Roger Smith looks at three issues that expose inconsistencies by the Lord Chancellor
In the micro-politics of the Conservative Party, Chris Grayling probably reckons that he has got a pretty good billet. He has lots of opportunity to show off his expenditure cuts and to put two fingers up to Europe. But, in bidding to be the right wing darling of his party, the Lord Chancellor exposes the contradictions at the heart of some of its policy-making.
Europe
The problem for a Eurosceptic like Grayling is that, although opposition to anything from the EU is a “no brainer”, actually some of its work is rather handy. This presents a difficulty. The Lord Chancellor has chosen to draw a bright blue line at the EU’s attempt to draw up a “judicial scorecard” of how various of its members are doing in relation to implementing the rule of law. Thus, although we participated in 2013, the recently produced publication for 2014 is full of entries proudly displaying “no data” for the UK. While it can be argued (as Grayling does) that comparative statistics charting court delays within the EU
