In today’s New York Times Book Review I’ve got a review of After the Victorians, the new book by journalist/author A.N. Wilson surveying the history of Great Britain in the first half of the twentieth century, a period of marked geopolitical decline culminating in the dissolution of the Empire. I praise the book as cleverly organized, engagingly written and rich in content, but point out that it is utterly wrongheaded in blaming the decline of British power in the 1940s on the supposed perfidious schemes of the United States (Walter Olson, “Damn Yankees”, Dec. 11).
Posts Tagged ‘United Kingdom’
Update: UK nixes “economy class syndrome” suits
Britain’s highest court, the Law Lords, “ruled that lesser courts correctly threw out an application by passengers or their families seeking to sue two airlines, British Airways and China Airlines, for death and injury from deep vein thrombosis (DVT). The action was a test case that could have thrown the air industry open to compensation claims for millions of pounds.” (Martin Hickman, The Independent, Dec. 9; Simon Calder, The Independent, Dec. 9; Joshua Rozenberg, Daily Telegraph, Dec. 9). More: see Jun. 25 (Australia), Oct. 3, 2004 (U.S.), etc.
Roger Scruton interview
An excerpt from the interview (pt. II) with the British philosopher at Right Reason:
My advice to President Bush would be to look at the ways in which the power of the state might be needed in order to support the autonomous associations and ‘little platoons’ of American civil society. There are two evils in particular which need to be addressed: the litigation explosion, which has vastly increased the risk of small businesses, and also sown discord among neighbours; and the disaster of the inner cities, which have suffered from the worst effects of American zoning laws and laissez-faire aesthetics, with the result that the middle class has fled from the city centres, causing social decay at the heart, and an unsustainable growth in transportation and suburban infrastructure all around. I believe that federal policies could be initiated that would address both these evils, without increasing the role of the state in the conduct of litigation or in the planning of city streets.
UK roundup
Sainsbury’s, the British grocery chain, says it will have to go back on a plan to sell Christmas puddings with “lucky sixpences” inside because of health and safety regs under which they are regarded as a choking hazard; instead it will attach the coins to “collectors’ cards” and suggest that customers place them under the plate or placemat of a lucky family member. “[G]ood luck charms have been added to Christmas puddings for more than 500 years.” (David Derbyshire, “Unlucky sixpences miss out on Christmas”, Daily Telegraph, Oct. 18). For an analogous U.S. story involving the New Orleans specialty, “king cake”, see Feb. 1-3, 2002. The police force in Derbyshire, England, has tested its dogs to see whether their barking is in compliance with the Control of Noise at Work Regulations being introduced next April; the canines’ level of noisiness barely passed muster under the new standard, and modifications such as earplugs for police may needed when use of the dogs in anti-crime work combines with another source of noise such as that of a crowd. (Nick Britten, “Police take the lead on barking regulations”, Daily Telegraph, Oct. 27). For more on British and EU noise regulations, see Nov. 10, 2005 (kids’ playing); Sept. 2, 2005 (Army tanks); Jan. 12, 2004 (orchestras); Mar. 8-10, 2002 (bagpipes); Dec. 22-25, 2000 (military brass bands and gunfire during infantry training). In Worcester, England, teenager Natasha Hughes, who is accused of grievous bodily harm directed at another woman and was charged with violating her bail conditions, will not have to wear an electronic monitoring anklet after she successfully argued that the device violated her fashion sense and looked bad with skirts. (Nick Britten, “You can’t tag me. . . I like to wear skirts”, Daily Telegraph, Nov. 11). For a similar argument made in this country, see Dec. 4, 2000 (exotic dancer). And the following exchange was heard on the floor of the House of Lords this Wednesday:
Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate: My Lords, is my noble and learned friend aware of the case that I read about recently in which there were three main suspects for a crime: a rich lawyer, a poor lawyer and a tooth fairy? Needless to say, the rich lawyer was arrested because the other two were figments of the imagination.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, it does the House no credit to do anti-lawyer jokes.
(Hansard, Nov. 16). Reader Bob Clarke, of Birmingham, U.K. who called this exchange to our attention, writes: “I don’t think that my learned Lord should drop his day job and start being a stand-up comedian. He made the same joke in 2000“.
“Safety fears silence Poppy Day salute”
More on health and safety regulation in the U.K.: “The traditional firing of a salute to mark the beginning and end of the two-minute silence has been cancelled for Remembrance Sunday this weekend on health and safety grounds.” (David Sapsted, Daily Telegraph, Nov. 8).
Noise pollution
It can consist of kids’ playing, as in this British case in which an irate neighbor called in “the environmental health” to complain about a nearby nursery school. The school has agreed to restrictions under which “games such as What’s the Time, Mr Wolf? can no longer be played outdoors.” (Stewart Payne, “Nursery children must stay inside to protect neighbour’s rights”, Daily Telegraph, Nov. 10).
Update: U.K. religious-vilification law
The Blair government, encountering more resistance than it had anticipated, has agreed to soften some of the aspects of the hate-speech bill (Oct. 19, etc.) that are most menacing to freedom of expression:
After suffering a defeat in the [House of] Lords on Tuesday by 260 votes to 111, the Government chose not to oppose an amendment drafted by the Liberal Democrat lawyer Lord Lester with cross-party support. This introduces a number of safeguards.
First, prosecutors would have to prove that the defendant intended to stir up religious hatred; mere likelihood would not be enough. Second, the words or behaviour would have to be threatening rather than merely abusive or insulting. And, crucially, there would be protection for freedom of expression.
Notwithstanding the improvements, the history of such legislation in Australia (see Dec. 3, 2004) suggests that civil libertarians are right to take a stand against the whole thrust of the legislation. “Even if no prosecutions are brought, the Act will inhibit public debate on issues of great importance.” (Joshua Rozenberg, “A legal lesson from Down Under”, Daily Telegraph, Oct. 27).
Globetrotting Hausfeld
Lawsuit impresario Michael Hausfeld, whose doings often figure in these pages, is on “a crusade to export America’s legal system around the world,” per one recent U.S. magazine profile. He claims to share case ideas regularly with a network of lawyers in countries around the world, according to a profile in the U.K. publication The Lawyer (Jon Robins, “Michael Hausfield [sic] brings class actions to the UK”, Oct. 24)(via Schaeffer). More on Hausfeld: Jan. 11, Apr. 13, Jul. 25, 2004; May 24, 2001; Mar. 2 and Aug. 13-14, 2000.
Racial and Religious Hatred Bill
It’s a clear and present danger to free speech in the United Kingdom (Andrew Stuttaford, NRO “The Corner”, Oct. 18). More: Jul. 16, 2004; Jun. 11, Jun. 27, Aug. 17, 2005.
Book review: “J. Anthony Froude”
Not really any legal content here, but I’ve got a review in today’s Sunday New York Times Book Review of a new biography of a distinguished Victorian figure. First paragraph:
Among the leading British historians, few have suffered as steep a decline in public estimation as J. Anthony Froude. With Gibbon and Hume, Froude played a key role in the advance of religious doubt; with Macaulay, he shaped Britain’s view of itself as a nation whose greatness was intimately linked to the liberty of its political institutions. Even those who found him partisan and factually careless conceded his literary merit; in Lytton Strachey’s words, he gave to historical events the “thrilling lineaments of a great story, upon whose issue the most blasé reader is forced to hang entranced.” One of his latter-day admirers, the historian A. L. Rowse, has called him “the last great Victorian awaiting revival.”
The whole thing, again, is here.
P.S.: Herbert Paul’s 1905 biography of Froude, mentioned in the review, is available at Gutenberg.org. A Wikipedia entry on Froude is here.