Pupil Barrister
So, voluntary self-isolation becomes a mandatory lock-down.
Plenty of people have been discussing relevant films, TV shows and literature that deal with pandemics, deadly diseases and the like. GIFs from Shaun of the Dead, and all the other zombie movies, fill my timeline.
As for me, I have found that my mind keeps wandering back to three books I read in recent years, which all include moments of apocalyptic lock-down.
Continue readingSome good news! Remember the local campaign against propsed feeder schools? The Langley Park Learning Trust responded to the consultation, and have decided not to proceed.
I spoke to Monica Charsley, Bromley and Bexley correspondent at the News Shopper, about the decision:
Robert Sharp, a spokesperson for the Fair Access Langley campaign group, said: “We are delighted with the decision.
“So many people worked hard to raise awareness about the consultation, and the number of people who responded was a factor in the decision.
“But it is also pleasing that the trustees have engaged with and accepted the social, educational and environmental arguments raised by the community.
“However, we remain concerned that the Trust chose to consult in the first place.
“We urge them to be transparent about their reasons for doing so, and to reassure the community that they will not re-consult on this issue in the near future.”
I want to say something quite precise about the nature of the ‘debate’ about transgender rights. It is not about the substance of the argument itself, but about how we are arguing about it.
The prompt for this is last week’s furore over a Suzanne Moore column in the Guardian, and the No Platforming of the historian Selina Todd. But it could just as easily be about any of the other controversies that have generated news media coverage and social media heat over the past few years.
First, did you notice how I put apostrophes around the word ‘debate’ above. I do that to acknowledge a point that transgender rights activists make constantly: that their right to exist should not be up for debate.
Continue readingAre you the sort of person who gets annoyed with ‘political correctness’? Are you fed up with ‘woke’ students and minority rights activists seeking to police your thoughts? Exasperated with civil servants attempting to social engineer us all?
Well then you had better get behind the campaign to save judicial review.
Last week Mr Justice Julian Knowles of the Administrative Division of the High Court handed down his judgment in R (Miller) v The College of Policing and another [2020] EWHC 225 (Admin). Continue reading
The idea of human rights being valuable in themselves doesn’t wash with a lot of people. Instead, they want to see a practical benefit to rights. Seeing horrible people benefit from the same rights as the rest of us undermines people’s support for such rights.
I worry about this a lot.
This attitude is particularly apparent this week due to the horrific knife attack in Streatham, which mirrored the awful murders at the Fishmonger’s Hall in December. In both cases the perpetrator had been released from prison following a conviction for terrorism, and so now there is discussion about retrospectively changing the release and parole procedures for such criminals. Continue reading
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