There are significant advantages to having one set of proceedings but the group of litgants needs to be cohesive and, even when they are, a global part 36 offer
can be 'interesting' and not necessarily in a good way.

If stopping judges from deciding factual issues (the safety of a country) they are best equipped to judge is OK, why not apply the same grim inhumane beaucratic logic & stop GPs from deciding medical issues they are best equipped to decide. Help stop this 38d.gs/ie_a

Considered & interesting observations re litigation funding, a suggestion that there needs to be a stronger Ombudsman system for policing the public sector but, what there also needs to be is the restoration of a functional system of civil Legal aid.

What, like how much further does the Spectator have to fall before it bottoms out?

Some thoughts on mandatory mediation in claims under £10k prompted in the first instance by a reply to a post from Professor Dominic Regan

Torrents of news & news of torrents? x.com/thecriminalbar…

As Gordon Exall says, an article that ought to be read widely - lawgazette.co.uk/commentary-and…. Doubt it will have much impact on Alex Chalk KC MP or Ministry of Justice though, it's not as though there haven't been enough warnings, is it The Secret Barrister, Reading County Court Lift, Idle Courts & all?

Bears cp of thread web.archive.org/web/2022040619… & judgment bailii.org/ew/cases/EWFC/…: at points, critique seems ?-able, eg shoe incident (which W called 'inadvertent'). I hope, whatever outcome, there's no needlessly wide statement of principle that inhibits fair comment on cases.

So near yet so far: 'X-creta'.

I know it’s small print. But please read it. Very sad.

I don’t think I have ever seen anything worth reading that started with the words “The one thing worse”; the reasoning of a writer happy to start with a glib fallacy - there’s always an infinite number of things worse - rarely improves thereafter.

Government has denied story & former PO chairman says he made a file note. Making it clear I'm taking a neutral stance, if it's established as true, what is alleged would not be as surprising as the Mail having run it. Rat, sinking ship, at last? dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1…

Every word.

There is very little actually Conservative about the Conservative Party anymore. Populist. English nationalist. Yes. Conservative - no.

Here is probably the saddest opening to a piece that I've ever written.

Thanks to the The New Statesman for giving space to the words of Grenfell bereaved and survivors. I hope last week did some good. But as many said, nothing short of justice will ever do

newstatesman.com/politics/2024/…

“It is a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury / Signifying nothing.” - here’s J on the consultation on reforms to social housing allocation (AKA that British Homes for British People nonsense).

nearlylegal.co.uk/2024/02/macbet…

The decimation of housing legal aid over the past three decades is hurting not just those who need to access it, but the entire social housing sector. And the problem has gone beyond simple fixes. Katharine Swindells reports #UKhousing insidehousing.co.uk/insight/legal-…