The law on using a mobile phone while driving is an out of date and incomprehensible mess

There is a well-rehearsed school of legal blogging that goes down well with Barristerblogger’s many barrister, solicitor and law student readers. The way it works is this: find a journalist or politician who has said something stupid, as long as it’s vaguely related to the law it doesn’t matter too much what. Point out your victim’s ignorance of the law. Mock them and tease them for a thousand words, and Hey Presto, you have a blog that will be read and enjoyed by thousands.

It is a reliable formula and when I read Fraser Nelson’s piece for the Daily Telegraph about his court-room defeat on a charge of using a mobile phone while driving it seemed to me that here was just such an opportunity to brighten up the dead days between Christmas and the New Year. He is a shrewd and likeable journalist but his piece contains its share of legal nonsense, and he would be a good target for a “Journalist doesn’t know any law” post. Apart from anything else it would be a darned sight easier to write than the more serious business of a reply to Noel Malcolm’s short but brilliant attack on the European Convention on Human Rights.
Continue reading “The law on using a mobile phone while driving is an out of date and incomprehensible mess”

Committing Electoral Fraud to Back Jeremy Corbyn Is a Bad Idea

The latest polls in the Labour leadership election suggest that Islington North MP Jeremy Corbyn has his nose in front. It is hard to trust the unattributed briefings reported in the New Statesman this week, but one “campaign staffer” (presumably, although the report does not say so explicitly, a Corbyn supporter) said “he is in a commanding position … he is on course to win.”

Jeremy Corbyn wearing his "Lenin" style cap. (David Martyn Hunt)
Jeremy Corbyn wearing his “Lenin” style cap.
(David Martyn Hunt)

Bookmakers’ odds tend to give a more reliable picture than anonymous quotes, and here too the picture is pretty clear: www.oddschecker.com shows that the best price you can now get on Mr Corbyn’s victory is 4-1, and even for that you must move fast: several are quoting him at 3-1 . At the start of the election you could back the hirsute Marxist at 100-1.

Mr Corbyn’s standing has been helped by a campaign led by, amongst others, Toby Young. Young is an unlikely Corbyn supporter. Indeed, he is generally sympathetic to the Conservatives, and for all I know he may even be a Party member. He is particularly well-known for helping to found the excellent West London Free School. Continue reading “Committing Electoral Fraud to Back Jeremy Corbyn Is a Bad Idea”