Jonathan Morris wrote:
Well being a liberal lefty you naturally have your blinkers on so you
wouldn't. I live in a flat in north london and in the last 12 months
we've had thieves dumping a car in our carpark and youths with knives
and knuckle dusters smoking pot in the communal garden on at least half
a dozen occasions. Though I suppose in Cloud Cuckoo Land Avenue where
your house resides I suspect nothing of the sort happens.

This is what a website he writes for says;

"John Band is a London-based writer and business analyst. He enjoys
Talking And Writing About Business And Politics, bad puns, good pubs,
bad punk, strange pieces of technology, and offending people. His views
on at least some of the above have been quoted in the Economist, the
BBC, the Financial Times and the Telegraph (and less impressively, the
Daily Mail and the Metro)."

So, he's written for the Daily Mail!! Maybe he's not proud of it but I
bet he accepted their money! Perhaps this is why he also claims it is
full of crap - he possibly wrote it!!

Not paid - well, not directly - I was doing it for my then employer
(expert interviews and PR pieces). It did give me a good understanding
of how well-researched the different papers a the Economist and the
FT are very rigorous; the Metro will print any old ****; the Daily Mail
will print any old **** as long as it suits their agenda (genuine
story: I put out a PR piece on confectionery, and got a call from a
Daily Mail hack asking if people were buying more traditional sweets
out of a desire to return to the 1950s...); the Independent will
misunderstand you and print something you didn't even say, by mistake
rather than because of their agenda; and so on...

I think what this means is that he likes to wind people up. He doesn't
believe any of the drivel he posts - it's just a game. Gold help us all
if that isn't the case.

Gold usually helps people, I'd suggest. ;-)

The reason I get involved in debates on crime issues is because I
vaguely hope that someone might read what I have to say and realise
that they've been looking at things the wrong way. Far too many people
don't understand that crime and the fear of crime are both actually
falling; far too many people don't realise that the vast majority of
victims of violent crime are the same 15-24-year-old males they are
scared of, rather than people like themselves; and so on.

I'm aware that coming armed with some facts and without Chicken Licken
beliefs about the sky falling in is unpopular and largely gets you
accused of being a drivelling maniac, but it's a price I'm occasionally
willing to pay. But sod it - I've said my piece now, anything else will
just be nitpicking and midgets fighting over bugger all, so I'm drawing
a line under it. I'll try and stick to Oyster and Crossrail in
future...

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org