The war in Ukraine is dreadful, as are all the other conflicts going on all over the world.

We should not be surprised though by how the Russian state is behaving, we need only look at the bombing of civilians and hospitals in Syria, by the Russian military to see how they behave.

Also several years ago a retired American General warned that if NATO continued to expand towards Russia sooner or later they would bite back, which is exactly what has happened. What did surprise me though was that Liz Truss, who may well be our next Prime Minister, approved the export of £149 million worth of dual use (possibly military) equipment to Russia in 2021.

On a brighter note somebody, namely Keir Starmer, seems to have come up with a sensible plan to deal with the cost of living crisis, which is being driven by energy costs, while the energy companies make record profits.

Get the energy companies to pay a sensible amount of tax, and use that money to cap energy prices for the rest of us. Shame we hadn't insulated our homes properly, built carbon neutral new builds and sorted out our renewables years ago, then we wouldn't be in this mess.

Finally, thinking of good ideas why doesn't the British Government tell the Bank of England to give the Afghan Government reserves that it is holding to the charities that are still working in Afghanistan, where it is estimated more people will die of hunger in 2022 alone than from violence during the last 20 years of conflict, if the international community does not take drastic action.

As always there is a much better way of doing things,

Yours sincerely

Kate Taylor.