I’ve never heard of Edward Furlong, but he doesn’t sound like a very nice chap. Having been charged with battery twice at the end of last year he has been arrested again for allegedly attacking his girlfriend. He’s also been sued by a previous girlfriend for ‘assault’ and has been banned from spending time alone with his six-year-old son. If I weren’t already very unlikely to watch his films I’d now make a point of boycotting them.
Read more...Hands up, who has already broken their new year’s resolution? Apparently about 75 per cent of us will fail after just nine days, which makes them hardly worth bothering with (unless, say, your resolution was to decorate the living room by 8 January 2013). Mine are suitably unoriginal, but since I recommit to them at least once a month they don’t really count as new year’s resolutions.
Read more...It seems some of us have been stressing about Christmas since 12 November. That’s 42 days before the big event. That’s about 11.5 per cent of the year spent worrying about one day. Most of the stress is down to worrying about which presents to buy, closely followed by concerns about how much the celebrations will cost in total.
Read more...As of last week, it is a criminal offence to squat in any
residential property, including those that are empty or abandoned. Many of the headlines were almost euphoric in tone, lauding the end of ‘squatters’ rights’ and praising a victory for common sense. And who could disagree? For too long lazy, hippie, dropout, scrounging anarchists have been causing ‘untold misery’ by forcing thousands of really nice law-abiding people out of their homes.
It is a paradox that the rule stating people often rate their personal experience of something much more highly than the something as a whole does not seem to apply to politicians. Thus surveys can show disaffection with the NHS but great relationships with local GPs, or dislike of the legal profession but, amazingly, really good connections with individual lawyers.
Read more...And so the legal aid bill has ended its ignominious passage through Parliament and received
Royal Assent. It is, without a doubt, one of the most controversial pieces of legislation to come out of this most controversial of governments and will, also without a doubt, eviscerate the legal aid system.
Last week I had the pleasure of having lunch with barrister Henrietta Hill. We were at university together more years ago than would be polite to disclose. I’ll admit to being slightly jealous that she has managed to achieve far more than I have in fighting injustice, but then I didn’t have the aptitude or dedication to become a top lawyer and have been muddling along ever since.
Read more...Legal aid might not be dead yet, but it is certainly on life support. The route to justice for thousands of people, including children, victims of domestic violence, disabled people appealing decisions to cut welfare payments and patients who have suffered at the hands of a negligent doctor, is slowly being choked off. And yet there has been more press coverage about having to pay VAT on a hot pasty.
Read more...Easter Sunday, along with Christmas and birthdays, is the only day you are allowed to eat chocolate for breakfast. It’s not a very enforceable rule and not one, as far as I know, defined by statute, but it’s a rule nonetheless. Unlike the supposed law banning eating mince pies on Christmas day, which is, as with many of the most amusing examples of stupid laws, an
urban myth. I am instinctively distrustful of insurance companies, despite the fact that a good portion of my monthly income goes into their coffers to keep my car on the road, the roof over my head and, in theory at least, provide me with an income if the worst happens and I can’t work. Hopefully, I will never have to call on my policies, although that only seems to reinforce the feeling that my hard-earned cash is just lining someone else’s pocket.
Read more...I'll give them this, the coalition government has a thick skin. Having only passed the Welfare Reform Bill by one vote last week and still dragging the Health and Social Care Bill kicking and screaming through the House of Lords, today it attempts to squeeze the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill (Laspo) past growing opposition from peers.
Read more...It’s rather a British thing to support the underdog. I’m pretty sure most of us feel a natural affinity for David and get a warm glow when he manages to land one on Goliath. It’s nice to know that when the little guy takes on an injustice done to him he can be sure of a fair hearing thanks to Lady Justice and the principles of magna carta. At least that’s what it used to be like.
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