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Good old Mandy! There is so much to unpick and enjoy in the Epstein revelations – from the state of Mandy’s underwear to potential criminality: breaches of the Official Secrets Act, the Nolan Principles of Public Life (largely ignored by people in public life), passing on of confidential information, possibly also unpublished price sensitive information and, who knows, insider dealing on the back of it, corruption, misconduct in public office, tax shenanigans and so on. The commentators and journalists will…

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Where Scotland leads, the English government follows. Really? Well, how else to explain the government’s recent actions following the Supreme Court’s judgment in For Women Scotland (2) (“FWS”)? It seems to be hanging onto their manly kilts by following precisely the Scottish government’s behaviour – not just following this judgment but an earlier one (FWS (1) – see here). What is the UK government doing? A question in three parts. 1. Acceptance On the first, the government has certainly said…

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Picture above: From the first page of the Prescott dossier What do the BBC, the Met Police, the NHS, the Post Office and the City have in common? No, not the basis for a new competition programme – “Spot The Scandal” – (though if someone wants to “borrow” or “steal” this, remember I’m a litigator, a good one). The answer is this: when faced with any sort of challenge or crisis, their initial response is woeful, informed by a mixture…

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Halloween. And another government F*** You to women. They come fast these days but this is the best yet: not just 2 fingers to women but a positively Trumpian approach to compliance with the law, namely, use every excuse and deceitful dodge to ignore a law you don’t like. Or are too cowardly to enforce. The facts Too harsh a judgment? No. The very clear messages the government is sending out are:  Perhaps those endlessly bewailing how Trump is degrading…

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Perhaps the girls were simply invisible to them. Perhaps they believed that money has no smell. Well for a time it doesn’t. But eventually how you make money, the “services” it allows you to enjoy and who you associate with in order to make more money does smell. Badly. At which point, the authorities start saying that they do care very much indeed about the appalling stench caused by all the blind eye turning, though this is usually couched as…

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Sir Laurie Magnus’s Report was kinder than it could have been to Angela Rayner. Rather worse than her not taking legal advice was that she lied about having taken such advice, a point his report ignored. The moral of her departure from government is simply this: pay attention to what your lawyer tells you. When he or she “recommends” something, they are not suggesting one pudding over another. A lawyer’s “Recommend” means: “You’d be a bloody fool not to do…

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There is much unintentional black humour in the latest imbroglio involving the writer of Black Books. Humour yes, but oodles of hypocrisy, a great big dollop of dishonesty and sloping shoulder syndrome from the Met (not to mention the incompetence and failure to think through the consequences of their actions we have come to know and love), ambitious politicians spotting a cause (the “Jenrick Syndrome” ably deployed by Wes Streeting (I know, the surprise!) and, mirabile dictu, an answer to…

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With these words Sir Wyn Williams described the behaviour of individuals at the Post Office and both institutions, behaviour he considered “worthy of condemnation.” In essence, the Post Office demanded money with menaces based on data it knew was not reliable and defrauded its sub-postmasters (“SPMs”) of monies it was never owed. Lawyers, investigators, IT specialists and their managers were at the heart of this behaviour. For 13 years. The later parts of his Report will describe in detail that…

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