Fuck off Wordle

NEW BLOGPOST: Palestine Action: What just happened? A look at some of the legal principles at play following yesterday's verdicts. thesecretbarrister.com/2026/02/05/p...

NEW BLOGPOST: Palestine Action: What just happened? A look at some of the legal principles at play following yesterday's verdicts. thesecretbarrister.com/2026/02/05/p...

NEW On the disclosure of Mandelson's emails How to think about disclosed documentary evidence By me at emptycity.substack.com/p/on-the-dis...

🚨ANNOUNCEMENT 1 OF 2🚨 WELL WELL WELL. 🎺🎺🎺 Second book alert!🎺🎺🎺 Did you enjoy the gritty thrilleriness of The Cut Throat Trial? Fancy some more, sunshine? Kill All The Lawyers will be hitting the shelves next year. Consider your appetites whetted.

The whole series is discounted *for today only* so pass it on, tell a friend, stock your kindle etc etc but before midnight…

What is happening in United States is what happens when coercive powers of the state - arrest, detention, charges - are used as ends in themselves, and not as means of serving justice. They know the arrests and charges will not stick, but they don’t care. Intimidation, like cruelty, is the point.

🚨ANNOUNCEMENT 1 OF 2🚨 WELL WELL WELL. 🎺🎺🎺 Second book alert!🎺🎺🎺 Did you enjoy the gritty thrilleriness of The Cut Throat Trial? Fancy some more, sunshine? Kill All The Lawyers will be hitting the shelves next year. Consider your appetites whetted.

I have some book news to announce today, if such a thing is of any interest. I’m quite excited about it. And frankly so should you be.

I get out of court after a typically gruesome day at the blunt end of our ailing justice system, to find that dreams can and do come true. @nigella.bsky.social makes everything better. I’m so happy.

Please repost if you are feeling kind!

They know what they say is untrue, they do not care it is untrue. The media know that what they repeat is untrue, they do not care it is untrue. Their supporters know what they are told is untrue, they do not care it is untrue. Telling the truth is not enough, unless people care about the truth.

one of the best things ever

I am lucky enough to have just finished an advance copy of this beauty. It is (I say quietly so as not to unduly polish his ego) Neil’s best thriller yet. Ridiculously compelling. Devastatingly plotted. Timely, witty - basically everything you could want. The multi-talented bastard.

“It is too early to judge the assortment of war criminals, dictators and autocrats who have paid a demented racist warmonger a billion pounds to be a member of his exclusive club.”

If this happens, it will make literally everything better. All of it. Everything in the world. @nigella.bsky.social in our living rooms every Tuesday throughout Autumn - genuinely life-changing stuff.

NEW REPORT: the gov’s proposals for judge-only trials will deliver only marginal savings and distract from the real route out of this crisis: reversing recent falls in court productivity.

I'm good thanks. I think I probably won't move to the country where the authorities pump out neo-Nazi memes and masked militias roam the streets.

When this is all over, every single person who voted for and enabled him should be forced to pay reparations and make a daily apology to the rest of the world.

I think the White House badly underestimates the strength of the pan-European folk memory of 1930s appeasement, and how deep it still cuts. I suppose this is what happens when you learn in school that WW2 started in 1941 in Hawaii.

Reminder that in the UK an incoming radical, populist government would have immediate access to immense, unchecked executive power. And the current government is doing nothing to protect us from that.

Thoughts and prayers with Honest Bob. Who on earth could have seen this coming?

This is simply a lie. Labour knew precisely the scale of the crisis in the criminal courts. Everybody did. The backlog was a matter of public record. But Labour’s manifesto did not contain a *single* idea to address the problems. And then their cuts to sitting days made the backlog even worse.

Child rape trial delayed after a plug explodes under the prosecutor's bench Sparks flying, strong smell of burning, a lawyer lucky not to have been electrocuted But in a sign of how we simply cope with terrible court decay, the prosecutor took a minute, moved along the bench & got on with case prep

Well that was a game and a half. Thank you everybody for your support on #TheTraitors. It has been one heck of a ride.

Great! Now show us the evidence. Because so far you’ve point blank refused. Which some might think looks a little suspicious.

Tributes pour in for Sir James Munby, the former head of the family division of the High Court, who died suddenly on new year's days -- in the @lawsocgazette. www.lawgazette.co.uk/practice/mor...

The US government is now freely killing people at sea, in other lands, and on its own streets. It is difficult to see what more is needed for Congress and the Supreme Court to exercise their constitutional duty to check and balance what is now a rogue state abroad and a gangster state at home.

The Cut Throat Trial by The Secret Barrister #TheCutThroatTrial @barristersecret.bsky.social #BookReview randomthingsthroughmyletterbox.blogspot.com/2026/01/the-...

Look, you can speculate as wildly as you like. But my answer remains the same: No comment, until after the series has concluded.

Happy New Year, one and all! 🎉🎆🎇 Hope your NYE was better than Bernard Hooper’s. #TheCutThroatTrial “Will leave you gobsmacked” - The Times “Not for me” - Debs on Amazon. Available in links below 👇

While there was so much to love about tonight’s Traitors - including some outstanding barrister-on-barrister action - I think the most perfect moment was a criminal barrister being rejected by his audience for giving a truly unpersuasive hammy speech. Bro - we’ve all been there. #TeamHarriet

No comment.

A gangster state at home, a rogue state abroad: and entirely because Congress and the Supreme Court have abdicated their proper constitutional roles.

Apropos of absolutely nothing. Here's a collection of Harriet Tyce's books in a delightful little bundle. Anyway, I'm off to watch The Traitors. bertsbooks.co.uk/product/the-...

Just finished The Cut Throat Trial by @barristersecret.bsky.social. Expertly plotted and devilishly entertaining. It’s the most satisfying thriller I’ve read in a long, long time. Thank you for it!

While the Nazi robot is getting a rightful kicking over its facilitation of widespread sexual offending, I would like to plead my case for this unrelated outrage.

Having Grok “apologise” for creating CSAM is like punching someone in the face and then having the Sooty puppet on your fist apologise.

Throwing in my conspiracy theory ... Hugo is The Secret Barrister @barristersecret.bsky.social

Happy New Year, one and all! 🎉🎆🎇 Hope your NYE was better than Bernard Hooper’s. #TheCutThroatTrial “Will leave you gobsmacked” - The Times “Not for me” - Debs on Amazon. Available in links below 👇

It happened. Receipts below. Thanks to me, you all got to enjoy Victoria Coren-Mitchell talking about sadomasochism and branding buttocks. Don’t say I never contribute meaningfully to public legal education. (Also, there should be more law Only Connect. That was awesome.)

IT IS ON

I'm guessing the four things are: 1. The Law 2. The Sentencing Guidelines 3. The Judgment 4. The blog that's linked to in, literally, the post you are replying to And the connection is, "Things people never read before arguing with you."

In what might be the most exciting thing to have ever happened in my entire anonymous existence, Only Connect has a Law-themed Christmas special at 8pm tonight… … AND I GOT TO CONTRIBUTE A QUESTION! Assuming it wasn’t cut for obscenity. (Non-tangible) prizes for correctly guessing which is mine.

Labour's plot to axe many jury trials is lazy, abusive & hypocritical. Here are the REAL causes of the court backlog. My reporter's-eye view, featuring tweets from @barristersecret.bsky.social, @joannahs.bsky.social and, of course, David Lammy. www.echo-news.co.uk/news/2569400...

Perfection.

Merry Christmas! May all of your Yuletide wishes come true, and your all your festive film-viewing be filled with tedious lawsplaining. Be excellent to each other ❤️

Lovely thread 😁