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Every million helps (2)

SHOWING ALL the sensitivity of a large pair of hobnail boots, Royal Mail boss Adam Crozier pocketed nearly Ł1 million in pay and bonuses for 2008/09. Not bad for someone who imposed a pay freeze on the mail service's 140,000-strong workforce and is responsible for the industry's worst ever industrial relations.

In fact, the shameless Mr Crozier has raked in Ł6 million in bonuses and pay since taking over as chief executive in 2003 - his reward for axing 50,000 jobs, closing thousands of post offices and ending second deliveries of post.

Dopey Johnson

NEW LABOUR'S political opportunism rebounded after home secretary Alan Johnson effectively sacked the government's senior drugs advisor, professor David Nutt. Johnson claims that the professor had to go because he was "campaigning against government policy".

As a senior advisor Nutt said that ecstasy and cannabis are less harmful than alcohol and cigarettes and that the decision to reclassify cannabis from class c to a class b drug was wrong.

Clearly these views didn't sit well with the government's attempts to woo the right wing tabloid press by appearing 'tough' on the issue of drug use. But Johnson's action in sacking Nutt has sparked a chain reaction of resignations and public criticisms from the drugs advisory council who accused the government of ignoring their scientific evidence and of operating to a "pre-defined political agenda".

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In The Socialist 3 November 2009:

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