James Hand

Jude’s blog (“Bomb in my Brain”) is one of the bravest, most honest and powerful pieces of writing you’ll ever read. Her story is life-affirming, and deserves to be more widely known.

🔊 New article in The Journal of Legislative Studies

With @stephenholdenbates.bsky.social, we ask: do UK MPs specialise in specific policy areas or remain generalists? In the first comprehensive study in 40+ years, we analysed 1,295 backbenchers from 2001-2019 to find out.

doi.org/10.1080/1357...

Very grateful that my pitch for the field of Judicial Administration - that is, studying courts as institutions and how they function day to day - is now out with the Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities . . .

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Tens of thousands of cornflowers in a field in Wicken. Research shows that the sight of them will help you recover from sources of stress more quickly & boost dopamine release in your brain, lifting your mood…in case you need it just now:

Kenyan Birds A guest post by David Durose

That nice @levparikian.bsky.social let me loose on his substack to write a few words about the feathered types I met on my recent trip to Kenya. For people who don't like words, there are also pictures. I've not really written anything non-work related for 30 years, so a bit nervous about this...

OTOH, if you delete one T…

A bare tree with five cormorants perched on its upper branches. Blue sky.

Cormorants surveying Windermere

Speaking as a discrimination lawyer, this is going to be very interesting.

A must listen for anyone planning a reshuffle…

So many new insights
- dealing with all the people who want a say
- dealing with all the people who want an extra title
- how to *actually* consider ministerial performance
- managing the spreadsheet on ministerial pay
- buying the right magnets

Just a little message to say that Pink Tape is still going, but the automated email thingymajig that tells you when I’ve posted isn’t working and I don’t really have time to fix it right now. So there are a few posts up there, but they won’t find you and you’ll have to go looking. Will fix when can.

:)

'Analysis last month by Andrew Tattersall...shows that a total of 98 UK higher education institutions listed on Bluesky as having accounts.

Of those accounts, 55 were active. But the number of inactive accounts stood at 43.'

Ironic stats given that new freedom of speech mandate has kicked in. 1/3

👇

The top of the voting record that we produce for each defeat.

Did you know that there have been 83 government defeats in the House of Lords so far this parliament?

We have a record on our website of every defeat of this kind dating back to 2005!

Find out more and sign up to our mailing list to be alerted of new defeats 👉 www.ucl.ac.uk/constitution....

‘A legal rule forbids you to take a vehicle into the public park. Plainly this forbids an automobile, but what about bicycles, roller skates, toy automobiles? What about airplanes? Are these, as we say, to be called "vehicles" for the purpose of the rule or not?’

This is a good comparison

A brief history of Sage. Independent since 1965.

Discover six decades of independent, mission-driven publishing with our virtual timeline.

The timeline traces our history of supporting social & behavioral science, enabling research impact, and advocating for critical thinking, academic freedom, and social justice.

Explore it here: bit.ly/4jZY0E7

Love old papers. Fancy having such a list today!

Exciting news - Prof. Sarah Kingston, Dr Nicola Harding and I are organising a special issue for @areajournal.bsky.social titled "The Geographies of Fraud and Financial Crime".

Please see attached for details and share with anyone who might be interested!

I think it is hard to underestimate how important this website is for the Rule of Law in the UK. Before 2010, if you wanted to find out what statutes were actually in force you essentially needed a subscription to a very expensive commercial product like Halsbury's Statutes.

University of Portsmouth Law School graduation yesterday. Every year this is such a joyful occasion, and I am so happy for all these lovely young people as they move on to the next steps in their careers.

Photo of Law School staff before going on to the stage for the ceremony.

The Open University Online EventResearching Sensitive Topics ColloquiumMonday 13th October 2025

My PhD colleagues Georgia Boyd and Gabriel Omachi are organising a multidisciplinary colloquium on researching sensitive topics.

Call for papers deadline: 15 August.

#CFP

Wales’s own lioness Praise for a judge of exceptional distinction

Lady Justice Nicola Davies is Wales’s own lioness, the lady chief justice said at her valedictory ceremony yesterday. Baroness Carr said her career was defined by intellectual rigour, principled leadership and a profound commitment to equality and diversity. rozenberg.substack.com/p/waless-own...

Should be a requirement everywhere.

All the SLSA funding schemes are now open for applications: Research Grants, PhD Fieldwork Grants, Impact Grants, Seminar Competition, International Collaboration Funding. Closing date: 31 October 2025.

For more information follow the link to the new website: www.slsa.ac.uk/grants

Labour urges government to consider crackdown on VPNs Online Safety Bill amendment would require Ofcom to investigate use of VPNs to circumvent web rules

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli... this is the original source for the "labour cracking down on VPNs" story fwiw. you might notice some issues, like the fact that it refers to labour as the opposition and also that it was written in 2022

Should we care about the well-being of judges? A resounding yes, and here is why

I wrote some thoughts on a topic I’ve become quite passionate about over the past few months as I’ve done more work with judges and learned of the challenges they face …🧵

I hope they’ve got a Hampton replica shirt ready this time.

YouTube video by Tom Lehrer - Topic New Math

But actually my favourite might be New Math which will make anyone remotely connected with education howl m.youtube.com/watch?v=tptn...

The Strengths of Speech Divergence in Autistic People: Implications for Assessment and Support

On 35th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act & during the Motormorphosis Conference for Nonspeakers, a thread on my new free paper w/ @juliettegudkne1.bsky.social (pre-Ed) Strengths of Speech Divergence: Implications for Assessment and Support. researchportal.port.ac.uk/en/publicati...