The great Afghan cover-up
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2025/07/the-great-afghan-cover-up
This data breach is a humiliation of the British state – and its pretensions to intervene abroad.
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2025/07/the-great-afghan-cover-up
This data breach is a humiliation of the British state – and its pretensions to intervene abroad.
The High Court’s war on truth
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-high-courts-war-on-truth/
This is important because – sorry to state the obvious – laws and regulations are drafted in words. Government can only function if language functions. MPs vote on bills written in words that must mean roughly the same thing to every other MP. Citizens are told what laws to follow in words as well. Yet if judges may subsequently interpret legal text like Humpty-Dumpty, there are no laws. The whole set-up falls apart. We’re ruled by arbitrary court decrees, which are not bound by the Oxford Desk Dictionary or any other staid reference book insisting that words mean something in particular.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-high-courts-war-on-truth/
This is important because – sorry to state the obvious – laws and regulations are drafted in words. Government can only function if language functions. MPs vote on bills written in words that must mean roughly the same thing to every other MP. Citizens are told what laws to follow in words as well. Yet if judges may subsequently interpret legal text like Humpty-Dumpty, there are no laws. The whole set-up falls apart. We’re ruled by arbitrary court decrees, which are not bound by the Oxford Desk Dictionary or any other staid reference book insisting that words mean something in particular.