The latest BBRU is hosted by Trixy. She links to Jack of Kent who has examined in some depth a strange case of a man handing over to the police a shotgun he said he had found and then being prosecuted. Having watched various trials as a budding barrister, I […]
Few new entries these days as I am back in Brussels trying to earn some money for Christmas presents. While I am away have a look at the lively writing over at Samizdata at the moment. Including a link to this energetic piece about Zimbabwe and how the retreat of […]
Former President of Republika Srpska Biljana Plavsic has left her prison cell in Sweden to return to Belgrade: a land where war criminals are heroes, according to Nenad Pejic: Serbia has been — and continues to be — in a state of denial about the 1990s wars for more than […]
Here for those of you with a few minutes to spare is an eloquent Lord Mandelson pressing the case for Tony Blair to become the first ‘President of Europe’ (and swiping at the UK Conservatives’ EU policy). The politics of it are familiar enough. What struck me was his assertion […]
The latest developments on the Torture issue – the speech by MI5 chief Jonathan Evans and then the High Court decision in favour of release of secret US material concerning Binyam Mohamed – are (in their different ways) further important steps towards clarifying how if at all we deal with […]
A zany but prominent piece in this morning’s Guardian, asserting that the newspaper has been ‘prevented for reporting Parliamentary proceedings on legal grounds’: Today’s published Commons order papers contain a question to be answered by a minister later this week. The Guardian is prevented from identifying the MP who has […]
Is here, hosted by Slugger O’Toole. See especially this: The reason any real scientist wants to share their data is precisely because somebody might find something wrong with it. That is what science is – the testing of theories against evidence. Plus which is Supreme, Court or Parliament?
A lot of issues are a bit like living next to a mountain which is so lofty and all-dominating that you stop noticing the vast shadow it casts, fretting over which tree gives you shade instead. Take this erudite and trenchant essay (h/t Samizdata) about the deep problems of the […]
Jim Fitzpatrick MP has attended many Muslim weddings. He caused a fuss recently when he and his wife as far as I know politely walked out of one at which men and women were segregated; he then used the media to make some political points about radicalisation among Muslims. (Update: picking […]
The British government are not planning on holding an enquiry into their possible complicity in overseas torture: Kim Howells, Labour chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee which scrutinises the secret services, said the issue of UK complicity in torture had been "clarified as far as it can be on […]
