Category: Uncategorized

11th June 2020

This blog has been quiet recently, though not through lack of law and policy material.

The main reason has been illness – nothing too serious nor covid-related – but another reason is the fast pace of recent events mean that considered responses are often quickly redundant or at least stale.

My personal Twitter account has therefore been my main means of providing commentary.

There has also, however, been another outlet for my commentary – I have now done two videos for the Financial Times (where I have the wonderful title of “contributing editor”).

I have called these videos “guided tours”.

I sit with a document (but without notes) and speak away into a mic as I go through the document.

The Financial Times’ production wizard Tom Hannen then takes the audio and then applies it to a visual tour of the document which he creates.

The intention of these “guided tour” videos is two-fold.

The first is to give an exposition of a topical document by showing the viewer the way through the document for themselves.

The second is to use that document as a way of explaining things about such documents more generally.

The first document was Dominic Cummings’ statement, which I analysed as a witness statement.

The second was the recent quarantine regulations, which I analysed as a statutory instrument.

My hope is that we can go on to do Acts of Parliament and significant court judgments.

These videos were Tom Hannen’s idea and initiative, not my own (and so he should take the credit), though I instantly realised how they could be useful devices for promoting the public understanding of law.

The videos are hosted at FT.com and also free to view on YouTube – and I have created a playlist to which you can subscribe where I will add each video.

The videos, as with any novelty, have faults but the feedback from legal professionals, trainers and teaches of law has so far been positive – though that may be partly because the videos are a novelty.

Any constructive feedback and suggestions for further videos welcome.

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17th March 2019

Jack of Kent is no more.

I had been getting tired of the old fellow for some time.

Having a blogging name was something you did ten or so years ago, and I chose the name of Jack of Kent after the medieval wizard who outwitted the Devil by close attention to what was said.

It seemed a good name for a legal blog.

But one obvious problem was that my name is not Jack and (although I lived in north Kent when I started the blog) I am not from Kent.

Another problem was that I recently felt I did not know what to do with the JoK name – was it a distinct brand or a distinct approach, was it a character?

It was beginning to feel all rather odd, as I did not tweet nor do my journalism under the JoK name.

So I have now killed the old fellow off.

Bye, Jack.

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This blog is now under the name I do my legal commentary on Twitter and at the Financial Times and elsewhere.

You will see the url has changed.

The JoK name may still crop up in update emails, and so on, until the name change works its way through the system.

And I am afraid a lot of old links will now be dead. I am sorry for the inconvenience that will cause.

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But I have also done more than change the site name.

I have taken down my old posts, as it seemed a good moment to start afresh with my online presence.

(Though over time I may re-post some of the old posts which seem worth re-publishing.)

One nice thing about blogging independently is that you can take things down as easily as you can put things up.

Independent blogging (as opposed to blogs on commercial or news sites) is, in essence, a form of pamphleteering. It is a flexible and often ephemeral medium.

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I think the time has arrived to start afresh with a new personal blog.

Indeed – though I cannot promise – I may even get into the habit of blogging more regularly on here (instead of tweeting).

And it must be said, WordPress is now a lot more user-friendly than it used to be.

Thank you for joining me on this new(ish) blog.

And if you want to subscribe, there is subscription box above (on an internet browser) or on a pulldown list (on mobile).