The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is perhaps best understood as the culmination of the Enlightenment tradition of constitutionalism, hedged in legalistic language of proportionality and balance. It asserts that people have a right – or at the very least the right to have rights – to rely on the Convention when a domestic … Read more
In a court case in Kent recently I detoured to the small village of Down near Orpington where I had the privilege of visiting the Home of Charles Darwin. This is the residence where he wrote both The Voyage of The Beagle (1839) and The Origin of The Species (1859). It is a symptomatic of … Read more
Oscar Wilde said that the tragedy of being old is that one is still young. I am eighty-six, going on nineteen. Is this a record? I’ve been pruning and wood carving with my chainsaw for years. There is no shortage of wood from the trees that I planted thirty years ago. The resultant grotesque heads … Read more