CJ

2025 will be the year that the informal death of international law begins to be made formal.

The government doesn't want "riots". But it also doesn't want to do what most people expect of it. It thinks it can "message" the public into compliance - including fearmongering about "riots" - and use law to control the excess. It overestimates its abilities in all domains.

This can’t be a talking shop, bemoaning the OSM for years and years. Write up a repeal act now and get MPs on-side. The decent Tories will support you, Reform will support you, the NI unionist parties will support you, and Blue Labour should support you too. Huge opportunity

This scene is indeed great. Always gives me chills and I've seen the film a dozen times. Has this trilogy had a proper theatrical re-release? Would be a licence to print money. They should do it for the 25th anniversary (i.e. 2026-28).

From Afghanistan: the Soviet Union’s last war by Mark Galeotti.

Afghanistan was the Soviet Union’s last war and it might be modern Britain’s last one too. It retained an institutional legitimacy in the aftermath that Iraq never had. The closing chapter now sees British soldiers feel unsafe leaving their families on base and the deliberate…

Pension equity 🔜

We know how this ends. Children come with their parents. Then a nice law firm tells them that they can appeal the government under ECHR article 8 for right to family life. All of a sudden we’ve got tens if not hundreds of thousands of Gazans in our country with no way of removal.

I wonder what the people in charge think the end state of this is? Do they even think of it at all?

In the summer of 2005, I was in rush street in Chicago with a group of boys chatting to a group of girls including Cat Deeley. You were an American 10/10 and asked me if I went to Oxford. I lied and said yes. You asked me which college and I said city of Stoke on Trent sixth…

Britain has replaced free markets with an incoherent system of judicially enforceable rights and statutory obligations. My latest for @TheCriticMag thecritic.co.uk/the-british-ec…

Banger

If you believe in allowing people to enter the country on a salary of less than 47k pa with a route to ILR status before the welfare state is abolished you are a socialist.

“Under the surface … we can find a system in which political choices cause resources to be allocated in very strange ways, and incentivise behaviours among consumers, investors and producers that run contrary to the interests of prosperity. The ultimate answer of where these…

> Me, interviewing candidates. “The interview is scheduled tomorrow at 10am. Can you let me know your car number plate?” “Umm… what for?” “It’s for the automatic car park barrier.” “Ok, it’s GR25IFT”. > Pull up motabilitycheck.com “Sorry, the interview is cancelled.”

Is there anything I can take to stop me sighing when I stand up?

As Tony Benn used to say, pay close attention to the way governments treat refugees. Because that's how they'd treat you if they could get away with it.

In simple terms successive governments have effected a wartime economy around mass immigration since 2019. The scale, cost, efficiency, and secrecy to house e.g. tens of thousands Afghan peasants in eight-bedroom mansions drain every other functionality of the state.

Children like James Bulger, Sarah Payne and Madaleine McCann still ring in the national consciousness decades later. Everyone half-remembers them. If they became victims today, nobody would remember their names, because such violence is now so normal.

A MAN GOES to a doctor. “Doctor, I’m depressed,” the man says; life is harsh, unforgiving, cruel. The doctor lights up. The treatment, after all, is simple. “The great manager Pep Guardiola is in town tonight,” the doctor says, “Go and see him! That should sort you out.” The man…