Love being reminded to do this every year. It's a win/win all round

“THE KING has been pleased by Warrant under His Royal Sign Manual dated 30 October 2025 to direct His Secretary of State to cause the Duke of York to be removed from the Roll of the Peerage with immediate effect.” thegazette.co.uk/notice/4992105

NEW An instance of the royal prerogative Why an Act of Parliament was not needed to remove the title from the former Duke of York By me Substack: emptycity.substack.com/p/an-instanc... Personal blog: davidallengreen.com/2025/11/an-i...

Removal from the Roll of Peerage might deprive someone of the precedence and forms of address attaching to a peerage, but legally that person is still a peer. And removal from the roll does not stop a prince being a prince.

A constitutional question: maintaining the roll of the peerage is the responsibility of a government minister, viz the Lord Chancellor. It's maintained by the Ministry of Justice. Is the King able independently to instruct the Lord Chancellor to remove someone from the roll, or can he only do so...

I’m really starting to suspect that most of the tech bros haven’t actually read Tolkien, as they certainly don’t understand it. The gentle hobbits save the “hard men” of Gondor, largely through compassion and selflessness. Not the other way around. The Christian parable is barely hidden!

It’s regularly said that when Parliament excludes judicial review, it does something so constitutionally intolerable that the courts can legitimately resist such efforts. The history of English administrative law tells a different story.

I'm glad to share a new article from me and Paul Warchuk from the University of New Brunswick on the history of ouster clauses and the common law. We trace the law's approach to ouster clauses over 300 years, re-assessing the idea that ousters have always been considered constitutionally repugnant.

I agree with Joshua that this intervention is by the Human Rights Commissioner is spectacularly badly timed. At a moment where two of the four largest political parties in the UK are advocating an exit from the Convention system, his criticisms seem tin eared.

@robinsoncollege.bsky.social are looking for a new Junior Research Fellow from a variety of humanities and social sciences, including law. Join us! www.robinson.cam.ac.uk/about-robins...

A new paper from Philip Murray and me: 'In Defence of Classical Administrative Law'. We argue that the voidness of unlawful administrative acts is central to the rule of law and that recent challenges to that view can and should be resisted. publiclawforeveryone.com/2025/09/16/i...

Timeline cleanse

"A single human soul is worth more than the whole universe of material goods. There is nothing higher than the immortal soul, save God. With respect to the eternal destiny of the soul, society exists for each person and is subordinated to it." — Jacques Maritain, The Person and the Common Good

We do not live in a tyranny. Using armed officers to arrest a man at an airport over a series of tweets is the sort of thing one would expect to happen in Russia or North Korea. People will remember this when the police next claim to be under resourced.

Reflecting on the Graham Lineham story this morning, unless there is something more that hasn’t been reported, assuming that the Met Police was responsible for this ‘operation’ I think the Commissioner should resign.

Cracking read.

I don't particularly agree with his views, but if he has been arrested over these three tweets then that's completely ridiculous. open.substack.com/pub/grahamli...

On where UK Bluesky does have a blind spot, I haven’t seen anything on here about the vandalism of Policy Exchange’s office (see below). This kind of stuff should be called out and criticised and I’m very happy to do so.

I'm afraid to say the Bodleian is significantly nicer to work in than Cambridge's UL.

Let’s be clear. The problem is the Online Safety Act. It’s not Labour, it’s not the Tories, it’s both of them. The act had cross party support. The act is the biggest piece of censorship in the U.K. since the Second World War.

Good stuff from @profmarkelliott.bsky.social. Mark's right, I think, that the Supreme Court's recent practice of issuing bland, single judgments "has arguably had the effect of oversimplifying, or at least obscuring important and contentious issues". publiclawforeveryone.com/2025/07/29/t...

This is a brilliant choice. Lord Smith will be an excellent Chancellor for the the University of Cambridge. www.cam.ac.uk/news/new-cha...

As someone who couldn't have undertaken a PhD without funding, the AHRC scholarship I received (many years ago) was life-changing. It's incredibly concerning that the the next generation of prospective academics are being denied such opportunities. www.timeshighereducation.com/news/student...

Two quick points about today's Braverman/Prosperity Institute report on ECHR exit & the GFA. (i) Advocating a return to the legal situation that applied in Northern Ireland in 1969 is an interesting choice of approach. (Cue the quote about the Bourbons forgetting nothing & learning nothing.) 1/2

Another decision, this time from Scotland, on the "narrowly drawn" exceptions to the Cart ouster in the TCEA 2007: www.bailii.org/scot/cases/S... Gabriel Tan @finishedloading.bsky.social discussed a similar English court case here back in May: administrativecourtblog.wordpress.com/2025/05/20/c...

Today's report by Suella Braverman on leaving the ECHR is, unsurprisingly, full of myths (the common law will protect us), lies (the ECHR stops us from having our desired immigration system) and exaggerations (human rights are incompatible with sovereignty). It's not worth taking seriously.

Again - the reason the Irish government/nationalists in Northern Ireland wanted a reference to the ECHR in the Good Friday Agreement is that the European Court of Human Rights had held the UK accountable for human rights abuses in NI - whereas "domestic UK and common law principles" had not

On first impressions, Suella Braverman's ECHR report rests on an overly selective history of the ECHR's place in the Belfast Agreement. To say that commitments in the agreement to incorporate the ECHR into Northern Irish law and to limit the Assembly’s ability to legislate contrary to the ECHR ...

Growth and house building are crucial. So is nature. It's a crying shame that Labour are sacrificing biodiversity and the natural environment for a quick fix. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

This is constitutionally confused. Policy and legal instructions to officials do not constitute Parliament's intention. Statutory language, context and, in cases of ambiguity, ministerial statements and explanatory notes, do. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

Didn't the Vice President in his Munich speech criticise the UK for penalising private prayer? (I'm against the UK laws too, for what it's worth.)

While Oxford elected Lord Hague of Richmond, Cambridge will fight it out between Gina Miller and the host of QI.

Heartbreaking about the Holy Father. But he enters into the full light of the resurrection. May he know the Lord’s mercy and love.

The three holy women arrive at the empty tomb and are greeted by an angel. The guards remain asleep in front of the tomb. #EasterSunday München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, BSB Clm 16002; Passau Evangelistar; c.1170 CE - 1180 CE; Passau; f.20v

Reading stuff like this makes me rather pleased to live in the UK with our King-in-Parliament and unwritten constitution but deep seated values, and not that “shining city on a hill” that has talked so much about freedom and liberty but for so many of whom that just meant freedom for white people.

Our constitutional system isn't actually that bad - and is worth defending nortonview.wordpress.com/2025/04/18/o...

John Finnis' British Academy memoir of Joseph Raz www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/publishing/m...

Constitutional codification is a false panacea.

In 'Governing Britain', I noted that the existence of a codified constitution fails to constrain the executive unless there is a culture of constitutionalism. This is being borne out by events around the globe. @manchesterup.bsky.social

There's an interesting debate in this thread about the limitations on allowing third-party interventions in the UK Supreme Court, in relation to the FWS decision.

Law, as ordinance of reason, recognises due process as vital. By subjecting governmental acts to law, the one who has the care of the community treats shows the law's subjects to be respected partners in public reason.

Lads- the Cricket episode of Bluey has just gone on iPlayer. If you have 7 minutes there isn’t a better distillation of the love of the game. www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...

The natural law tradition, from which common good constitutionalism claims its lineage, obviously goes further back than Aquinas and expressly Catholic thought. Aristotle. Cicero. Mediated through Finnis, it isn’t wedded to acceptance of Revelation …

Lex nihil est aliud, quam quaedam rationis ordinatio ad bonum commune, ab eo, qui curam communitatis habet, promulgata (cf ST IaIIae 90.4).

There has been some excellent academic work on the issue raised by @michaelpforan.bsky.social in the LQR and elsewhere that you can access here. It changed my mind and convinced me of the answer the UKSC was to give. /4 bsky.app/profile/spin...

I agree with Chris. I also agree with today's judgment, disagree with the prorogation judgment, wish we still had an Appellate Committee of the House of Lords, but think the Supreme Court is perfectly legitimate institution.

Parliament passes statutes. Courts interpret them. If people are unhappy with the court's interpretation, they can elect legislators to change the law. Such is the beauty of the political constitution.

Having now read the judgment, I offer the following comment. The single issue before the court were the definitions of man and woman under the Equality Act: did they refer to biological sex, or did they relate to gender identity. This is the only issue the court ruled on. /1