It seems to me that the nature of the ultimate revolution with which we are now faced is precisely this: That we are in process of developing a whole series of techniques which will enable the controlling oligarchy who have always existed and presumably will always exist to get people to love their servitude. (Aldous Huxley)
The Government, especially MI5, wish the Justice and Security Bill enabling secret courts to be enacted. A wish now reinforced by the recent trial of Vicky Price and the media furore raised when, in discharging the jury, Mr Justice Sweeney said: “In thirty years of criminal trials I have never come across this at this stage, never.” When enacted, the Justice and Security Bill will remove the last vestige of Magna Carta. Read more of this post
Reflecting on Schrödinger’s cat the usual condition of cerebral nebulosity distracted my thoughts and the case of Rex v Jackson sprang to mind. This case, brought before Mr Justice Mole, required the jury to decide if suicide – whether successful or not - was an act of insanity. Read more of this post
The cornerstone of Harvard professor N. Gregory Mankiw’s introductory economics textbook,Principles of Economics, is a synthesis of economic thought into Ten Principles of Economics (listed in the first table below). A quick perusal of these will likely affirm the reader’s suspicions that synthesizing economic thought into Ten Principles is no easy task, and may even lead the reader to suspect that the subtlety and concision required are not to be found in the pen of N. Gregory Mankiw. Read more of this post
The Boxing Day Hunt – Perfect Entertainment after Christmas Bingeing looked to be an interesting post on a one time favourite rural pastime. Opening with:
One of the tedious things about being poor is that one can’t indulge in pastimes like hunting. But one can turn up, as a supporter, and soak up the atmosphere (and maybe a bit of the Port). It really is enormous fun. If you haven’t done it, why not try it this year, on Boxing Day? Read more of this post
A recent post ‘Speech isn’t free’ elicited the comment “Isn’t the assumption that one has the ‘right’ to do something unless it is proscribed by law. Therefore the discussion of whether free speech is “ a right that existed in law. ” is moot. It exists as a right unless it is made illegal”. A view I have to agree with – up to a point. The right to free speech has always been proscribed by law in the form intended to suppress ‘sedition, or ‘treason’ or ‘slander’ (criminal and civil law). My posts on subject areas like this are generally a means of introducing the humorous creations of A.P. Herbert and his “Misleading Cases’. However, I claim that A.P.Herbert makes fun of how ‘The Law’ may be interpreted, he doesn’t misinterpret ‘The Law’. Read more of this post
In 2008 Sir Ken Macdonald, QC, when Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), gave a speech about free expression and the rule of law the Birmingham Law School. In the speech ‘Free Expression and the Rule of Law’, he addressed whether there are or should be appropriate limits to free speech, the approach of the criminal law, over time, to this issue and the role of prosecutors. Abridged parts of this speech on ‘free expression and the rule of law’ are included in the following. Read more of this post
The other day I happened to switch on the car radio and heard what I thought was a play. There was a narrator, in a very ‘camp’ voice, describing the plot of theatrical production to someone, whom I assume was a producer. The plot being described sounded so ridiculous that I thought I must be listening to a comedy play on Radio Three. Radio Three is not a channel I switch to very often but on this occasion the narrator sounded so amusing and given the ridiculous nature of the plot, I had find out what happened next. Read more of this post
A member of the public’s right to emulate the powers of arrest exercised by a law enforcement officer are a ’far cry‘ from a ‘hue-and-cry‘. Anyone participating in a hue-and-cry had the right to arrest a criminal, whom, if they violently resist arrest might be killed with impunity, but not otherwise – lynchings were very rare, and even wounding or killing a criminal to hinder flight was unlawful. In this context it’s hard to imagine the need for modern law enforcement that Henry Fielding foresaw when he inaugurated the Bow Street Runners . Yet, as he hypothesized in An Enquiry Into the Causes of the Late Increase of Robbers:
There were too many people coming to London expecting an easy life, that corruption in government was endemic, that people were choosing crime rather than hard work, and that only 6 out of 10 constables were worth keeping on.
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The English law, in judging of men’s behaviour whether it is right or wrong, refers it to an ideal, but not to a very lofty one.
Sir Francis Taylor Piggott (1852-1925) - Two Chapters In The Law Of Torts (1898)
Sir Francis Taylor Piggott (Of the Middle Temple, Barrister-At-Law, Procureur And Advocate-General, Mauritius; Late Legal Advisor To the Japanese Cabinet) recorded in his book - Two Chapters In The Law Of Torts - an address that he had made to members of the Japanese Cabinet Office, in which he presented the philosophy of ‘The Reasonable Man’ and its significance in English Common Law. The following is an abstract from his opening address:
Retirement doesn’t leave me literally ‘as idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean’, or indeed day after day, stuck, with neither breath nor motion, although I can relate to the metaphors in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
A poem from which we had to learn verses when I was at school and which I have never forgotten, well – perhaps – partly remembered. Increasingly drawn to the view that the very deep does rot and that slimy things crawl with slimy legs upon this slimy sea. As the spirit slid, a curmudgeon, contemplating my hand in ‘the shooting of the albatross’. If you will: my own diffuse dissatisfactions. Read more of this post
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