Lord Shagger writes from Monaco…..preternatural ineptitude

« Tory policy to clear bins weekly now makes sense !

Update to the “Van Rouge” UK Tour. »

Lord Shagger writes from Monaco…..preternatural ineptitude

Saturday, October 15, 2011 by Charon QC

About these ads

Posted in Charon, Lord Shagger | 7 Comments

7 Responses

on Sunday, October 16, 2011 at 8:12 am Legal Aware (@legalaware)

Thank you, Lord Shagger, for these insightful comments. I hope you are enjoying time, Lord Shagger, with your close friends and family these days.

My ultimate nightmare would be for Chris “Kill a Burglar” Grayling to end up with the plum job of Home Secretary. It might ‘Kill Two Birds With One Stone’ because of the alleged antics described in this article from @Guardian,
“Jonathan Djanogly faces inquiries into legal aid profits”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/oct/11/jonathan-djanogly-inquiries-legal-aid?newsfeed=true

The mess over legal aid cuts is indeed terrifying. However, no doubt the Tory-led media will be more interested in a cabinet reshuffle in due course. This reshuffle is not impossible given that the rightish Dr Fox has exited (stage right, of course), and there’s a strong possibility now that Ken Clarke QC MP, will also have to exit stage left. This would be consistent with @frasernels’ ‘rebalancing the cabinet’ hypothesis. Clarke can in no way be seen as the root of the problems over human rights, even if the Tory-led media wish to have Chris Huhne in his sights (again). Yep, Chris Huhne was ‘caught in yet another scandal’, when the real fact is he was tweeting the fact that Theresa May is alleged to have copied the cat story from Nigel Farage’s speech.

I’m not making this up, as the evidence underlying the allegations are here,

According to the Independent, Chris Huhne has now ‘admitted to the gaffe’, in case anyone feels that I am on dodgy legal territory here,

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/chris-huhne-admits-twitter-gaffe-was-linked-to-catflap-affair-2368108.html

So I hope I am not making it up. I do not know whether pinching a story almost verbatim is a breach of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act [1988], linked here for convenience:

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48/contents

I would be interested in the views of my Twitter pals @plagiarismtoday (http://twitter.com/#!/plagiarismtoday) and @copyrightgirl (http://twitter.com/#!/copyrightgirl). I suppose, as usual, the intellectual property debate centres around the medium used, and whether the material is ‘substantially similar’ blah blah blah.

I look forward to hearing the response from my Ignoble Lord. Lord Shagger may wish to consult a Government lawyer, but I doubt your man is Carl Gardner (http://twitter.com/#!/carlgardner) has much ‘free time’ on his hands to help you.

With kind regards.
on Sunday, October 16, 2011 at 8:37 am Charon QC

Hi.. No idea why your comment went into my moderation panel. I don’t operate comment-approval. I think WordPress must have flagged it as spam – which, clearly, it is not !

Thanks for commenting !
on Sunday, October 16, 2011 at 8:48 am Legal Aware (@legalaware)

ha! no worries. maybe the video was considered as ‘potentially offensive’.

well………
on Sunday, October 16, 2011 at 9:39 am John Bolch

Excellent insight as usual, Lord Shagger. Confirms my commitment never to vote again – the last lot were a shower, and this lot are just as bad.
on Sunday, October 16, 2011 at 12:12 pm Carl Gardner (@carlgardner)

My contacts in government refuse to comment on any unpaid consultancies or advisory roles Lord Shagger may (or may not) have. According to a statement from No. 10, however,

“No evidence has been produced to demonstrate that files disclose any clear record of the Prime Minister having substantively met Lord Shagger formally in the official course of his ministerial duties on government premises in any significant transactional capacity whatsoever. An exhaustive internal inquiry has cleared everyone of any wrongdoing.”

As for the catflap story, as a work of fiction it may well be a copyright literary work.

It was the number of links that got you spammed, I think, @legalaware.
on Monday, October 17, 2011 at 8:47 am Legal Aware (@legalaware)

hi – thanks carl – i will try to avoid spamming @charonqc’s blog in future – though it was fun while it lasted.

carl – my last comment came out as gibberish (i blame sunday mornings), but it was just to say, as a government-trained lawyer, I don’t think you’d have much ‘free time’ on your hands to turn to Lord Shagger’s current predicament.

I’ll stop digging forthwith.

best wishes.
on Sunday, November 20, 2011 at 7:02 pm Legal aid

As you will know only too well Lord Shagger, the common theme in all these faux pas tends to be sex or money, often the latter being a prerequisite of the former, ex post facto.