway lines - all since the 1960s closure programme that was so necessary as we all went out and bought cars. Councillors gave planning permission.
3. Scandal Three: decades of 106 Kms of under-used and completely unused, urban, double track railway lines in the Black Country, Brum and south Staffordshire, as we've all crawled along bumper to bumper in car or bus on choked roads and motorways.
4. Scandal Four: While, at the same time, many tens of millions of pounds were used to build tunnels and bridges for the Black Country Railway for new road and motorway schemes to pass over or under but, then, never to take the next step to put the trains and stations back.  Only trams on two short sections, totalling 6.7 Kms!
5. Scandal Five because, since 1981, yet more tens of millions were being used to promote - not getting the trains back on 106 Kms - but, Midland Metro trams with a team at Centro House and glossy brochures produced to show what was going to be done.  But, the 15 lines covering 200 Kms never was done! Only one line was ever done, in 1999 on a railway line, of all things.  Instead of simply putting the commuter trains back! Now, being extended to Edgbaston to replace and push out buses that have to and will always have to take a much longer route to avoid the trams, six to ten every hour, in narrow Broad Street.
6. Scandal Six: Metro One extended in the other direction, on an even more important railway line, to wreck any possibility of finishing the 120 Kms, principal, mainline railway between Worcester and Derby!
7. Scandal Seven: Two piddling sections of tram line to muck up a 120 Kms principal main line railway. A similar short section, of 11 Kms of passenger trains, is to duplicate the 529 Platinum bus route. The bus takes 33 minutes outside the rush hour and 45 minutes in the rush hour between Walsall and Wolverhampton. 11 Kms, when the whole 41 Kms via Walsall, Aldridge, Water Orton to Brum needs to see the return of its commuter trains. And last decade's attempt at the same thing failed. Nothing quite like failure breeding failure, of course. A parochial stitch up by Walsall and Wolverhampton leaders, perhaps. Leaders who cannot or will not see the bigger picture. Leaders who cannot get their priorities right. Blind leaders ineffectually failing to show any leadership.

This is the proof that all seven leaders, the opposition leaders and, Andy Street who rubber stamps whatever you leaders want, are in no way up to the job. You have let us all down.

This is all a bigger fiasco than Brexit - by you politicians.

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