Christopher John Myers

Direct Line is closing its Croydon office as part of a 2,000-strong job axing scheme countrywide. Eighty Croydon IT jobs are going and 164 will be moved to Bromley. It’s a bitter blow for Croydon, for it was here that the business started in 1985 as the first UK insurance company to use the telephone as its main means of communication. Other Direct Line closures are in Manchester and Liverpool.

Yaaaay – Suzuki are coming back to world motorcycle racing. Boo – it won’t be until 2015. Still it’s great news for this, the most exciting, physical and thrilling form of motorsport. Suzuki’s return ends a three year absence – they pulled out of MotoGP racing at the end of 2011, after 37 years, because of lack of cash. Their development rider Randy de Puniet tested the new Suzuki after its first public test at the Catalunya Circuit in Spain on Monday and posted a time seven tenths slower than Jorge Lorenzo's fastest lap of 1'41.908 set when he won this round of the world championship on Sunday Randy said: "I think this bike has a really good potential already." Suzuki pulled out of MotoGP in 2011 after 37 years to focus on development of their 1,000cc project.  De Puniet, 32, who currently rides an Aprilia for the Aspar CRT team but also has a contract as Suzuki test rider for 2013, first tested the 800cc version of the bike at the end of 2...

Croydon’s municipal magazine for June and July includes a misguided attempt to present the town’s council tax collection rates as a triumph. It’s a crude piece of propaganda infuriatingly headlined,  “Collecting for the common good”, that’s guaranteed to get people’s backs up; trumpeting the b**** b*** obvious. Here are a couple of examples, “we all benefit from Council Tax” and, " its value is almost priceless”, yes, yes, of course! But the figures quoted are very selective and they only own up to a shameful total arrears figure near the end of the article.   Finance Director Richard Simpson says the figure is £35.9m.   But, according to local government minister Brandon Lewis, Croydon’s latest debt mountain is actually an eye watering £42.2 million. The article, rightly, explains that collecting these this money is a challenge with population of 330,000– more than some cities. Brandon Lewis revealed Croydon’s debt in parliament, in a league table that...