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  • Why weren’t officers’ war crimes concerns reported to the military police at the time?
    2nd April 2026
  • How Trump has created a situation he cannot get out of
    26th March 2026
  • The Mueller report was a turning-point where United States history failed to turn
    24th March 2026
  • Why the United States attack on the school in Minab matters
    23rd March 2026
  • The prospect of “executive orders” being used by an incoming illiberal government
    20th March 2026
  • The Palestine Action proscription case and the botched prosecution of Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh – how the Home Office, the police, and the prosecutors, are not taking terrorism law seriously
    13th March 2026
  • What is not happening with constitutionalism in the United States and the United Kingdom
    11th March 2026
  • The curious section 3 of the new National Security Act
    10th March 2026
  • But what about international law – continued.
    4th March 2026
  • About ‘The Empty City’ as a title for this blog
    3rd March 2026
  • Six Proposals for Improving Public Procurement
    26th February 2026
  • Six Things Wrong About Public Procurement
    25th February 2026
  • Land and Expand – how Palantir captured the Ministry of Defence
    23rd February 2026
  • Misconducting in public office
    20th February 2026
  • Will the Carnival ever end?
    17th February 2026
  • What the Palestine Action judgment means – and what it does not mean
    13th February 2026
  • 1642’s Five Members vs 2026’s Six Members
    12th February 2026
  • Three reasons why the Mandelson disclosure exercise will be a shock for the government
    10th February 2026
  • The constitutional significance of what happened to the Prime Minister last week
    10th February 2026
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    3rd February 2026
  • Thinking about what has happened in Minnesota
    27th January 2026
  • My posts this week
    24th January 2026
  • When the United Kingdom annexed a north Atlantic island
    22nd January 2026
  • “…neither rhyme nor reason” – how we are currently in a situation where precedents and norms and laws and rules and theories offer no assistance.
    20th January 2026
  • Trump v BBC – a guide to the case
    13th January 2026
  • Notes on gangster states: why legitimacy matters when the state has a monopoly on coercive and lethal force.
    12th January 2026
  • We are Christopher Isherwood, watching the scenes in the Berlin street below from our apartment window above.
    8th January 2026
  • But what about international law?
    6th January 2026
  • The United States is a gangster state at home and a rogue state abroad
    3rd January 2026
  • Jane Austen as a writer about law
    26th December 2025
  • Trump v BBC: the battle begins
    19th December 2025
  • A guided tour of President Trump’s 33-page, $5 billion lawsuit against the British Broadcasting Corporation
    16th December 2025
  • The correct way to go around reviewing the ECHR – and the incorrect reasons for doing so
    15th December 2025
  • Extremism, conformity, and the problem of law
    9th December 2025
  • How the BBC censored the line that Trump is “the most openly corrupt president in American history”
    30th November 2025
  • Trump v the BBC cont’d: an odd and desperate letter from the US media regulator
    22nd November 2025
  • Why the BBC is right not to pay damages to Trump
    14th November 2025
  • The letter the BBC could send to Trump in reply to his $1bn claim
    12th November 2025
  • A close look at Trump’s $1 billion claim against the BBC
    11th November 2025
  • The BBC’s depressing lack of inherent institutional strength
    10th November 2025
  • The real problem which blights our prison and punishment system
    7th November 2025
  • Equal and opposite effects: how liberals are working out to how to campaign in the modern age
    6th November 2025
  • Trapped in a latter-day Plato’s cave
    5th November 2025
  • An instance of the royal prerogative
    2nd November 2025
  • The one-way constitution
    29th October 2025
  • Why ‘A House of Dynamite’ is a good film about how those with power make decisions
    28th October 2025
  • An odd DPP letter and a curious government witness statement – an overall view of the dropped Chinese prosecutions
    20th October 2025
  • What the Chinese spying case witness statements reveal
    16th October 2025
  • Trying to make sense of the nonsensical decision to drop the Chinese spying prosecutions
    15th October 2025
  • Freedom is just another word for “a gap in the law”
    7th October 2025
  • Two glimpses of Conor Gearty – a master in promoting the public understanding of law
    30th September 2025
  • The Kneecap prosecution collapsed because police and prosecutors did not take terrorism law seriously
    29th September 2025
  • The Prime Minister’s extraordinary and significant statement on MI5 misleading the High Court
    25th September 2025
  • Recognition of Palestine is ultimately a political not a legal question
    23rd September 2025
  • The curious dropped prosecution for Chinese spying
    22nd September 2025
  • The proscription of Palestine Action as a case study of terrorism law
    21st September 2025
  • Has the government overreached in using terrorism law against Palestine Action?
    19th September 2025
  • The assessment of Palestine Action as being involved in terrorism
    18th September 2025
  • Why what is happening in the United States shows the need for the United Kingdom to repair its own constitution
    15th September 2025
  • “Yield, man!” – another dark moment in United States law and policy
    10th September 2025
  • What Banksy’s RCJ mural maybe gets wrong
    9th September 2025
  • On Angela Rayner and tax law
    4th September 2025
  • One way for a civil war to begin is for a constitution break down
    3rd September 2025
  • Yes, an incoming illiberal and radical UK government would have absolute constitutional power
    27th August 2025
  • Who has control over “legitimate” coercive and lethal force?
    26th August 2025
  • Politics and story-telling – a short essay for an English bank holiday
    25th August 2025
  • “…everything is going to be alright” – conflict, balance and resolution in law and policy
    22nd August 2025
  • The recognition of Palestine – a footnote to yesterday’s post
    19th August 2025
  • On the recognition of Palestine: a close look at an unconvincing letter from “distinguished” UK lawyers
    18th August 2025
  • Whatever happened to conservative constitutionalism?
    13th August 2025
  • Constitutional law during a carnival of cruelty
    31st July 2025
  • What to know about court orders, injunctions, and super-injunctions
    21st July 2025
  • Afghan super-injunction now published
    17th July 2025
  • Why have the terms of the now-discharged Afghan super-injunction not been published?
    17th July 2025
  • A super-injunction has been revealed
    16th July 2025
  • The Sotomayor dissent that is for the ages
    2nd July 2025
  • The US Supreme Court judgment on injunctions – what Justice Barrett said
    1st July 2025
  • The significant Supreme Court judgment on universal injunctions
    30th June 2025
  • If international law suddenly did not exist, what difference would it make?
    27th June 2025
  • “Words and Things” – a comment on three recent turns-of-phrase by Donald Trump and Elon Musk
    26th June 2025
  • Two small liberal steps forward, against the gale of illiberalism
    23rd June 2025
  • On “No Kings”
    16th June 2025
  • A postcard from a spectator of a constitutional crisis
    12th June 2025
  • Explaining a 31-month sentence for a tweet
    27th May 2025
  • A close reading of the “AI” fake cases judgment
    9th May 2025
  • How the Trump administration’s “shock and awe” approach has resulted in its litigation being shockingly awful
    22nd April 2025
  • How the United States constitutional crisis is intensifying
    17th April 2025
  • A note about injunctions in the context of the Abrego Garcia case
    14th April 2025
  • How Trump is misusing emergency powers in his tariffs policy
    10th April 2025
  • How Trump’s tariffs can be a Force Majeure event for some contracts
    7th April 2025
  • The significance of the Wisconsin court election result
    2nd April 2025
  • “But what if…?” – constitutional commentary in an age of anxiety
    31st March 2025
  • A significant defeat for the Trump government in the federal court of appeal
    27th March 2025
  • Reckoning the legal and practical significance of the United States deportations case
    25th March 2025
  • Making sense of the Trump-Roberts exchange about impeachment
    19th March 2025
  • Understanding what went on in court yesterday in the US deportations case
    18th March 2025
  • “Oopsie” – the word that means the United States has now tipped into a constitutional crisis
    17th March 2025
  • Oh Canada
    16th March 2025
  • Thinking about a revolution
    5th March 2025
  • The fog of lawlessness: what we can see – and what we cannot see – in the current confusions in the United States
    25th February 2025

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Category: Witch-hunts

Witch-hunt (noun)

2nd August 2023

A future historian, tasked with working out from contemporaneous sources what ‘witch-hunt’ meant in 2023, would conclude it meant a slow methodical and evidence-based process, with full due-process rights, used to prosecute someone with significant political and media power.

Posted on 2nd August 2023Categories Witch-hunt, Witch-hunts33 Comments on Witch-hunt (noun)
Theme: Twenty Fifteen.