From davidallengreen.com
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9th January 2025 This post is about a “cease-and-desist” letter that has reportedly been sent on behalf of the former Prime Minister Elizabeth Truss to the current Prime Minister Keir Starmer. For …
on Thu, 5PM
From davidallengreen.com
“Twelfth Night Till Candlemas” – the story of a forty-year book-quest and of its remarkable ending
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The day before the Winter Solstice, 2024 This post is about finally finding a book from one’s youth forty years later – and after nearly thirty years of searching. It is also a tale about gob…
on Dec 20
From davidallengreen.com
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New Year’s Day 2025 By the mid 1700s in England there was a curious juxtaposition between the lore of New Year’s Day and the law of New Year’s Day. The legal system, the government, the estab…
on Jan 1
From davidallengreen.com
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28 November 2024 I almost did not publish the post below. The online (and no doubt offline) debate about this topic is heated and often abusive, and as one gets older one loses usually loses the ta…
on Nov 28
From davidallengreen.com
New stories for old – making sense of a political-constitutional rupture
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14th November 2024 * LAUNCELOT: I will send help as soon as I have accomplished a daring and heroic rescue in my own particular… CONCORDE: Idiom, sir? LAUNCELOT: …idiom! – Monty Python …
on Nov 14
From davidallengreen.com
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8th November 2024 The working assumption of many in reaction to the re-election of Trump as President is that he will serve a full term. And that is the most likely outcome, as that is what preside…
on Nov 8
From davidallengreen.com
A postcard from the day after an election: capturing a further political-constitutional moment
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6th November 2024 Yesterday things were unclear, and today things are all too clear. Yesterday it looked as if Harris could win. On the evidence available to someone watching from England, there se…
on Nov 6
From davidallengreen.com
A postcard from the day of an election – capturing a political-constitutional moment
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5th November 2024 Today is the day of the American presidential election. Sooner or later there should be a result – even if, like four years ago, there is drama (or worse) all the way into t…
on Nov 5
From davidallengreen.com
“…as a matter of law, the house is haunted” – a quick Hallowe’en post about law and lore
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Hallowe’en 2024 As words ‘law’ and ‘lore’ can sound pretty much alike. And as things they are also very similar: that is a theme of this blog. But from time to time the courts are asked to de…
on Oct 31
From davidallengreen.com
Prisons and prisons-of-the-mind – how the biggest barrier to prisons reform is public opinion
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28th October 2024 In every voice: in every ban, The mind-forg’d manacles I hear – from London by William Blake * Over at Prospect I have done an article on the recent announcement about…
on Oct 28
From davidallengreen.com
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22nd October 2024 Not all cases of constitutional import involve the high drama of cheering campaigners and disappointed ministers – or of cheering ministers and disappointed campaigners. But…
on Oct 22
From davidallengreen.com
What explains the timing and manner of the Chagos Islands sovereignty deal?
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20th October 2024 Towards resolving a puzzle about how and when the decision was announced * Perhaps the best place to start for a blogpost or any other writing is a sense of puzzlement. A thing do…
on Oct 20
From davidallengreen.com
Happy birthday, Supreme Court: the fifteenth anniversary of the United Kingdom’s highest court
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1st October 2024 In the main courtroom of the Supreme Court there are the benches – really desks – where the Supreme Court judges sit, and at each place there is a microphone for each j…
on Oct 1
From davidallengreen.com
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30th September 2024 In the beginning was the Word. * Well, in the beginning there were words. Lots of words, all over the place, at the beginning of the internet and then of the World Wide Web. And…
on Sep 30
From davidallengreen.com
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24 September 2024 Over at Bluesky, the German writer and historian Helene von Bismarck, an acute observer of British politics, posted this interesting question: “One question I have been asking mys…
on Sep 24
From davidallengreen.com
Miscarriages of Justice: the Oliver Campbell case
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21st September 2024 How a recent appeal case is instructive about how difficult it for the English legal system to right a wrong * Over at Prospect I have done a piece on the recent Oliver Campbell…
on Sep 21
From davidallengreen.com
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11th September 2024 Taylor Swift has endorsed the Democratic nominees Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. * Politically and culturally the endorsement is significant, but this is not really a political or …
on Sep 11
From davidallengreen.com
Supporting Donald Trump is too much for Richard Cheney
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7th September 2024 Back in the halcyon days of that golden age of when politics seemed kind of normal, there was no greater illiberal pantomime villain than Vice President Richard Cheney. (Of cours…
on Sep 7
From davidallengreen.com
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30th August 2024 One accusation that is often made of anyone with an interest in possible miscarriages of justice is that they are “conspiracy theorists”. In reality, however, you do not have to po…
on Aug 30
From davidallengreen.com
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7th August 2024 On the site that is still known as Twitter, Elon Musk has again tweeted that ‘civil war is inevitable’. The thing is that civil wars are rarely inevitable – at least not in th…
on Aug 7
From davidallengreen.com
How the criminal justice system deals with a riot
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5th August 2024 Thirteen years ago, I went along to the south London shopping centre expecting to report on a riot. But there was not a riot. And so in a splendid exercise of journalism, I filed a …
on Aug 5
From davidallengreen.com
And out the other side? The possible return of serious people doing serious things in law and policy
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10th July 2024 There is a sub-genre of fantasy literature which can be called the “portal” story. Here someone goes through a portal into a world similar to but also profoundly different from our o…
on Jul 10
From davidallengreen.com
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9 July 2024 What would be the legal position if a parliamentary candidate did not exist? A non-existent candidate, yesterday. This question is posed because of concerns currently expressed as to wh…
on Jul 9
From davidallengreen.com
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8th July 2024 The appointment of James Timpson as prisons minister is welcome – indeed it is the most welcome appointment to this position that any sensible person can imagine. But there are …
on Jul 8
From davidallengreen.com
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28 June 2024 Some may be tempted to clap and cheer at the news that a Conservative politician is facing a Metropolitan police investigation in respect of alleged political insider betting. But this…
on Jun 28
From davidallengreen.com
Of majorities and “super-majorities”
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21st June 2024 The greatest prize that the constitution of the United Kingdom can bestow is a substantial parliamentary majority at a general election. With such a majority you can be confident to …
on Jun 26
From davidallengreen.com
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25th June 2024 Imagine you are a business person faced with an irksome or onerous regulation. The regulation means that a course of action you would like to take for your business may not be availa…
on Jun 25
From davidallengreen.com
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12th June 2024 As each party manifesto is published online, and for my own easy amusement, I like to search the pdf for words like “enshrine” and “clear”. And after that easy amusement, I look for …
on Jun 24
From davidallengreen.com
Seven changes for a better constitution? Some interesting proposals from some good people.
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24th June 2024 In the Times today there is a letter published from various good sorts putting forward seven practical and easy-to-make steps for a better constitution. One of the signatories, David…
on Jun 24
From davidallengreen.com
The predicted governing party implosion in historical and constitutional context
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11th June 2024 From time to time the party now known as the Conservative and Unionist party has done badly – very badly. * In 1828-32, the old Tory collapsed as what some historians call the …
on Jun 24
From davidallengreen.com
The public service of an “Enemy of the People”
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22nd June 2024 You may remember this headline: This was about the first of the two Brexit cases where the courts had to prevent the government acting in spite of parliament. The court held that an …
on Jun 22
From davidallengreen.com
Donald Trump is convicted – but it is now the judicial system that may need a good defence strategy
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1st June 2024 On balance, the prosecution of Donald Trump in New York did not look likely to succeed. The prosecution had to show that certain business records were falsified at the direction of or…
on Jun 1
From davidallengreen.com
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29 May 2024 When the general election was suddenly called I was in the middle of writing about another legal topic for Prospect. And then when the current Prime Minister squelchingly announced a ge…
on May 29
From davidallengreen.com
Another inquiry report, another massive public policy failure revealed
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21st May 2024 There are so many governmental scandals that it is difficult to keep up with them all, and one horrific scandal this blog has not before covered is about contaminated blood. This week…
on May 21
From davidallengreen.com
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Star Wars Day, 2024 I once came across a quote in a history book which I have never been able to re-find. It was from an acquaintance of I think Lord Randolph Churchill (Winston’s father), or perha…
on May 4
From davidallengreen.com
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17th April 2024 Hugh Grant has acted in many counter-intuitive scenarios. But the situation he described today on Twitter is perhaps the most counter-intuitive predicament of them all: * Grant has …
on Apr 18
From davidallengreen.com
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Independent commentary on law and policy from a liberal constitutionalist and critical perspective
on Apr 15
From davidallengreen.com
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16th January 2021 There are news reports that the prime minister has not read the trade and cooperation agreement with the European Union – and nor had the fisheries minister before it was ag…
on Mar 2
From davidallengreen.com
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10th February 2024 This week Prospect posted something by me on the issue of a potential border poll in Northern Ireland. Please click (and read!) here. This post unpacks that Prospect post –…
on Feb 11
From davidallengreen.com
How the government is seeking to change the law on Rwanda so as to disregard the facts
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30th January 2024 The decisions of judges, other than about case and court management, can be divided into two sorts. First, there are rulings. These rulings can be about the substantive law, or th…
on Jan 30
From davidallengreen.com
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12th January 2024 The Post Office Horizon scandal is both simple and complex, straightforward but also difficult to grasp in all its interconnected detail. The essence of the scandal is, of course,…
on Jan 22
From davidallengreen.com
What is often left unsaid in complaints about pesky human rights law and pesky human rights lawyers
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15th December 2023 * Those criticising human rights law and lawyers often shy away from spelling out the substance of a particular right * You may or may not remember Abu Qatada and how he once fea…
on Dec 15, 2023
From davidallengreen.com
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30th November 2023 This post is about three elements of the judgment of the Supreme Court on the Rwanda policy – and how the Supreme Court decision means that the Rwanda scheme cannot be save…
on Nov 30, 2023
From davidallengreen.com
What if the Elgin Marbles were not legally acquired by the British Museum in the first place?
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15th November 2021 No sensible person can deny that the exhibition of the Elgin Marbles at the British Museum is awesome. To walk into the relevant room at the museum is breathtaking. But. The sple…
on Nov 28, 2023
From davidallengreen.com
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1st July 2023 * The overlooked obstacle to the United Kingdom withdrawing from the ECHR * From time to time the demand comes from a government minister, or from one of their political and media sup…
on Nov 18, 2023
From davidallengreen.com
Proportionality is an incomplete legal concept
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25th October 2023 * The legal(isitic) concept of proportionality does not exist in a vacuum, for it is a term for the relationship between means and objectives * There is an old line shared by Engl…
on Oct 25, 2023
From davidallengreen.com
Commissioner Breton writes a letter: a post in praise of the one-page formal document
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11th October 2023 Thierry Breton is the Commissioner for Internal Market of the European Union and yesterday he sent a letter: * You may have strong views – very strong views – on the c…
on Oct 11, 2023