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Category Archives: Society

Climate change, scepticism and elitism

Half the harm that is done in this world Is due to people who want to feel important. They don’t mean to do harm — but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it Because they are absorbed in the endless struggle To think well of themselves. [...]

Hung, drawn and quartered?

The outcome of the 2010 Federal Election is fascinating. The Liberal National Party have 71 seats, Labor has 70 seats, the Greens have 1 seat (their first ever won in a General Election), and other independents have 3. It looks like Labor is better placed to form a minority government, but we’ll wait and see. [...]

Election Reflection

Well, finally it’s election day. I have to say that even though the campaign only lasted 6 weeks, I was heartily sick of it by the end. As I said in my post on the worm, I think the immediate attention on focus groups, opinion polls and knee-jerk reactions produces bad policy. It’s not policy [...]

The middle class can kiss my…

David Cameron claimed on Tuesday that he and his wife Samantha are members of ‘the sharp-elbowed middle classes’. This statement was at the same time an attempt to proclaim his ordinariness and a dig at middle-class values. The Prime Minister was in effect saying that he is much like everyone else while deprecating those whom [...]

And I broke a bloody fingernail!

Those of you who are my facebook friends will know that last night, I was the victim of a serious assault. That piece of legalese doesn’t, however, quite do justice to the experience of having a bottle smashed over one’s head. If it’s a ned, then it must be Buckfast. In short, two persons — [...]

Sexual harassment and the law

Personal recollections A long time ago, in the process of applying for Articles, I was sexually harassed by a male partner at a law firm. I think I was, anyway. I hadn’t received a place in the first round of offers, and I’d come to seek feedback on my interview technique. “What would you do [...]

Scanning Judges

One of the reasons I really liked working at the Supreme Court was that it was a bastion of intelligent eccentricity. Many of the judges were unusual people, but they were also intelligent, compassionate people. I know that at least some judges were aware of their eccentricity. One judge (now retired) came in to my [...]

Computer says “no”

Work and pensions minister Chris Grayling is conducting an urgent review into a new medical test for incapacity benefit after fresh figures showed only 6% of those tested were deemed to be totally incapable of working. The figures, covering all new claims from October 2008 to the end of November 2009, show 39% are being [...]

Well, that’s one

FRIENDS of an acclaimed Scottish writer have accused the new government’s crackdown on welfare benefits of being a factor in his suicide. Paul Reekie, who, along with Irvine Welsh, was part of a wave of young Scottish authors who rose to international prominence in the 1990s, killed himself in his Edinburgh home last month. The [...]

The Worm

O Rose thou art sick. The invisible worm, That flies in the night In the howling storm: Has found out thy bed Of crimson joy: And his dark secret love Does thy life destroy. (William Blake, The Sick Rose, Songs of Innocence and Experience, 1794) plate here There is a canker eating at the heart [...]