Uncategorized – Page 4 – BRUCE AND HOLLY

Concerns Over Jury Trials in Leveson’s Proposals

July 12, 2025 bruceandholly

I’m nervous about Leveson’s proposals to abolish jury trial in intermediate cases and replace them with trial by a judge and two magistrates. It is as though he’s suggesting that either way offences carrying a likely penalty of less than 3 years imprisonment are not serious. But a theft conviction can be very serious if you lose your career as a result. Fair enough if you are actually guilty of the offence charged. That’s where the jury comes in. People like you and me with the same collective sense of fairness and justice. Not quite the same when you are facing an impatient prosecution-minded magistrate or judge who just wants to get through their case list. And what is the point of even electing trial, if you are not going to get to argue your case before 12 people who are living similar lives as you are.

Another thing I have long noticed is the increasing remoteness for our justice system from common expectations of right and wrong. Where everything seems to be decided on on academic technicality. We’ve come a long way since the passing of ‘people’s judge’, Tom Denning. Then there is the secrecy over the judicial appointments process itself. Whether it’s the appointment of judges and magistrates or the members of a parole board, who ignore public outrage when releasing a dangerous murderer. Who appoints these people? I’m sure that I have never been consulted. All that is left between them and us is 12 members of a jury. Now they want to take that away, Why? Because of successive government incompetence when it comes to our criminal justice system. How does it save money by delaying a case for two or three years instead of bringing it on now? It just doesn’t make sense to me.

My own solution would be to move to an American system of elected judges and magistrates. Make them accountable.

culture, Uncategorized

Glastonbury 2025 – too much of the same old

June 28, 2025 bruceandholly

We talk a lot about diversity. But when it comes to popular music, there seems to be none. This year’s Glastonbury Festival looks to me like too much of the same-old. When I switched on my television, the first act I saw was a slightly overweight young lady singing and dancing in a leotard. The audience loved it. So perhaps it was just me.

Don’t get me wrong. There were a couple of acts I did enjoy watching, like the two rap singers and Gracie Abrams, an interesting artist who I hadn’t seen before. Then it was back to the same old. Look! I want to be entertained. Not listen to someone giving me a message.

Then there are the headliners. Usually bands I’ve never heard of. That’s not to say that there are some artists whom I would gladly make time to watch. Like Dua Lipa, Blondie or Robbie Williams, who appeared a year or two back. This year I believe it’s Rod Stewart, whom I last saw live at the 1973 Weeley Pop Festival. So maybe I’ll spend an hour watching Rod

Uncategorized

London Borough of Redbridge v G Romford County Court 5th February 2025 – Housing Possession

June 14, 2025 bruceandholly

I’m sorry but if you thought you were going to be able to download a transcript of this important judgement, I’m afraid that you are going to be disappointed. That’s unless you are prepared to pay the court stenographer yourself to listen to the tapes and type up that transcript. And that’s going to be expensive. Because Romford County Court is not a court of record. But the case is important because it reminds local authority conveyancers what can happen if they complete on the purchase of a property which happens to be occupied by a residential tenant. Even if that tenant had previously occupied under a shorthold tenancy, which could be ended as any time on 2 months written notice. What is worse, is that an existing shorthold tenancy automatically then converts into a fully secure tenancy under the Housing Act 1985. What a bonus for that residential tenant! Not only do they now have lifetime security. They’ve also got a statutory right to buy. And all because of a simple conveyancing error.

It is standard conveyancing practice that the existence of any residential adult occupier of the property must be disclosed to the buyer before contracts are exchanged. That will include anyone occupying under a shorthold tenancy. If this is not done and those occupancy rights are not brought to an end before completion, the buyer will take subject to those rights of occupation forevermore. Which was what had happened in this case. In fact there was nothing to suggest that the landlord had taken any formal step to terminate the shorthold tenancy, before that transaction completed.

A further physical inspection should take place on the morning of completion just to make sure that the property is in fact vacant before the balance of the purchase money is released. Getting it wrong is always expensive.

Uncategorized

Coking Coal Crisis: UK’s Energy Oversight

April 15, 2025 bruceandholly

Like everybody else I’m relieved that the UK government has been able to get the coking coal it needs to keep the Scunthorpe blast furnaces working. But what a disgrace that we had to rely on other countries halfway around the world to get that coking coal, when it’s already buried beneath our feet. What would have happened if the US and Australia had said ‘No’? Talk about shooting ourselves in the foot. Stupid!

business, politics, protest, society, Uncategorized

Economic Impact of Opposing UK Fossil Fuel Extraction

February 1, 2025 bruceandholly

Photo by Jan-Rune Smenes Reite on Pexels.com

My heart always sinks when I see news footage of hobby eco-protesters standing outside a court building, waving placards, and celebrating the stalling of yet another commercial project. This time It was the Rosebank oil exploration project, off Shetland, in which Shell had invested £800 million and involved one of the largest undeveloped oil and gas fields in the UK continental shelf, containing an estimated 300 million barrels. And why do our most senior judiciary seem to think it is their mission to wave their green credentials to tease out the tiniest administrative flaw in the regulatory approval process, to send everything back to the drawing board? Who appoints these people? It follows hot on the heels of another court judgment crushing implementation of proposals to open Britain’s first new coal mine at Whitehaven, for more than 30 years. In each case, the judicial mantra was the same. “That the proposals failed to adequately assess the greenhouse gas emissions tied to burning fossil fuels.” And we know that with a government energy minister so opposed to fossil fuel extraction, that none of these projects are ever likely to happen. But haven’t these eminent legal brains slightly missed the point?

Yes – we know that burning fossil fuels causes climate change. Which is why we need to put in place viable alternatives .But neither the Rosebank nor the Whitehaven projects were about burning fossil fuels. They were about extracting fossil fuels so that we don’t have to import them from abroad. Either way. fossil fuels will still be burnt, because at the moment we have nothing else. And of course those projects would have also created thousands of well-paid jobs. So what is the point they are making? And it is entirely appropriate for me to refer to these eco-protesters as hobbyists, as none of them would have suffered direct personal detriment as a result of either of these projects. It is all about the big abstract ‘we’. And what message does it send to the outside world? A Britain which is so up itself that it is prepared to cut off its nose to spite its commercial face. Who would want to invest in us? The next big battle is going to be about the proposed third runway at Heathrow Airport. Even if it goes ahead, I’m not sure that I will still be around when it is completed. But that’s no reason not to support it.

I really blame the last conservative government for this farce. They had 14 years to drive these projects through. But instead they preferred to spend their time posturing about Brexit and their precious Rwanda scheme, as everything else around them fell apart. And they were a government which was in hock to the NIMBY lobby, which is why the cost of HS2 ballooned almost to the point of cancellation.

When it comes to the third Heathrow runway, I’m with Rachel Reeves. I know she’s had a bad press, but I’m convinced that she’s trying to do her best to grow the British economy. Again, so different from the last lot, the ‘party of business’. But even now, opposition to the third runway is cranking into gear, not least from London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who has promised court proceedings to try to stall the project.

Spending my money to fight a court case against his own parliamentary party? What is that all about? And he hasn’t even consulted me. A case of public money fighting public money. How wasteful. But that is Britain today.