Six of the Best 345

"Rumours persist that the Government is going to try to sneak the Communications Data Bill into the Queen’s Speech. There are so many reasons this is a bad thing it’s hard to know where to begin ... but the whole idea of the bill is what I've previously described as a ‘Despot’s Dream’, allowing the authorities free rein to monitor everything any of us does on the internet, to profile us in every detail." Paul Bernal on the lack of consultation behind the likely resurrection of the snooper's charter.

The New Statesman interviews Duwayne Brooks 20 years on from the murder of his friend Stephen Lawrence.

"Wellesley Road has become a symbol for me of the failures of local government to rise to the challenge of local economic development, to understand where the money flowing through their the local economy actually goes, and find ways of keeping it for longer." David Boyle considers the significance of a Croydon thoroughfare on the NewStart magazine site.

Open Culture has a video of the last days of Leo Tolstoy.

"She was admired by women, desired by men, painted by Whistler, praised by Twain, close friends with Oscar Wilde and Prime Minister William Gladstone, and most famously was the lover of, amongst others, Albert Edward (Berty), Prince of Wales who later became King Edward VII." The Legends of London celebrates the career of Lillie Langry.

IanVisits takes up an unfashionable cause - the rebuilt Euston station: "Just as St Pancras and King’s Cross are being restored to their Victorian grandeur, why shouldn’t Euston be cleaned up and restored at least superficially to the vast open spaces and clean lines it enjoyed in the 1970s?"