Walter Bagehot, in his high Victorian classic The English Constitution, wrote that

the danger of the House of Lords certainly is, that it may never be reformed.

Already the view’s been expressed that if you have a problem with the […]

By convention, the Queen grants Royal assent to legislation passed by the Lords and Commons. It’s only a constitutional convention that she does so: in other words, she does so because she herself, ministers, MPs and the public regard it […]

Charon QC interviewed me this afternoon as part of his “20 minutes” series of podcasts. First we spoke about arresting the Pope following my post earlier today. The we moved on briefly to discuss the former UKIP MEP Ashley […]

Following my post on the “legal bits” of the Labour manifesto, here’s my analysis of the most important Conservative proposals of particular legal interest. I warn you: this is a long one, and needs sub-headings.

Constitutional law

On the constitution, the Tories […]

After the great fun I had at last year’s inaugural Renton lecture, I thought I’d head to the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies to hear Elias LJ talk this year about “The rise of the Strasbourgeousie: judicial activism and […]

I’ve been slow in reacting to the Lords’ final judgment yesterday in R (Purdy) v DPP, partly because I was in Cambridge, but partly because I’ve been worrying at the judgment since I heard the news reports […]

I seriously dislike the word governance. Okay, it has some reasonable uses: in the phrase corporate governance, for instance, in which it has a useful sense of oversight from on high. Otherwise, it’s unbearably pompous. I […]

The Lords gave judgment yesterday in this complex case, about confiscation of the proceeds of drugs offences. The main issue is actually whether the judge ruling on confiscation can take into account criminal conduct that the defendant has never […]

Charon spoke to me again this afternoon, this time about Abu Qatada – the Lords ruling on Wednesday and today’s ruling from Strasbourg awarding him compensation. We talk a bit about the man himself and the whole sage of […]

The House of Lords gave judgment yesterday in this human rights judicial review about provisional listing under Part VII of the Care Standards Act 2000, which sets up a scheme for “listing” people thought unsuitable to work with […]