In the coming months, the tabloid “fat cat legal aid lawyer” staples are likely to re-emerge and recur with a vengeance, following the Ministry of Justice’s plans to slash legal aid fees paid to criminal law solicitors. In the din of misinformation that will be honked out by the MoJ to distract from the legal profession’s concerns, the truth…
Read moreThe “Rape Shield” Bill is well-intentioned, meaningless and dangerous
Like the tide or the relentless ignorance of Iain Duncan Smith, the rhythm of certain recurring natural phenomena offers a comfort of certainty in an otherwise torrid and unpredictable world. One such inevitability was the reignition of the “Ched Evans row“, as media fiat demands it be termed. After several heady weeks in which almost…
Read moreDo we really need a law telling people not to assault NHS staff?
Today’s PMQs offered a public airing to a campaign which struck a chord with me, but which may have been overlooked by others amidst the farce of Jeremy Corbyn mistakenly offering “condolences” to the family of a dead police officer who was in fact very much alive and trying to excruciatingly dissemble his way out of his…
Read moreWill Quince MP: An addendum
This serves as an addendum to the previous post, but I thought it was worthy of attention in its own right. To those who missed it, a brief recap: Will Quince, MP for Colchester, publicised a letter he had sent to the Lord Chancellor, in which he expressed his view that a sentence passed in a…
Read moreA court soft on burglars, or an MP missing the facts?
It would be nice to usher in 2017 with an exciting fresh take on a vibrant, buzzing legal issue of the day. As it is, the first post of the New Year is to be spent – and I fear this will be a recurring theme – reminding an elected Member of Parliament how the law works….
Read moreWere the judges “incompetent f****-ups” to refuse Marine A bail?
There is a risk, I am acutely aware, of this blog appearing to transmogrify into The Secret Judicial Cheerleader. Which it is not. By way of pre-emptive self-defence, I should point out that much of my professional life is spent politely pointing out to judges why, in my respectful submission, the course they are thinking…
Read moreKatie Hopkins and the judiciary: another pointless lie
On the day that Katie Hopkins’ wilful disregard for the truth landed her, and the Daily Mail, in £150,000 worth of piping hot water, it is reassuring to see that she has not been deterred from jumping straight back on her unicorn. After Hopkins viciously libelled a family of Muslims as Al-Qaeda supporters in her…
Read moreLouise Mensch’s claims that Thomas Mair had an unfair trial are unsupported and wildly dangerous
There’s something particularly undignified about a spiralling Twitter spat. The cumulative ‘quote tweeting’ and punctuated “replies” designed to alert innocent passers by to your often solipsistic, and usually entirely pointless, tit for tat exchanges with someone you’ve never met and have no desire to know. I am guilty of indulging in such indignity this afternoon, after taking umbrage at…
Read moreThe “Walter Mitty” law is misconceived and dangerous in equal measure
Every now and then, as Bonnie Tyler so nearly put it, I fall apart sobbing in giddy astonishment at the folly of our elected representatives. And I need you now, dear reader, and I need you more than ever as the willing sounding board in my echo chamber of lawsplaining. Today’s culprit is Conservative MP…
Read moreWhy did the government block the SNP’s Alan Turing Bill?
This post was written last Saturday when it was achingly vogue, then lay forlornly unposted over the weekend until staleness set in, by which time it appeared destined to linger forever in my draft folder. Serendipitously, it has been offered a second wind after one of the subjects tweeted me out of the blue, allowing me, I reckon, to segue to…
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