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Francis Hoar Profile picture
@Francis_Hoar
Sep 27, 2020 • 5 tweets • 2 min read • Read on X
I hope that anyone waking up to reflect that riot police broke up peaceful political protests at two of the world centres of freedom of speech - Trafalgar Square and Speakers Corner - feels ashamed of what this once great country has become.
It also appears that the police acted unlawfully in breaking up the protest. The two relevant parts of reg. 5 of the No. 2 Regs (as amended) are below. If the risk assessment was undertaken and the organiser took reasonable steps to limit transmission, the protest was lawful.
It doesn’t cease to be so by virtue of the behaviour of the protesters if (which is not established) they didn’t comply with the risk assessment.
This of course is not to take account of whether requiring such conditions is a breach of the right to freedom of assembly and freedom of expression protected by Articles 10 and 11 of the ECHR. I believe that they are not.
(I should clarify that I mean that requiring those conditions is, in my opinion, a breach of A10 and A11.)

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More from @Francis_Hoar

Francis Hoar Profile picture
Apr 16
The government’s tobacco Bill is not just stunningly impractical and unjustified by the harm that smoking causes to society, rather than the individual. It is sinister. To require adults to prove their age (not that they have reached adulthood) to buy a legal product is a gross intrusion in to individual privacy and autonomy.
It has preposterous results, such as the two 25 year-olds (then 35, 45…), a day apart in age, one of whom will commit a *criminal offence* by buying a product available to the other. (Again, not comparable to an age limit based on an assessment of maturity that is reached, only once, by all.)
It would create a thoroughly dangerous precedent that the state may ban a product not because of its capacity to do immediate grave harm (eg poisons) or to cause disorder or other societal mischief (eg alcohol, if we were being honest) but because of long-term health risks.
Read 11 tweets
Francis Hoar Profile picture
Jun 28, 2023
I acted in a judicial review of this decsn in 2021. Regardless of whether the court rightly rejected the challenge to the decision of the Sec of State, as a matter of record the JCVI did not recommend vaccination for 11-15s as there was insufficient evidence about their safety.
The reason why the Chief Medical Officers of the UK and devolved nations (‘the CMOs’) recommended overruling them was astonishingly flimsy - that they might save a (proportionately) tiny number of school days in absences by reducing the number of children getting Covid.
In making that decision, the CMOs *expressly* decides not to measure that against the accepted certainty of absences due to side-effects of the vaccine. Even only taking into account minor side effects (cold like symptoms) these were likely to be greater than absences from Covid.
Read 5 tweets
Francis Hoar Profile picture
Jun 13, 2023
An improvement on indications of Lady Hallett’s thinking,but it misses central points.
Lockdowns weren’t considered in pandemic plans not just b’cs they were unthinkable but bc’s measures *less* draconian were found to be ineffective & disproportionate.

bbc.co.uk/news/health-65…
It *is* positive that the Inquiry is finally addressing the lack of any adequate prior consideration of the exceptional harm that wld be the inevitable consequence of lockdown; let alone to weigh whether that harm was justified by the supposed efficacy of lockdown.
(I say finally because of the consummate lack of any such consideration in the terms of reference and earlier openings.)
Read 9 tweets
Francis Hoar Profile picture
Aug 2, 2022
I find the approach of Christian Concern very odd - and wholly divorced from orthodox Augustinian and Aquinan Christian principles, quite apart from Hippocratic ones. Tragic though this case is, it concerns the end of life supporting treatment, not active steps to kill.
Not long ago, such withdrawal would have been expected and uncontroversial, however sad, where medical professionals determined that it was very unlikely that a person would awake from a coma.
And, because it was treatment using facilities and medication that was finite, such a determination was likely to have been final, a hospital having the right to ration treatment.
Read 18 tweets
Francis Hoar Profile picture
Jul 29, 2022
This is desperately sad news.
Mark was the epitome of a good citizen.He devoted his life to serving his borough. I came to know him during the Tower Hamlets election petition,when his research & analysis were invaluable to exposing the corruption of Lutfur Rahman and his cronies.
He had been working on this with other journalists - @TedJeory @mragilligan, John Ware and more - for years. But assembling the evidence was particularly challenging in the face of an organisation controlled by one man.
During the nine months in which the case was prepared and presented, the small team could not have proved the case against Rahman so comprehensively (the judgment survived two judicial reviews) without Mark and others.
Read 9 tweets
Francis Hoar Profile picture
Apr 14, 2022
One of the most interesting moments in the documentary was how quickly the public reaction turned. From ‘how dare you say this’ to ‘he never existed’ (a revealing comment).
The last two yrs have confirmed to me the conclusion one can also draw from this.

theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2…
Let’s not beat about the bush. Public opinion is fickle, easily manipulated, and an exceptionally dangerous measure of what is right.
That is why an absolute democracy would be one of the most dangerous - and short lived - systems. A recipe for tyranny.
Edmund Burke recognised this. That is what he meant by ‘democracy’ when he castigated it.
Yes, a balanced, mature liberal democracy is the worst system apart from all the others (the caveats were understood to be implied by Churchill)…
Read 6 tweets

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