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The jury’s out – politicalbetting.com
The jury’s out – politicalbetting.com
60% of Britons would support proposals to create juryless 'intermediate courts' to try lower-level crimes, one of the recommendations made by Sir Brian Leveson's review of the backlog of cases in criminal courtsSupport: 60%Oppose: 14%yougov.co.uk/topics/polit…
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Because of the large number of defendants, two trials will take place, with the first on 6 September 2027, and the second on 3 January 2028.
Mr Williams will be in the 2028 trial.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c056v0m56pyo
Oh, apparently we're abandoning them.
Not somebody I hold in high esteem, but Jacob Rees-Mogg was bang on the money when he said that juries are needed because they allow for a protection against an over mighty state.* Heck, that's how they first became enshrined in law with barons forcing King John to stop kidnapping them, stealing their lands and raping their daughters on a whim by instead having to have fair trials.
*It's worth remembering he said that in response to the release of the Colston vandals whose defence was essentially 'we're smug rich bastards and have the right to smash up anything we like.' He didn't agree with their view, ironically, or the verdict, but he thought it illustrated the importance of the jury system in showing what should or shouldn't be crimes.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/07/11/palestine-action-supporters-told-go-floppy-arrested-protest/
The ReformyGraph seem to continuously have the inside scoop on this group. PA need to check their ranks for a mole, I would start with the handful of non-poshos.
In the battle for AI supremacy, Meta has just made a major move.
Mark Zuckerberg's firm – which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp – has lured a renowned AI expert away from rival Apple with an eye-watering pay offer. Over the next 'several years', Ruoming Pang, originally from China, will earn more than $200 million (£147 million) in his new role, a report reveals.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-14896643/Meta-AI-researcher-rival-200-million-pay-offer.html
Crystal Palace have been banned from the Europa League and moved into the Conference League after Uefa concluded the FA Cup winners were in breach of its multi-club ownership rules.
The ban had been expected after Lyon won their appeal against relegation to Ligue 2, clearing them to take their place in the tournament.
Clubs with the same owner are barred from competing in the same Uefa competition if an individual or ownership group is considered to have a decisive influence over more than one of those teams.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2025/jul/11/crystal-palace-banned-from-europa-league-and-relegated-to-conference-league?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Pete Hegseth was not on Fox News this morning. They did play a clip of a video Hegseth posted on social media. Perhaps a confused Trump thought it was live.
https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3ltp3htjkfc2h
Cleaned version, BBC though they had a scoop on Rupert Lowe not declaring donations. Seems he was been cleared in double quick time.
I think I would be concerned who is leaking bank statements to the BBC.
Anti-vaxxer versus possible drugs cheat?
Petition to make Matt Berry the next James Bond.
https://x.com/NoContextBrits/status/1943294137815421174
Second is the problem of the long trials lasting weeks and months. Three is the need, which from a judge one would get, of a reasoned and appealable judgment as to why a verdict was reached - which with a jury no-one dares ask, even if it were legal to do so. Lucy Letby is a classic case of the sort where all these factors apply.
Fourth, the bar has tended in recent decades towards length and spinning things out. You can't do that with a judge. Fifth, a judge can ask the questions the jury would want to ask but can't. Sixth, many cases make no sense to the average intellect.
Finally, pragmatic. Unless we do this the backlog will never end.
There is of course a strong case against this view.
Though her targets would never suspect the poisoned petit fours.
On point five, juries can ask questions, albeit it must be through the judge.
Singapore fully abolished the jury system in 1969, though jury trials for non-capital offenses had already been abolished a decade earlier. Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, a former trial lawyer, explained why he supported the policy to the BBC and in his memoirs, saying, "I had no faith in a system that allowed the superstition, ignorance, biases, and prejudices of seven jurymen to determine guilt or innocence."
And you know what, let's offer defendents a choice: they can *choose* the Jury trial over the Magistrates Court, but the potential punishments would be more severe if they chose the Jury trial and are convicted.
What do you guys think?
Much better from his point of view to allow the bribe paid to the judge to decide it.
As currently exists, I would allow defendents to choose to opt out of it; but the flip side to opting out of it, and going to the jury trial is that the maximum sentence expands significantly.
Otherwise, what's the point of including the judge at all ?
The backlog of cases will be cleared by lunch tomorrow.
I thought it said "liberate me" - "save me." But it's not "me." It's "liberate tutemet" - "save yourself." And it gets worse...
There - I think that says "ex inferis." "Save yourself... from Hell." Look, if what Doctor Weir tells us is true, this ship has been beyond the boundaries of our universe, of known scientific reality. Who knows where it's been, what it's seen... or what it's brought back with it?"
PIP - U turn after announcement
ISA - U turn before announcement
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/07/11/labour-sparks-backlash-over-plan-for-state-run-restaurants/
So they put up minimum wage, NI, business rates, which are all huge factors if you run a cafe or restaurant, then are going to start opening state subsidised ones. I hope at least the ice cream is great like in Cuba.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx23g5jpj9go
Isn't that exactly how most legal aid works?
Rachel Reeves cancelled British ISAs and planned to reduce the Cash ISA limit to encourage people to invest instead in stocks and shares.
Rachel Reeves then U turns on Cash ISAs.
The result being that people are less likely to invest in stocks and shares generally and British business specifically than they were a year ago.
Perhaps Reeves should have left ISAs alone ?
Juries in Edinburgh and Aberdeen, in my experience, are quite prone to convicting. Juries in Glasgow, Livingston and Dundee less so.
The charge I am most likely to face would be death by dangerous driving. I do a lot of driving, often under pressure to get to my destination and when my brain is full of other things (as well as feathers, of course). Juries in those type of cases tend to be just a bit more sympathetic (having been there or nearly there in many cases) than Judges applying the legal tests. So I would still prefer a jury for that, whether I was guilty or innocent.
The dog was manic when I got back to the car, but he will live. The remaining ferries on this trip, he’ll be able to be with me, Finland and Germany being much more pet-friendly places than Norway.
Weather-wise, the cloud base is now descending and as I eat dinner looking out over the fjord, it must be down to fifty feet. But sunny days lie ahead…allegedly.
First impressions of Lofoten - it’s like Skye to the Scottish Highlands, on both upside and downside. Positively, the scenery is stunning, and compact, towering mountains, little settlements clinging to the slopes, including colourful house-huts on stilts built out into the sea, boats of all kinds everywhere. One can see why it’s a photographers’, and hikers’, paradise.
On the downside, it’s on the Rick Steves trail and clearly over-touristed, there are signs for tourist stuff everywhere, the food shops are full of foreign backpackers, and the joy of the Norwegian open road is replaced by being in a procession of traffic wherever you want to go, and with severe parking pressure when you get there. For the next week Mr Dog and I will clearly struggle to avoid the crowds.
So: let's say there's a trial on, and someone started live streaming it. The Judge would say "don't do that". Then he'd say "don't do that, or I'll hold you in contempt of court". Then he'd say "this is your final warning, stop filming or I'll hold you in contempt."
And then you'd be off to prison, while not having been convicted of a crime by a jury.
Is it eg a lack of jurors? Judge trials are quicker because you don't need to get lay people up to speed? Judge trials are less likely to collapse and so need to be run again? Or something else?
(See p88 onwards)
https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/review-of-efficiency-in-criminal-proceedings-20151.pdf
This is a widespread feature of other common law jurisdictions based on our system of trial by Judge and jury. It is widely used in the United States, and in various forms in Canada, New Zealand and Australia. The popularity of the approach appears to be because it is a simpler, speedier and cheaper procedure than trial by jury. It may also be an attractive option for defendants.
Possible reasons include:
Defendants with ‘technical’ defences who wish a verdict to be accompanied by appealable reasoning or who, in any event, want a fully reasoned decision;
Some defendants, often in cases which are factually or legally extremely complex have a real anxiety that the tribunal will be able fully to understand their case;
Defendants who are charged with offences that attract particular public opprobrium, such as sexual/sadistic violence, or from minorities or sects who may consider the Judge to be a more objective tribunal than a jury;
Where there is publicity adverse to the defence; and
Defendants in cases turning on alleged confessions or identification, where Judges tend to be more rigorous in the weight afforded to alleged confession and in their assessment of evidence of purported identification than juries tend to be...
He goes on:
It remains for further consideration whether it should apply to all indictable offences, as it has done in Canada since 1985, or exclude the most serious cases as in New Zealand..
(edit)
He's also clear that the Auld proposal, which he revives, is about Judge, plus (optionally) two specialist lay members.
Just filled in my response to the Gloucestershire unitary authority(/ies) proposal.
It is noteworthy that they tried not to give us a box to describe which of the proposals we actually favoured.
However, because they are almost as thick as Donald Trump, they did give a box where they said, 'is there anything else you would like us to consider?'
So I noted that every single option they have put forward would be an unworkable disaster. I do hope whoever came up with the one about Greater Gloucester was doing weed, because I'd hate to think anyone could be that stupid while in their right mind.
If there is to be a successful reorganisation (and I'm no fan of the county and district councils) it would have to be three unitaries, which means bringing current South Gloucestershire into the equation as well. Unfortunately
nobody is willing to do that.
There's actually an awful lot more in it than this proposal (which is actually outside the official scope of his brief).
A lot of nuts and bolts procedural stuff which would speed up the existing somewhat haphazard system.
This just happens to be the most newsworthy.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1jx19ln172o
I prefer the option with three rather than two.
NOW - Trump on last night's Russian Ukraine drone strikes: "You'll be seeing things happening."
Unite lining up to ditch Labour and back Corbyn and co, standards commissioner clears Rupert Lowe almost immediately after Reform try yet another nobble job on him and McMurdock confirms their nascent little alt right grouping by backing his deportation bill.
The political realignment process continues
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/jul/11/former-met-police-commissioner-ian-blair-dies
Hs current trial (harrassing a journo) is his first jury trial. They have generally been summary offences, and before magistrates. He seems, once he has done his unbroken pony fighting the bridle thing, to plead guilty.
Of course they still bill the client for the six weeks.
Then they wonder why everybody hates them.
Seriously, who are the lobotomised slugs who follow and defend this guy?
Or are they all Russian bots, and chancers looking to exploit the reflected glare?
Rocked up at the court to demand a third delay. Magistrate pointed out that all the witnesses were there, simple case and he (the lawyer ) had had the file for months.
The lawyer sneered at the magistrate for not just doing what he (the lawyer) said….
I was at Lords yesterday, and was absolutely convinced in the morning that the Indian bowling would be too much for England. How wrong I was.
Such a fantastic level of cricket.
After a landslide win and with four years to change the country.
These people are nuts.
What they gonna do - fund the Sultanas?
No wonder Farage can't stop smirking.