Last month the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled the US Safe Harbour treaty to be insufficient for European data protection law purposes. How important this is, is subject to debate. One of the principles of European Data Protection law is that personal and confidential data must be “adequately protected”. The CJEU has stated that the US Safe Harbour agreement offers insufficient and uncertain protection to European personal data. …
He’s not the messiah, he’s a very….
A storify on the debate in the HoC on Syria.I mention Hilary Benn’s summing-up speech, its reference to the international brigades & the quality of the Tory anti-speeches. I remind myself and others that to be legal, military action must be effective; you can’t just fuck things up because you’re cross.
Originally created in Dec 2015, and published in this blog in Nov 2019. It was after writing this story, that I came across Professor Paul Preston and his work on Spain and the International Brigades. …
Out of Sight with the Fabians
I attended my first South London Fabian Society earlier tonight. This is part of my search for a place to think and refresh my enthusiasm for ideas and electoral politics. The speaker was a man called Richard Brooks, who had worked as a senior policy adviser to the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families. He is the author of an award for his Fabian booklet, Out of Sight, “How we lost track of thousands of NEETS, and how we can transform their prospects”. My big takeaway is below/overleaf … …
Recreational bombing
I don’t think anyone used the term #recreationalbombing. Parliament don’t seem to have learned the lessons from the history of the decision to go to Iraq; this decision will haunt Cameron, although he’ll be gone in two or three years. Someone said, “Cameron doesn’t do strategy”, he was right, and those who trust him for it have made a big mistake. …
NLP
“Will the phrase #recreationalbombing kill Cameron’s plan to bomb IS in Syria? …
For those who don’t study history
I made this storify about the impact of Labour’s internal politics on the vote in Parliament on Syria. This post was created in Dec. 2019, although back dated to its original date created. How optimistic I was that the Party would come together around its democracy. 🙄
Scent
Over the weekend, Mrs. L had exercised the dog thoroughly over the previous two days and planned to give her a rest on the Sunday; she had other ideas, one crack in the door, and she’s off like Flynn, using her superb sense of smell to track Mrs. L. down despite a half mile start. …
Bombing Syria
So Parliament is to debate if it should authorise the government to use the RAF to bomb ISIS in Syria. What we must keep in our mind is that we i.e. the British state must only act under the rule of law. While the UN resolution (SC 2249) last week makes military action more likely to be legal, the legality still depends upon the actions to be taken. Many argue that the UN security council resolution changes nothing, because it does not authorise the use of military force under Chapter VII of the UN Charter.
Any actions need to remain an effective act of self-defence. …
Hard cases make bad law
This is a storify I made to help me understand, Cameron’s decision to undertake a military assassination of British citizens who were ISIS fighters. I came to the conclusion it was illegal.
This page was created in June 2019, while the Storify was created as at the date of this post. …
On the decision to bomb Syria
This is the storify I made to help me write my blog article on Parliament’s decision to bomb Syria, the article was published on this blog in an article called “Don’t Bomb Syria“.
This page was created in April 2018, while the Storify was created as at the date of this post. …