Dear Aussie friends,
Dear Aussie friends, We want you to know how distressing J and I have found the news and images of Queensland in these last days and weeks. As far as we know none of...
Brian Barder's website and blog Brian Barder's website and ephems
Votes for prisoners: an Australian legal view
Like others on the liberal/Labour left, I’m saddened by indications that the Labour opposition is ready to reject the coalition’s plan to restore voting rights to most prisoners serving sentences of less than four...
New Year Diary
At the end of 2010 the admirable Caroline Lucas, Green Party leader and sole Green MP, had a letter in the Guardian lambasting Labour for inconsistency: the former Labour government had introduced university tuition...
The Human Rights Act: another false attack
Tories from the prime minister downwards, and (to their shame) some relics of New Labour, lose no opportunity to lambast the Human Rights Act, which the Conservatives (but not the coalition) still threaten to...
Extradition has lost its way
Julian Assange, the Australian founder of Wikileaks, is spending another night in Wandsworth prison, in solitary confinement in the segregation wing, forbidden to have any contact with other prisoners, in conditions described by his...
Ken Clarke’s proposals on IPPs deserve a heartfelt welcome
The Justice Secretary, Kenneth Clarke, introduced his proposals for reform of sentencing policy in the house of commons this afternoon (7 Dec 2010). These concentrated on reducing re-offending by more effective rehabilitation of offenders...
Wikileaks: damage or just embarrassment? [with update 4 Dec 10]
More than a quarter of a million American diplomatic cables have been leaked by Wikileaks, which seems to have got them (or some of them) from an American private soldier who had accessed them,...
Time to shut up New Labour’s old dinosaurs
A few months after he had formed the new Labour government in 1945, Clement Attlee grew tired of the stream of publicly offered but unwanted advice on how the government should conduct itself emanating...
When is a Queen not a Queen?
Camilla is the Princess of Wales, and when Prince Charles becomes King, Camilla will be Queen, unless parliament decides otherwise — which it won’t. Until now the royal family’s official line has been that...
Coalition ‘welfare’ policy: back to the workhouse
I’m appalled by the qualified approval by Labour party shadow ministers[1] (and a distinguished Guardian commentator) for IDS’s savage attack on those who for one reason or another can’t work. As Martin Kettle remarked,...