A Letter on Justice and Open Debate | Harper's Magazine


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Mick Woollett, a true gent.

Mick, a proper gent – I’ll miss him Mick Woollett (easy to remember the name, double everything except ‘e’ and ‘w’) died on Monday.   He was my editor at Motor Cycle Weekly in the ‘seventies and early ‘eighties.   He was mature in every sense of the word, made editor in his early fifties and a proper gentleman, having to work with an office-full of (mostly) youngsters. He never lost his cool, was unfailingly courteous, never swore and was always perfectly mannered.   Extraordinary. I plan to get a lot more off my chest about Mick, but for the moment I’ll leave you with this, true, story from, about 1982. MCW had one mouthy sub, a Kiwi called Brendan who was always shouting off about everything.   He knew everything, was witty, but packed full of bluster and b**s**.   In the run-up to the Daytona Speed Week one year he’d been shouting the odds about how HE ought to join the team because of all his experience, skills and how he’d do a better j...
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Croydon's in debt ... and we're all paying

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London Councils are owed a total £642 million in council tax arrears - an average of £188 per household. Six percent of that total is owed to Croydon Council, who have – amazingly – slightly reduced the amount owing in the last year!!! I suppose we long-suffering tax-payers should be grateful, but the £40m outstanding adds about £271 to all our individual bills. UK Council Tax debt league 1.       Liverpool - £114m, adds £528 to average bill 2.       Hackney - £41.8m, adds £403 to average bill 3.       Haringey - £32.6m, adds £313 to average bill 4.       Hounslow - £29.7m, adds £306 to average bill 5.       Lambeth - £38m, adds £284 to average bill 6.       Islington - £28.1m, adds £277 to average bill 7.       Croydon - £40m, adds £271 to average bill 8.  ...
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Mandelson's bid to stifle EU referendum

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Will the House of Lord kill off any chance of us having a vote on Europe?   I hope not, because nothing would give us a stronger platform to reform the whole bloated undemocratic mess that’s slowing strangling us. But how sickening to see the oily peer, ‘Lord’ Mandelson – a former EU Commissioner due to collect an EU pension, trying to kill off the referendum bill. He says a vote would be undemocratic!   He and a clutch of Labour peers are out to kill off Tory peer Lord Dobbs’ bill.   Dobbs, of course, says the referendum is actually ALL "about democracy". Scandalously, Mandelson says a referendum would be a "lottery". Ever populist, Boris Johnson exposes Labour peers as undemocratic themselves, for opposing a referendum.   See here, www.telegraph.co.uk The UK Independence Party agrees Lord Mandelson is wrong. "How can David Cameron talk tough in Brussels when at the same time he is saying that he will do anything to keep ...
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