This is an outstanding post on the criminal justice system. Do read.

"Seizing Brexit opportunities to deregulate" was mostly unspecified magic fairy pixie bullshit then, and it's not going to get any more realistic in the hands of a bunch of Reform clowns who don't know how anything works, don't care to learn and disdain anyone that might.

BREAKING: Following trial, Judge Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee, finds that Trump did not properly invoke federal law to call up the National Guard and "permanently enjoins Defendants’ orders to deploy federalized members of the National Guard to Oregon."

Due to the escalating, bone-headed addiction @davidallengreen.bsky.social describes, "law and order" politics will alway exacerbate the very problems for which it claims to be the only solution.

"Prison is a costly system for worsening the social problem of crime ... but our political and media class are addicted to the bidding war of ever-heavier sentences ...we cannot afford this addiction." davidallengreen.com/2025/11/the-...

What’s happened here is that, by sticking to their guns and refusing to be intimidated and shitehoused, the club and police have thankfully prevented Parliament and the press inciting rioting and running battles in the streets of a major city.

Having worked within the justice system for over 30 years, you make the same observation… rehabilitation & education are the keys 👍🏻 initially expensive but with long term benefits for ALL

“The medium-term problem, at least in England and Wales, is the structural craziness of having the prison system as part of the ministry of justice, a small department (also responsible for courts and probation) that has little or no political gravity in Whitehall.” Couldn’t agree more.

Thank you to @davidallengreen.bsky.social for writing sensible things about the sorry state of UK prisons: davidallengreen.com/2025/11/the-...

As an ex-prison governor I agree with every single word.

New, by me The real problem which blights our prison and punishment system The way we think about custodial sentences is what needs to change Reflections on the wrongful prison release news Substack: emptycity.substack.com/p/the-real-p... Personal blog: davidallengreen.com/2025/11/the-...

Parse the duchy, and he’s left outside. Encore.

This really the cracking of speeches: a banger. Worth reading in full.

Many in politics and media are trapped on X/Twitter, a latter-day Plato's cave, mistaking projected shadows for reality. No social media platform can be perfect - the 'social' bit ensures that - as people are also not perfect. But some platforms are better than others.

If Americans genuinely want “no kings” they have a hard struggle ahead, writes @davidallengreen.bsky.social, as Trump is subverting the constitution from within.

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...

Will be sad to lose this Hallowe’en costume.

Removing honours - some thoughts. Here we come to raw royal power. Two preliminary things to note. First, the Crown is the fount of honours - see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fount_o... Second, honours decisions cannot really be challenged by judicial review. It is not "justiciable". >

"...as a matter of law, the house is haunted" This by a Canadian lawyer is the best thing on ghosts and the law: www.fasken.com/en/commonlaw... Enjoy.

I have always supported Toronto Blue Jays since someone bought me a team T-shirt when I was youn. But it was only recently, via Google, that I discovered what sport they played.

The joy of forming a political view, but not expressing it on social media. The exhilaration of realising you can change that view as you wish, rather than it freezing it in time as your eternal ‘take’. A thought kept alive in one’s mind, rather than one which dies as soon as it hits the screen.

Sterling, important work here by the estimable @mentalhealthcop.bsky.social on "Preventing Further Death" coronial reports.

If you remember, you will remember. #Candlemas

Jessica Jones is coming back - confirmed. variety.com/2025/tv/news... Marvel, all is forgiven.

NEW Why 'A House of Dynamite' is a good film about how those with power make decisions This unconventional nuclear thriller does something rare in movies By me Substack: emptycity.substack.com/p/why-a-hous... Personal blog: davidallengreen.com/2025/10/why-...

A House of Dynamite - Netflix A fascinating depiction of policies and procedures and decision-making in a practical context - with very human individuals. One of the best films I have seen about how those in power would act in a crisis. 4.5/5

Level on points with Liverpool is a strange feeling. #AVFC

If Americans genuinely want “no kings” they have a hard struggle ahead, writes @davidallengreen.bsky.social, as Trump is subverting the constitution from within.

My latest. (And I am sorry if the Hallowe'en avatar and name confuse you.)

Behold my Hallowe’en name.

I have just read about something being put back together with 'cutting edge technology' and I wonder about how words lose their meaning.

NEW The gaming of the American constitution How a codified “written” constitution is being manipulated by those acting in bad faith By me, at @prospectmagazine.co.uk www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/law/th...

A court has requested a Latin interpreter for today's sentencing hearing LATIN (AMERICAN) INTERPRETER REQUIRED Luckily they added (American), and someone who speaks Spanish has turned up. Otherwise the interpreter might have spent the day translating legal asides, but not much else

Reminder that by embracing Brexit the Conservative and Unionist party destroyed Conservatism as a domestic force and set In trail the breakup of the Union. A political fable.

“Cutting off all trade negotiations with Heard Island and the McDonald Islands because the penguins refused to salute our passing aircraft. Thank you for their attention to this matter.”

In US and UK, long drawn-out judicial processes that often turn on painstaking examinations of evidence and elaborate rules of procedure are often called… …’witch-hunts’. Which really were the opposite, if you think about it.

Miss Otis regrets she is unable to enter into arguments about the merits of written constitutions today.

Commercial opportunism to hang in, well, the Louvre. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...

Cnut. He's forgotten about Cnut, who went on pilgrimage to Rome in 1027. Oh, and Edward I, who spent 2 months at the court of Gregory X in 1273. Otherwise, all over the detail, as per.

They are now naming storms after American history painters.

One observation on the Louvre robbery, having been there a couple of time recently. There is immense 'security theatre' for visitors waiting to get in. And what has happened affirms the general rule: the greater the 'security theatre' the weaker the actual security.

In the United States the President is deliberately dismantling the White House, while in the United Kingdom we are doing nothing to stop the Palace of Westminster from falling apart. Much the same can be said of our respective constitutions.

That there are social media posts telling the correct spelling of ‘martial law’ is a perfect capture of our times.

Trump got to appoint a whole lot of ninth circuit judges in his first term and now we see the results judicial appointments: they’re important

In the United States the President is deliberately dismantling the White House, while in the United Kingdom we are doing nothing to stop the Palace of Westminster from falling apart. Much the same can be said of our respective constitutions.

If Orwell's works had not already been over-plundered to metaphorical death, it would be nice to call the increasing diversionary blame being put on Antifa as the Snowball Effect.

The problem became that the logic was destructively self-propelling. Once gripped with the idea that parliament could do bad ideas because it was sovereign, MPs decided it had to do bad ideas, because it was sovereign

The Conservative Party now doing to immigration law what it did to international law. Taking a statement of the constitutionally obvious - that parliament is sovereign - as a permission slip to disregard all other consequences. Can becomes should.

One wonderful legal fact is that the provision effectively giving licence to agent to commit crimes abroad is... ...section 007 of the Intelligence Services Act 1994. www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1994/1...