“... it. They’re rotten.’Hill’s rancour was directed particularly at the Master of the Rolls, Lord Denning, who in 1980 had ruled against the Birmingham Six’s civil action for assault against West Midlands Police, which essentially implicated the officers in perjury. Denning considered this ‘such an appalling ...”

“... danger is that in the interests of expediency or quietism, an appeal to pseudo-justice of the old Lord Widgery sort or the newer Lord Denning sort could lead to an averted gaze, by government or the generators of public opinion, from the abiding reality. My plea, therefore, is for a renewed self-consciousness in the ...”

“... them, having discovered a talent for making likenesses. The Duke of Edinburgh, Princess Margaret, Lord Snowdon, Archbishop Makarios and Adolf Eichmann all sat for portraits. He was an invitee at all the fashionable parties, and a man who specialised in providing fun for his friends. Keeler met him when she was a showgirl and moved into his flat, though they ...”

“... on another occasion he records his pleasure at opponents having to apologise to him in front of Lord Denning, about which awful old gentleman he has a blind spot. Most of the things Hammond fought for were good and rational. Most of the ways he went about it were calculated to make opponents into enemies, to solidify the soft left around the hard ...”

“... no status as citizens, could not be held to have violated their allegiance by rebellion.In 1781 Lord George Gordon stood trial in London for treason, having provoked anti-Catholic riots in the course of which the townhouse of the presiding judge, Lord Mansfield, had been burned down (a personal interest that appears not ...”

“... and for a determination to maintain a belief in infallibility rather than a faith in justice. Lord Denning’s report on the Profumo case was ‘a disgrace’, full of tittle-tattle and gossip and showing him to be ‘a simpleton in sexual matters’ (a crime indeed these days). We are also reminded that it was a Kennedy television interview with ...”

“... these ‘controllers’? That question is answered very forcefully by Rusbridger. In 1963, Lord Denning wrote (apparently meaning it): ‘The Security Services (MI5) are, in the eye of the law, ordinary citizens with no powers greater than anyone else.’ That view was recently put in perspective by the Master of the Rolls. ‘It is essential in ...”

“... is a divorcé.’ Then when he became prime minister in 1957 he replaced Poole with Quintin Hogg (Lord Hailsham), who was another one. Hailsham had come home from the war to find his wife sleeping with an aide-de-camp to De Gaulle. Her guilt was unambiguous; so was her husband’s innocence. Hailsham’s experience of divorce did nothing to dissuade him from ...”

“... interest ... should you not rather propose that all power and domination should be given to the Lord?’ Sedgwick, like many others, was frank about the extent to which he regarded the rule of the Saints as made necessary by the reluctance of sinners to be governed as they should be: ‘we cannot in reason expect to have a free Parliament at this ...”

“... results of the ‘Greiss’ explosives test. And there were the confessions. Mr Justice (now Lord Justice) Bridge, one of the country’s most austere judges, declared that the evidence against the defendants was ‘the clearest and most overwhelming I have ever heard’. He weighed in heartily for the Police whenever there appeared to be some ...”

“... by the break with Catholicism. However, he also supports things as they are, and rather like Lord Denning on the need to accept the guilty verdict on the Birmingham Six, he can’t face the ‘appalling vista’ of a whole system – the culture that made and empowered him – which is built, from a Catholic point of view, on systematic lies and ...”

“... do the best they can with the words on the page, are not generally as brusque as the Victorian Law Lord who said: ‘This beats me.’ A ready source of help, which I hope will routinely be available when the coming freedom of information regime is in place, are the Notes on Clauses in which the Parliamentary drafter explains and expands the condensed prose of ...”

“... George Cony​ , a London merchant, had once been a friend of Oliver Cromwell. But when the Lord Protector slapped a tax on silk imports without the consent of Parliament, Mr Cony protested that this was the sort of arbitrary behaviour for which Cromwell had lambasted the late king, and demanded that the unjust tax be repaid to him ...”

“... the jury that there was new evidence never known of before. But on 20 July 1989 Roy Amlot told the Lord Chief Justice, at a directions hearing in the Guildford appeal, that every document of any relevance to the case had been served on the defence. If, as alleged, Mr Armstrong had made admissions that were contrary to the evidence he gave at trial, or given ...”

“... charge of attempting to pervert the course of justice against Waugh, which was upheld on appeal by Lord Denning. This prevented Waugh from campaigning, but he still won 79 votes. He noted that allegations of attempted murder were not enough to cause more than five thousand Liberal voters to abandon their loyalty to the party. He found this shocking. There ...”