Top all-time · #2722
David Allen Green
Personal blog · davidallengreen.compoliticswriting
David Allen Green writes The Empty City, a personal blog at davidallengreen.com about politics and writing. Since 2020, 28 different Hacker News readers have linked it 41 times, most often “Legal Drafting and Computer Programming”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-28, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (18) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link David Allen Green's law blog for commentary on UK constitutional matters, Brexit, the Post Office Horizon scandal, and the presumption that computers work correctly. Posts are often cited as sources in discussions of UK law.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 18 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- Legal Drafting and Computer Programming2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-09-19
- How to Read a Formal Document2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-07-27
- /2021/02/the-queens-consent-a-strange-and-obscure-feature-of-the-constitution-of-the-united-kingdom-and-why-it-should-be-abolished/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-02-09
- Explaining a 31-month sentence for a tweet2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-05-27
- /2023/09/computer-says-guilty-an-introduction-to-the-evidential-presumption-that-computers-are-operating-correctly/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-10-01
What Hacker News says?
https://davidallengreen.com/2021/01/can-a-presidential-pardo... discusses — in 1869 one got rescinded because the original was never delivered (but according to the post that isn't binding).
Comment linking /2021/01/can-a-presidential-pardon-be-revoked/
on “Anthony Levandowski Pardoned”Submitted UK wants to reform Official Secrets law by pretending journalism doesn't exist as a story · 186 points
HN discussion> One day our media will have to discover doing proper journalism You say this as the guardian are breaking a bunch of constitution-shaking-ly tough stories on the monarchy? https://davidallengreen.com/2021/02/the-queens-consent-a-str... Also what do you expect? COVID-19 is ongoing and is still killing as near as makes no difference 1000 thousand people a day in this country, Brexit has effectively just become "real…
Comment linking /2021/02/the-queens-consent-a-strange-and-obscure-feature-of-the-constitution-of-the-united-kingdom-and-why-it-should-be-abolished/
on “8-Year-Old Calls Out NPR for Lack of Dinosaur Stories”Submitted "Twelfth Night Till Candlemas" – A 40-year book-quest as a story · 183 points
HN discussionThe Post Office knew that the Horizon system was deeply flawed and that the prosecutions they were pursuing were unsound. They intentionally covered up this fact. The courts adjudicated based on evidence provided by the Post Office, but that evidence intentionally omitted things like error logs that would have undermined their case. The defendants had a right to see that evidence, but the Post Office simply denied t…
on “How a software glitch at the UK Post Office ruined lives”Submitted The fake Twitter account of “Marina Ovsyannikova” as a story · 139 points
HN discussionDavid Allen Green (as usual) has a decent take on UK constitutional matters. As for the Queen being a small c conservative, absolutely. British monarchy in this century is a badly run crime syndicate. https://davidallengreen.com/2021/02/the-queens-consent-a-str...
Comment linking /2021/02/the-queens-consent-a-strange-and-obscure-feature-of-the-constitution-of-the-united-kingdom-and-why-it-should-be-abolished/
on “The Queen has more power over British law than we thought”Submitted How the lore of New Year defeated the law of New Year as a story · 114 points
HN discussionBritish lawyer and commentator David Allen Green has things to say about certain patterns of speech, phrases such as "absolutely clear" are used only when one has not been at all clear: https://davidallengreen.com/2021/11/let-me-be-absolutely-cle... Likewise, I would add "obviously": I have never seen "obvious" used to describe anything which is obvious, only things which are not. The phrase "common sense" is even w…
Comment linking /2021/11/let-me-be-absolutely-clear-the-two-rules-of-clarity/
on “Arizona resident dies from the plague”Submitted Legal Drafting and Computer Programming as a story · 64 points
HN discussionThe best effort relates to setting up the manufacturing of the vaccine, not distributing it. See e.g. https://davidallengreen.com/2021/01/what-can-be-worked-out-a... There's no doubt the UK has been nimble and reasonably effective on the vaccine front (as we all know, the EU is a very mixed bag by construction); just as well since it has been dreadful on the mortality front. The UK commentariat is a little bit shock…
Comment linking /2021/01/what-can-be-worked-out-about-the-best-efforts-clause-in-the-astrazeneca-vaccine-supply-agreement/
on “AstraZeneca/EU contract”Submitted The fog of lawlessness: what we can see – and what we cannot see as a story · 6 points
HN discussion“Getting Brexit Done”, a terrible, debilitating disease. One of the worst symptoms has been “trade agreements at any cost” https://davidallengreen.com/2022/11/getting-any-quick-intern... “ All you have to do is turn up to the negotiation, ask what the other side’s negotiators want, give it to them, and – Hey Peston! – the United Kingdom has a trade agreement.”
Comment linking /2022/11/getting-any-quick-international-trade-deal-is-easy-if-you-give-in-to-the-other-side/
on “UK food price inflation hit 16.2% in October – cost of food basics surging”Submitted Legal Drafting and Computer Programming as a story · 4 points
HN discussion> was the one jailed for her comments The one that fanned huge fucking protests, the one that caused a massive spike in violence, many hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of damage? That old poor innocent councillors wife? Britain and the US are very different. In the same way that a lot of americans think that school shootings are a fair exchange for second amendment rights, this is a fair exchange for not having…
Comment linking /2025/05/explaining-a-31-month-sentence-for-a-tweet/
on “Britain's police are restricting speech in worrying ways”Submitted A close reading of the AI fake cases judgement as a story · 3 points
HN discussionNot exactly. The agreement will be temporary because the EU parliament was supposed to get to review it and there wasn't time. However that's supposed to complete soon, not in some months. The agreement itself does have provision to evolve over time though. See https://davidallengreen.com/2020/12/this-agreement-is-not-th...
Comment linking /2020/12/this-agreement-is-not-the-end-of-brexit-it-is-a-five-year-political-truce/
on “UK-EU trade deal refers to Netscape Communicator 4 as “modern email software””Submitted Should Be Regulated as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThe EU was never, ever, just a trading bloc. https://davidallengreen.com/2021/01/the-real-origin-of-the-e...
Comment linking /2021/01/the-real-origin-of-the-european-union-supranationalism-state-and-why-it-still-matters/
on “Brexit stops Brooks England sales of ‘Made in Britain’ saddles to UK shoppers”Submitted How Neil Gaiman kept control of the Sandman characters as a story · 3 points
HN discussionWhile the above poster is a little overenthusiastic, there is no judicial review of acts of Parliament. Judicial review seeks to challenge whether a public body reached a decision lawfully, and acts of Parliament are always lawful provided they are passed in the property manner https://davidallengreen.com/2023/01/courts-and-politics-and-...
Comment linking /2023/01/courts-and-politics-and-the-job-of-judicial-review/
on “How London's Crystal Palace was built so quickly”Submitted Computer Says 'Guilty' as a story · 3 points
HN discussionOddly I was reading David Allen Green today who had this article https://davidallengreen.com/2021/03/you-say-you-want-a-writt... showing that there is a written constitution for the UK.
Comment linking /2021/03/you-say-you-want-a-written-constitution-here-are-four-online-places-where-it-is-already-written-down/
on “When constitutions took over the world”Submitted Explaining a 31-month sentence for a tweet as a story · 2 points
HN discussionUK politicians, especially those on the right, were never big supporters of the European Convention on Human Rights and often express their desire to circumvent it (see the linked Guardian article in another comment), or to remove its applicability from UK law altogether. Supporters of human rights may find comfort in the fact that the UK is actually bound to the ECHR by various international agreements, including t…
Comment linking /2022/06/oh-no-not-again-the-story-of-the-human-rights-act-and-of-the-new-bill-of-rights/
on “New UK data laws could be incompatible with GDPR in the EU”Submitted Words on the screen – the rise and (relative) fall of text-based social media as a story · 2 points
HN discussionIn the UK, the presumption was actually that a machine is operating correctly, which was then reversed in law in 1984 but that was then repealed in 1999. Source: https://davidallengreen.com/2023/09/computer-says-guilty-an-...
Comment linking /2023/09/computer-says-guilty-an-introduction-to-the-evidential-presumption-that-computers-are-operating-correctly/
on “Engineer insists Post Office software did a 'good job'”Submitted How to Read a Formal Document as a story · 2 points
HN discussionInteresting and relevant post from David Allen Green [1] about the historical origins of the title 'Prime Minister'. > It was a title that was used just to describe the most dominant minister of the day, the one who controlled the cabinet and had the confidence of parliament – usually the First Lord of the Treasury but sometimes not. > And if today one asked an alien looking down from space who was the Prime Ministe…
Comment linking /2022/10/a-prime-minister-in-name-only/
on “Is Truss Still PM?”Submitted Why a 2k page UK-EU agreement cannot be properly scrutinised in 8 days as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
