Geoff Hoon

Geoffrey William Hoon (born 6 December 1953) is a British politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Ashfield from 1992 to 2010. He is a former Defence Secretary, Transport Secretary, Leader of the House of Commons and Government Chief Whip.

Early life

Hoon was born in Derby, England, and is the son of Ernest Hoon and June Collett.

Education

Hoon was educated at Nottingham High School before going on to read law at Jesus College, Cambridge and graduated in 1976.

Career before entering politics

Hoon was a Lecturer in the Faculty of Law at the University of Leeds from 1976 to 1982 and was a sub-warden at Devonshire Hall. He was called to the Bar at Gray's Inn in 1978, and was also a visiting Law Professor at the University of Louisville, Kentucky, from 1980 to 1981. In 1982, Hoon became a practising barrister in Nottingham.

Member of Parliament

Hoon was elected as a Member of the European Parliament for Derbyshire in 1984 and served in Brussels and Strasbourg for ten years. He was elected to the House of Commons at the 1992 general election for Ashfield, making his maiden speech on 20 May 1992, following the retirement of the sitting Labour MP, Frank Haynes. He held the seat with a majority of 12,987 and remained the constituency's MP until the 2010 general election.

Hoon

Hoon is a term used in Australia and New Zealand, to refer to anyone who engages in loutish, anti-social behaviours. In particular, it is used to refer to one who drives a car or boat in a manner which is anti-social by the standards of contemporary society, i.e. too fast, too noisily or too dangerously. In New Zealand, the term "boy racer" is also widely used. Another slang term, revhead—derived from "rev", short for revolutions per minute—is sometimes used in place of hoon. "Anti-hoon laws", while they generally concern road vehicles, sometimes also target anti-social behaviour in motor boats.

Hoon activities can include speeding, burnouts, doughnuts or screeching tires. Those commonly identified as being involved in "hooning" or street racing are young and predominantly male, although increasingly female, drivers in the age range of 17 and 35 years.

Hoon control laws are beginning to be extended to dangerous and annoying hoon behaviour using boats and other vessels, particularly jet skis. The State of Victoria, Australia passed legislation in late 2009 to control hoon activities using recreational vessels.

Hoon (fiction)

The Hoon are a fictional extraterrestrial race from David Brin's Uplift Universe.

Hoon are bipedal omnivores with pale scaly skin and woolly white leg fur. Their spines are massive, hollow structures that form part of their circulatory system. The Hoon's inflatable throat sacs, originally used for mating display, are now used for “umbling”.

Like many of the races that populate Jijo, their counterparts that are still a part of the Galactic culture are quite different from them.

Galactic culture

Those Hoon in Galactic culture are respected and feared bureaucrats in the service of many Institutions, and mortal enemies of the rather pro-natalist and dynamic Urs. Hoon have a reputation for being sober, impeccably proper, and insufferably officious.

Hoon, in their capacity as incorruptible bureaucrats working for the Institute of Migration, authorized the "depopulation" of the Human colony world of NuDawn in the first decade of Terra's encounter with Galactic civilization. They refused to accept ignorance of Tradition as a mitigating factor, and refused to exercise any discretionary power to grant pleas for mercy; this, despite the fact that these imperious bureaucrats readily admitted that the laws they had to apply in this particular case were unjust. The massacre of the colonists was carried out with astounding efficiency and a minimum of terror or pain. Such Hoon forces as participated in the "Extermination of Illegal Settler Infestations" displayed neither pleasure nor remorse. They were simply professionally efficient.

Hoon (disambiguation)

Hoon is an Australian and New Zealand derogatory term for people who engage in anti-social behaviours.

Hoon may also refer to:

People with the family name Hoon:

See also