Europe's war on British justice!

Europe.  The land of many's the British fantasy.  One of the dreariest of our own day is the idea that the European Court of Human Rights, based in Strasbourg, is somehow "waging war" on British courts and justice, meddlesomely upturning a substantial number of their decisions. A few salient facts blows that eurosceptic victim fantasy apart. I marshalled them in a wee piece in the Scotsman this morning, entitled "Is the European Court of Human Rights fit for purpose?"

I also took the opportunity to highlight a generally overlooked dimension of recent attempts to reform the Court: the situation of the thousands of poor applicants in ghastly situations, making their cases as best they can without legal representation.  You can read the whole thing here.

Europe was also on the menu on episode 12 of the For A' That podcast. No guest this week, but Michael and I chewed over what effect David Cameron's EU referendum wheeze might have on Britain and Scotland, and the campaign for independence. Michael discoursed at length about the length of bananas. We also took up last week's revivification of devosomething, and I make a scandalous admission about Scottish Labour leader, Johann Lamont. We buttonholed our blether with a look back across the Atlantic, to Obama's inauguration address, of its rhetoric and its substance.  As usual, you can listen to the show right here, or download it from Spreaker, or from iTunes.