One of the things I omitted to comment on in my September slackness was Mervyn King’s explanation to the Commons Treasury Select Committee of why he couldn’t organise a secret takeover of Northern Rock bank, or give it covert support.

Most discussion of the possibility of a November election assumes that the decision is solely Gordon Brown’s. But is it really that simple? I think not.

It’s the Queen who dissolves Parliament in fact, by issuing a proclamation under […]

My post yesterday, I now realise, was suffused with a heavy weariness. I do find Fayed and his litigious crusading pretty tiresome: though I suppose I have to forgive him the Neil Hamilton nonsense, since it was Hamilton who sued […]

Apparently, Mohammed Fayed is unhappy with the opening statement of the coroner, Lord Justice Scott Baker, in the Diana and Dodi inquest, which he thinks could give “an appearance of bias”.

How astonishing!

Fayed has of course […]

I spent this evening at an event organised by the Human Rights Lawyers Association at which Michael Wills, Minister of State at Minijust responsible among many things for human rights policy, spoke about the Brown government’s approach to human […]

I’m afraid the police are simply making fools of themselves by seizing a photograph by Nan Goldin from the Baltic Centre in Gateshead. This reminds me of a similar story from 2001, when a photgraph by Tierney Gearon was […]

Heavens, I've had a slack late summer and early autumn, blawging-wise! Apologies. It's partly because of the demands of public law practice, and partly due to personal, career-change stuff. But normal service is about to be resumed.

I come back from my summer holiday to find there’s been a lot of sound and fury over the last couple of days about the decision of the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal that Learco Chindamo, the murderer of Philip […]

Something that I’ve not heard mentioned yet in all the discussion of the BBC’s fake phone-ins is the question whether criminal offences might have been committed. Looking at the details of the competitions, it’s difficult to tell: the […]

The British government was at it again yesterday, I’m sorry to say: the DPP was insisting that Russia ought to extradite Andrei Lugovoi for the murder of Alexander Litvinenko. I’m sorry to say I’m forced to agree with