Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Carl Gardner @carlgardner.bsky.social · 4h

I don't understand his implication that Biden, Trump or Israel could have done this deal earlier. Has Hamas ever before agreed to release *all* remaining hostages within a few days of a ceasefire? I don't think they have, till now. I think that's the key change from what's gone before.

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Sophie Pedder @sophiepedder.bsky.social · 11h

Despite everything else going on, France last night honoured Robert Badinter, the former justice minister who ended the death penalty in 🇫🇷 in 1981. He entered the Panthéon in a moving moment of national tribute that the French do so well

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James O'Malley @jamesomalley.co.uk · 1d

I am pro-NATO because I am anti-imperialist.

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Russell Sandberg @sandbergrlaw.bsky.social · 11h

I am thrilled to sign a contract with @hartpublishing to author a book provisionally titled ‘The Life and Works of Glanville Williams: Writing the Law’.

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David KC @davidmuttering.bsky.social · 14h

Just had a tremendous wander around legal London with a visitor from the remote north, Mr. @scottwortley.bsky.social

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Sarah Murphy @13sarahmurphy.bsky.social · 21h

Private Eye offers up an excellently scornful commentary on the relentless polling. It’s become ridiculous and has oversimplified our politics to dangerous levels of stupid and irresponsible.

SHOCK POLL:
NIGEL FARAGE WILL BE PM TOMORROW
IN an amazing poll conducted
by The Pointless Polling Company, it was revealed that voters' intentions
may well change over the next three and a half years and at present it's 100 percent impossible to guess what the next government might look like.
However, 99 percent of journalists
agree that it would be much more fun if we had an election tomorrow and everybody resigned and everything was chaos and Farage had a go at being PM, just for the hell of it, because it was so much fun when
Brexit happened and then the government kept falling every five minutes and we could write endless pieces about (cont. p94)

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Carl Gardner @carlgardner.bsky.social · 1d

And with the early with-it PR and technology Benn.

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Jacob Gifford Head @giffordhead.co.uk · 1d

Reading the judgment in Sussex Police v XGY [2025] EWCA Civ 1230, I come across this.

With the greatest respect to the illustrious panel, might we please stop writing like this? “Bar Council” doesn’t need to be defined. English does not work like that. You only need to define to avoid confusion.

Screenshot reading: The Bar Council of England and Wales (the Bar Council) was subsequently given permission by this court to intervene and to make written and oral submissions.

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Katy Derbyshire @katyderbyshire.bsky.social · 1d

Sorry to use you as a dumping ground, but I just talked to a guy who’s thinking about getting into literary translation by “using software” and post-editing. Because it would be too time consuming the long way. He was also unimpressed by my suggestion that good translation takes practice.

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Carl Gardner @carlgardner.bsky.social · 1d

Human rights are for everyone, yes. But human rights law may not be the best framework of analysis for every set of circumstances, everywhere, all the time.

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Carl Gardner @carlgardner.bsky.social · 1d

This is interesting. I was worried by the Cheshire West judgment at the time. I thought Lady Hale's famous "human rights are for everyone" quote was a superficial formula in a complex context. That feeling has only increased with experience of a care home. I have some sympathy with Mostyn J.

Celia Kitzinger @kitzingercelia.bsky.social · 1d

On October 2025, the UK Supreme Court will be asked to re-consider its judgment in a case commonly referred to as "Cheshire West".

In this blog, @clarkdaniel.bsky.social explains the background to the case.

openjusticecourtofprotection.org/2025/10/07/r...

Reconsidering Cheshire West in the Supreme Court: Is a gilded cage still a cage?

Even when P says they’re happy with their residence, and that they do not want to leave, and welcome the fact that the doors are kept locked, this still amounts to a deprivation of liberty. I…

openjusticecourtofprotection.org

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Colin Murray @colinmurray.bsky.social · 1d

A pure example of BBC balance. On the one side, on the other, all the way through. This leaves a really superficial account of what's at issue with leaving the ECHR and accepts, doe-eyed, that Policy Exchange had a "really detailed proposal" on the GFA, not a hot mess:

share.google/qGXg9rHZYfPL...

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Carl Gardner @carlgardner.bsky.social · 1d

I don't think "it'll all be fine". That seems complacent in a very dangerous world. I do think some things are likely to improve, such as my experience of the NHS, and I also think it's far too early to think Nigel Farage will probably be PM by 2030. Would you say I'm just comforting myself?

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Carl Gardner @carlgardner.bsky.social · 2d

I’m not sure how I’d have felt about this in a concert hall, but as ambient music I really enjoyed it.

radio3 @radio3.bsky.social · 2d

“Become Ocean” by John Luther Adams #nowplaying #radio3

Carl Gardner @carlgardner.bsky.social · 2d

Maybe. My prosecuting experience is limited and with very different offences, but I remember it was not uncommon to find the two stages of the test hard to separate, or at least both in play.

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Cristy Clark @cristyclark.bsky.social · 2d

It would breach Art 13(3) of the ICESCR but the UK has not signed or ratified the optional protocol.

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Carl Gardner @carlgardner.bsky.social · 2d

An interesting point, this. I wonder if the UK has any other international obligations that could make banning these schools difficult. The ECHR must be the main constraint, though.

Paolo Sandro @paolosandro.bsky.social · 3d

Incidentally, leaving the ECHR - as Reform and now Conservatives have pledged to do - would most definitely allow a future government to ban both religious and private school

Lewis Goodall @lewisgoodall.com · 3d

Am wondering if all of those suddenly deciding they’re against communities living “parallel lives” might reconsider their support of religious schools? Or indeed private ones?

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Carl Gardner @carlgardner.bsky.social · 2d

Like: How do you bring evidence now of secret national security assessments then? Can the evidence fairly be admitted if there's also a lot of highly sensitive unused material tending to undermine it? What evidence can you sensibly bring relevant to whether "we might some day be at war" with China?

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Carl Gardner @carlgardner.bsky.social · 2d

I don't really get the CPS decision in the China spying prosecution, any more than Mark Elliot does publiclawforeveryone.com/2025/10/08/o... or the lawyers quoted in the Guardian: www.theguardian.com/law/2025/oct.... My *guess* is that it must have been a complex tangle of evidential worries.

Legal experts question reasoning behind CPS dropping China ‘spies’ case

Ex-DPP Ken Macdonald says prosecutors may have been ‘over-fussy’ in seeking further assurances from government

www.theguardian.com

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Carl Gardner @carlgardner.bsky.social · 2d

I'm not surprised - it's a terrific idea. Thanks for doing it.

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Mark Elliott @profmarkelliott.bsky.social · 2d

New post | On China, the Official Secrets Act and 'enemies': Is the Prime Minister wrong?
publiclawforeveryone.com/2025/10/08/o...

On China, the Official Secrets Act and ‘enemies’: Is the Prime Minister wrong?

The Prime Minister has claimed that his government’s hands are tied in relation to whether China constituted an ‘enemy’ for the purpose of a now-dropped criminal prosecution under…

publiclawforeveryone.com

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John Rentoul @rentouljohn.bsky.social · 2d

Kemi Badenoch promises to abolish stamp duty. Hurrah. But where is the £12bn a year coming from?

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Shoaib M Khan @shoaibmkhan.bsky.social · 2d

The complete text of the brilliant and thought-provoking Human Rights Lawyers Association Inaugural Annual Lecture delivered by the phenomenal Robert Spano last week:

www.linkedin.com/posts/shoaib...

HRLA Inaugural Annual Lecture 2025 by Robert Spano | Shoaib Mahmood Khan

"Human rights, as a political and moral value system, is losing ground; history appears to be repeating itself. One even fears that a hurricane of horrors might be brewing. It may be a tropical storm ...

www.linkedin.com

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Haus der Wannsee-Konferenz @wannseekonferenz.bsky.social · 3d

Solidarität mit den Kolleg*innen des Jüdischen Museums Berlin:
"Laut einer Polizeisprecherin soll er das Wort 'Jüdisches' durchgestrichen und mit dem Wort 'Kindermörder' ersetzt haben.
Zudem soll der 54-Jährige ein Plakat mit der Aufschrift 'Kindermörder' unter dem Wegweiserschild angebracht haben."

Antisemitismus in Berlin: 54-Jähriger beschmiert Schild des Jüdischen Museums mit „Kindermörder“-Aufschrift – Festnahme

In der Gitschiner Straße in Kreuzberg hat ein 54-Jähriger am Montag ein Wegweiserschild des Jüdischen Museums beschmiert. Dazu brachte er ein Plakat mit antisemitischem Inhalt an.

www.tagesspiegel.de

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Carl Gardner @carlgardner.bsky.social · 3d

I've read most of his his novels and enjoyed them all, and I agree with his evaluation of The House of Sleep. But I think The Rain Before It Falls is his very best. Which is saying something since he also wrote The Rotters' Club and What a Carve Up!

Jonathan Coe @jonathancoe.bsky.social · 3d

In which I talk about anxiety as a motivating force, never being considered for the Booker, and an early novel that's become problematic.

Jonathan Coe: ‘I have a fascination with the right’

The author on keeping his liberal instincts in check, his love of breaking the literary fourth wall, and not fitting comfortably into the world

observer.co.uk

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