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 …

Supporting Donald Trump is too much for Richard Cheney

Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 7 September 2024 English

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 …

Another inquiry report, another massive public policy failure revealed

Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 21 May 2024 English

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 …

Law and lore, and state failure – the quiet collapse of the county court system in England and Wales

Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 22 April 2024 English

22nd April 2024 One theme of my blogging is the relationship between law and lore. By ‘law and lore’ I mean what people believe to be the law to be, …

Unpacking the remarkable witness statement of Johnny Mercer – a closer look at the extraordinary evidence put before the Afghan …

Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 25 March 2024 English

25 March 2024 Over at Prospect I have written a piece on the remarkable witness statement of Johnny Mercer MP given to the current Afghan war crimes inquiry. (On that …

The curious incident of the Afghanistan war crimes statutory inquiry being set up

Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 21 March 2024 English

21st March 2024 Back in December 2022, this Blog picked up on something odd. Click here to read that post. Joshua Rozenberg picked up on the strange development – and …

A close look at the Donelan libel settlement: how did a minister make her department feel exposed to expensive legal …

Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 8 March 2024 English

8th March 2024 Yesterday over at Prospect I did a post on the curious situation of the Michelle Donelan libel settlement. Please click and read the post here. Here I …

How the legal system made it so easy for the Post Office to destroy the lives of the sub-postmasters and …

Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 12 January 2024 English

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, …

Drafts of history – how the Covid Inquiry, like the Leveson Inquiry, is securing evidence for historians that would otherwise …

Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 1 November 2023 English

All Saints’ Day, 2023 The Leveson Inquiry ended badly: the recommendations of the report were botched and then ignored. But the Inquiry was not without value: the Inquiry placed into …

One year on from one thing, sixteen months on from another thing…

Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 8 September 2023 English

8th September 2023 On this anniversary of Elizabeth II’s death, we are still in the legislative session commenced with the Queen’s Speech of May 2022 – one monarch and two …