Monthly Archive for February, 2007

Do you see what he did there?

By NL on 26/02/2007. 0 Comments

John Reid, as reported in the Guardian, decrees an ID card based crackdown on access to public services by illegal immigrants, as there is:

“an underlying reality that we have not been tough enough in policing access to such services as council housing, legal aid or NHS care”.

Apparently

The heart of the effort will be “a one stop shop” to which both private sector and public services officials can go to check if someone is a legal migrant.

Now, assuming that what Mr Reid says is in any way valid, presumably we will now have to call the ‘one stop shop’ before signing legal aid forms for any … Read the full post

Posted in Various (non-housing). Tags: , .

Degrees of Homelessness?

By NL on 25/02/2007. 9 Comments

Local Authority allocation policy, as it applies to those to whom the Authority has accepted a duty to secure accommodation, is still being thrashed out in the Courts.

Birmingham City Council is the latest to have their allocation policy found unlawful in R. (Aweys and Others) v Birmingham City Council [Link to Bailii added]. The Times Law Report describes Birmingham as having operated a two tier policy for priority in housing allocation for homeless. Those who were ‘homeless at home’ (due to unsuitability, statutory overcrowding, etc.) where placed in the lower priority band B, whereas those in temporary accommodation where placed in the top priority band A. Further, the homeless … Read the full post

Posted in FLW case note, Homeless and Housing law - All. Tags: , , .

The uses of vanity

By NL on 23/02/2007. 0 Comments

Hands up how many readers of the British blawgs had read BabyBarista’s blog prior to say four to six weeks ago? No? Me neither. But it has been apparently going since October 06.

In a textbook campaign, BabyBarista made himself known though comments to posts on other blawgs and referral links to other blawgs. Never directly promoting his blog and tailored to the post involved, the comments certainly didn’t look like a promotional sweep, but I noticed a lot of them suddenly appearing across my usual blogroll reading. Then there was a link in to this blog showing in WordPress admin.

Bloggers are a vain lot, and blawgers (I still … Read the full post

Posted in Various (non-housing). Tags: , .

Ooops.

By NL on 19/02/2007. 0 Comments

In retrospect, yesterday might not have been the best day to have been posting about briefless barristers.… Read the full post

Posted in Various (non-housing). Tags: , .

Pick a Counsel, any Counsel…

By NL on 18/02/2007. 0 Comments

I have been having a few discussions lately over whom to instruct for some upcoming hearings in cases I’m looking after. And then, by co-incidence, I read Legal Beagle on the barrister’s fear of being briefless.

Of course, I realise that barrister’s tendency to look down on solicitors as mere paper jugglers and file carriers is born of anxiety and resentment of their dependency upon the file carrier’s favour. So, in a spirit of rapprochement with the senior wing of the profession, I thought a little account of how and why Counsel gets selected might soothe some paranoid souls. I should point out that this is purely from experience … Read the full post

Posted in Various (non-housing). Tags: .

Not just me then

By NL on 15/02/2007. 0 Comments

Binary Law doesn’t like the Times Online redesign. Good. I loathe it. From intrusive, slow, floating ads (even in Firefox), to an utterly overloaded ad-and-submenu-and-splashspot-laden page, it is dreadful.

Mies in MiesIt makes the Grauniad look like something set out by a Web 2.0 Mies Van Der Rohe, and that is difficult, G*d knows.

Parts of the Times design are just messy – misaligned grids, iffy colour schemes and so forth. Other problems include wanting to look actually like a newspaper. [Edit. And I've just realised, it partly uses something close to my colour scheme - obviously ressentiment kicked in on my part.]

But then worse, comments are invited on news stories … Read the full post

Posted in Various (non-housing). Tags: , .

Things fall apart…

By NL on 15/02/2007. 0 Comments

the centre cannot hold. Not a good week, all in all.

When the legal highlight of the week is some scurrilous story about the DPP and the Criminal Bar Association spokesperson enjoying illict souvlaki together, then we are in trouble. Although two details stood out.

A £2 tip on a £26 bill? That is taking limitations on state legal expenditure into the realms of gracelessness.

The other detail is that new entrants to the Bar are apparently presented with negligees and a place to sleep. Perhaps I should have gone to the Bar after all.

The slow unravelling of legal aid continues as the criminal system is facing a work … Read the full post

Posted in Various (non-housing). Tags: , , .
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