Ed Kirton-Darling
@ekd.bsky.social
Academic lawyer at the University of Bristol, interested in lots, including inquests & death, social welfare, housing/homelessness, planning, administrative and constitutional law. Firm believer in nuance and context.
Pinned
Ed Kirton-Darling
@ekd.bsky.social
· Nov 20
It is massively exciting to be able to say our Research Handbook on Social Welfare Law is now available. The other editors and I are delighted with how it has turned out- we believe it contains compelling accounts of social welfare law from around the world, and a wide-ranging future agenda
Imagine spending 20 years waiting to see if a reconsideration every few years would uproot you again. Never leaving the system. Constantly wondering whether you'd need to challenge a new decision made, thinking about evidence and getting legal help. Never feeling safe. It's inhumane.
November 17, 2025 at 6:47 AM
Imagine spending 20 years waiting to see if a reconsideration every few years would uproot you again. Never leaving the system. Constantly wondering whether you'd need to challenge a new decision made, thinking about evidence and getting legal help. Never feeling safe. It's inhumane.
Every year, the number of people who die while homeless grows. 1,286 in 2021. 1,313 in 2022. 1,474 in 2023. These are not estimates, but are verified numbers.
BBC News - UK deaths of 1,611 homeless people in 2024 is record high
www.bbc.com/news/article...
BBC News - UK deaths of 1,611 homeless people in 2024 is record high
www.bbc.com/news/article...
UK deaths of 1,611 homeless people in 2024 is record high
Most are linked to suicide or drugs, with spice and nitazines increasingly deadly.
www.bbc.com
October 8, 2025 at 5:03 AM
Every year, the number of people who die while homeless grows. 1,286 in 2021. 1,313 in 2022. 1,474 in 2023. These are not estimates, but are verified numbers.
BBC News - UK deaths of 1,611 homeless people in 2024 is record high
www.bbc.com/news/article...
BBC News - UK deaths of 1,611 homeless people in 2024 is record high
www.bbc.com/news/article...
FAO SOCIO-LEGAL COLLEAGUES
@slsauk.bsky.social
I've just been asked to circulate the below online event, taking place on Monday morning (and details which have been sent to me are in the thread below, including the Zoom link)
@slsauk.bsky.social
I've just been asked to circulate the below online event, taking place on Monday morning (and details which have been sent to me are in the thread below, including the Zoom link)
October 4, 2025 at 6:38 AM
FAO SOCIO-LEGAL COLLEAGUES
@slsauk.bsky.social
I've just been asked to circulate the below online event, taking place on Monday morning (and details which have been sent to me are in the thread below, including the Zoom link)
@slsauk.bsky.social
I've just been asked to circulate the below online event, taking place on Monday morning (and details which have been sent to me are in the thread below, including the Zoom link)
Anyone interested in issues of deaths of people who are homeless or precariously housed, and the ways in which institutions change (using a framework of discursive institutionalism), come along (in person) on Thursday 2 October at 17:15 to my Centre for Death and Society public lecture in Bath.
September 26, 2025 at 7:58 AM
Anyone interested in issues of deaths of people who are homeless or precariously housed, and the ways in which institutions change (using a framework of discursive institutionalism), come along (in person) on Thursday 2 October at 17:15 to my Centre for Death and Society public lecture in Bath.
Hallucinating is inevitable in Large Language Models.
“Governance must shift from prevention to risk containment,” Dai said. “This means stronger human-in-the-loop processes, domain-specific guardrails, and continuous monitoring.”
“Governance must shift from prevention to risk containment,” Dai said. “This means stronger human-in-the-loop processes, domain-specific guardrails, and continuous monitoring.”
When asked “How many Ds are in DEEPSEEK?” the DeepSeek-V3 model with 600 billion parameters “returned ‘2’ or ‘3’ in ten independent trials” while Meta AI and Claude 3.7 Sonnet performed similarly, “including answers as large as ‘6’ and ‘7.’” www.computerworld.com/article/4059...
OpenAI admits AI hallucinations are mathematically inevitable, not just engineering flaws
In a landmark study, OpenAI researchers reveal that large language models will always produce plausible but false outputs, even with perfect data, due to fundamental statistical and computational limi...
www.computerworld.com
September 21, 2025 at 9:07 PM
Hallucinating is inevitable in Large Language Models.
“Governance must shift from prevention to risk containment,” Dai said. “This means stronger human-in-the-loop processes, domain-specific guardrails, and continuous monitoring.”
“Governance must shift from prevention to risk containment,” Dai said. “This means stronger human-in-the-loop processes, domain-specific guardrails, and continuous monitoring.”
Public law practitioners: have you been involved in litigation regarding automated decision making by Government, or do you think you might be in future? The @publiclawproject.bsky.social are keen to speak to you.
August 28, 2025 at 9:53 AM
Public law practitioners: have you been involved in litigation regarding automated decision making by Government, or do you think you might be in future? The @publiclawproject.bsky.social are keen to speak to you.
Really hope the SRA are listening (not holding out a lot of hope)
www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/hundred...
www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/hundred...
Hundreds sign petition calling for SQE reform
Anonymous trainee says the exam has taken a severe toll on their mental, financial and physical wellbeing.
www.lawgazette.co.uk
August 1, 2025 at 1:32 PM
Really hope the SRA are listening (not holding out a lot of hope)
www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/hundred...
www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/hundred...
There is a risk that this will get missed over the summer, so just to flag up this important call for evidence on human rights and the regulation of AI from the Joint Committee on Human Rights (and deadline for response is 5 September) - committees.parliament.uk/work/9220/hu...
New inquiry: Human Rights and the Regulation of Artificial Intelligence - Committees - UK Parliament
The Joint Committee on Human Rights has launched a new inquiry to examine how human rights can be protected in the age of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
committees.parliament.uk
July 30, 2025 at 7:57 AM
There is a risk that this will get missed over the summer, so just to flag up this important call for evidence on human rights and the regulation of AI from the Joint Committee on Human Rights (and deadline for response is 5 September) - committees.parliament.uk/work/9220/hu...
Reposted by Ed Kirton-Darling
Arriving a bit late to bluesky, but here we are. Follow if you're interested in case commentary and news from across the range of topics that fall under the wide umbrella of human rights law, such as this, on the approach taken to article 2, police and suicide.
An unusual and thorough example of nearly every aspect of a Coroner's decision being overturned.
Coronial investigation of the Police after suicide - Coroner's decisions on Article 2 and jury overturned - UK Human Rights Blog
R (Ferguson) v HM Assistant Coroner for Sefton, Knowlsey and St Helens [2025] EWHC 1901 (Admin) concerned a challenge by the next of kin of Joseph Farley, who died after jumping from the fourteenth fl...
ukhumanrightsblog.com
July 27, 2025 at 11:10 AM
Arriving a bit late to bluesky, but here we are. Follow if you're interested in case commentary and news from across the range of topics that fall under the wide umbrella of human rights law, such as this, on the approach taken to article 2, police and suicide.
Reposted by Ed Kirton-Darling
Apparently now corrected, because I wrote about it. bsky.app/profile/near...
I’ve been told that the same search now returns an AI comment that this does not happen and cites my site as the source. So you have to run a site considered as authoritative by Google and explicitly call out the nonsense to get it corrected…
In which I get both furious and very worried about google's AI putting incendiary falsehoods about evicting council tenants to house asylum seekers at the top of the search results. This is dangerous stuff (albeit unintended, though that might be worse).
nearlylegal.co.uk/2025/07/arti...
nearlylegal.co.uk/2025/07/arti...
July 25, 2025 at 8:56 AM
Apparently now corrected, because I wrote about it. bsky.app/profile/near...
Amongst other issues, we know large language models hallucinate, and so are at best unreliable and at worst dangerous, and yet regulation appears out of the question. Frustrating.
In which I get both furious and very worried about google's AI putting incendiary falsehoods about evicting council tenants to house asylum seekers at the top of the search results. This is dangerous stuff (albeit unintended, though that might be worse).
nearlylegal.co.uk/2025/07/arti...
nearlylegal.co.uk/2025/07/arti...
Artificial Stupidity and real hazards - Nearly Legal: Housing Law News and Comment
I am more than a little furious. We live in times when far right agitators are stirring up physical violence, and people are getting sucked into internet rabbit holes of conspiracist thinking and outr...
nearlylegal.co.uk
July 25, 2025 at 5:39 AM
Amongst other issues, we know large language models hallucinate, and so are at best unreliable and at worst dangerous, and yet regulation appears out of the question. Frustrating.
Important reporting work being done here by the Law Society Gazette on reforms to special educational needs provision - www.lawgazette.co.uk/features/sen...
SEND reform, legal rights and Whitehall's weasel words
The 'parents of disabled children' club was one I didn't want to join, and yet was shattered to leave with the death of my daughter in February. Re-engaging with these issues at this time, I find extremely difficult.
www.lawgazette.co.uk
July 7, 2025 at 5:56 PM
Important reporting work being done here by the Law Society Gazette on reforms to special educational needs provision - www.lawgazette.co.uk/features/sen...
Reposted by Ed Kirton-Darling
🚨🚨BREAKING: Section 21 Eviction ban has been DELAYED until Spring 2026!
Read our full statement by our Deputy Chief Executive @danwilsoncraw.bsky.social, below 👇
Read our full statement by our Deputy Chief Executive @danwilsoncraw.bsky.social, below 👇
June 26, 2025 at 1:18 PM
🚨🚨BREAKING: Section 21 Eviction ban has been DELAYED until Spring 2026!
Read our full statement by our Deputy Chief Executive @danwilsoncraw.bsky.social, below 👇
Read our full statement by our Deputy Chief Executive @danwilsoncraw.bsky.social, below 👇
Reading Prevention of Future Deaths reports which relate to the deaths of people who are homeless, and responses to them. The name of the person writing this response, dated 1 April 2025, is redacted, but their office - Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Housing etc - isn't 🤔
June 12, 2025 at 10:20 AM
Reading Prevention of Future Deaths reports which relate to the deaths of people who are homeless, and responses to them. The name of the person writing this response, dated 1 April 2025, is redacted, but their office - Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Housing etc - isn't 🤔
More than 2/3rds of UK students work during term time and spend less time than ever on independent study - www.hepi.ac.uk/2025/06/12/s...
Student Academic Experience Survey 2025 - HEPI
This year’s results indicate that the student experience has evolved away from the ‘traditional’ model of many students living close to campus, spending a lot of time on campus and only undertaking pa...
www.hepi.ac.uk
June 12, 2025 at 9:13 AM
More than 2/3rds of UK students work during term time and spend less time than ever on independent study - www.hepi.ac.uk/2025/06/12/s...
"AI is not regulated. But, worse than that, generative AI is still an unknown. As the months pass, who knows what else we might find out about it? We already know that it steals, fantasises and lies."
www.lawgazette.co.uk/commentary-a...
www.lawgazette.co.uk/commentary-a...
More caution please, Sir Geoffrey
Generative AI enthusiasts are rushing us too quickly towards its adoption in the law.
www.lawgazette.co.uk
June 10, 2025 at 12:25 PM
"AI is not regulated. But, worse than that, generative AI is still an unknown. As the months pass, who knows what else we might find out about it? We already know that it steals, fantasises and lies."
www.lawgazette.co.uk/commentary-a...
www.lawgazette.co.uk/commentary-a...
A long and detailed assessment which merits careful reading - Israel is accused of the gravest war crimes in Gaza - BBC News
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Israel is accused of the gravest war crimes in Gaza
Distinguished lawyers, senior humanitarians and diplomats tell Jeremy Bowen why they are increasingly concerned about the catastrophe inside Gaza
www.bbc.co.uk
June 8, 2025 at 7:12 AM
A long and detailed assessment which merits careful reading - Israel is accused of the gravest war crimes in Gaza - BBC News
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Reposted by Ed Kirton-Darling
Eloquently stated
“…if you can’t tell the difference between a supplier list and a blank cheque, you’ve no business near the corridors of power…”
eastangliabylines.co.uk/politics/loc...
“…if you can’t tell the difference between a supplier list and a blank cheque, you’ve no business near the corridors of power…”
eastangliabylines.co.uk/politics/loc...
Exposed: Reform UK doesn’t know how government spending works
Reform UK just confused a procurement framework with a spending scandal – and revealed they don’t understand government
eastangliabylines.co.uk
June 8, 2025 at 5:13 AM
Eloquently stated
“…if you can’t tell the difference between a supplier list and a blank cheque, you’ve no business near the corridors of power…”
eastangliabylines.co.uk/politics/loc...
“…if you can’t tell the difference between a supplier list and a blank cheque, you’ve no business near the corridors of power…”
eastangliabylines.co.uk/politics/loc...
This is a very good piece which succinctly explains the importance of understanding the fundamentals, given how the world can (will) change
June 3, 2025 at 8:16 AM
This is a very good piece which succinctly explains the importance of understanding the fundamentals, given how the world can (will) change
Reposted by Ed Kirton-Darling
*Help me tell the full story of the Civil Service*
I'm still recruiting for this research and in particular am looking for more participants from grades AO to HEO (incl FSers). Especially women and those whose role is outside the policy profession.
DM or email amy.gandon@gmail and pls share!
I'm still recruiting for this research and in particular am looking for more participants from grades AO to HEO (incl FSers). Especially women and those whose role is outside the policy profession.
DM or email amy.gandon@gmail and pls share!
🚨 Calling all Civil Servants (past & present) 🚨
As I shared last week, I'm relaunching my research on the Civil Service - building on my 2022 project interviewing 50 officials about govt through Brexit, the pandemic & political upheaval.
Here's who I'm looking for:
As I shared last week, I'm relaunching my research on the Civil Service - building on my 2022 project interviewing 50 officials about govt through Brexit, the pandemic & political upheaval.
Here's who I'm looking for:
May 21, 2025 at 9:55 AM
*Help me tell the full story of the Civil Service*
I'm still recruiting for this research and in particular am looking for more participants from grades AO to HEO (incl FSers). Especially women and those whose role is outside the policy profession.
DM or email amy.gandon@gmail and pls share!
I'm still recruiting for this research and in particular am looking for more participants from grades AO to HEO (incl FSers). Especially women and those whose role is outside the policy profession.
DM or email amy.gandon@gmail and pls share!
Am really struck by the way enforcement is defined in the Renters' Rights Bill as either imposing a financial penalty or instituted criminal proceedings, so that informal means of enforcement won't be enough to satisfy the new duty to enforce. Will be interesting to watch how it plays out!
May 20, 2025 at 11:00 AM
Am really struck by the way enforcement is defined in the Renters' Rights Bill as either imposing a financial penalty or instituted criminal proceedings, so that informal means of enforcement won't be enough to satisfy the new duty to enforce. Will be interesting to watch how it plays out!
Reposted by Ed Kirton-Darling
I'm not asking you to get from point A to point B. I'm asking you to get some exercise.
May 14, 2025 at 10:27 AM
I'm not asking you to get from point A to point B. I'm asking you to get some exercise.
Reposted by Ed Kirton-Darling
Ooof. This is painful reading. Totally made up cases in an otherwise strong case, without any good explanation...
A cautionary tale of a homelessness judicial review worthy of Hilaire Belloc.
"I don't think my buttocks have unclenched since reading this judgment earlier today. I have winced so hard and so long, it is now permanent."
nearlylegal.co.uk/2025/05/the-...
"I don't think my buttocks have unclenched since reading this judgment earlier today. I have winced so hard and so long, it is now permanent."
nearlylegal.co.uk/2025/05/the-...
The cases that weren't. - Nearly Legal: Housing Law News and Comment
This is a cautionary tale, somewhat along the lines of Hilaire Belloc’s Cautionary Tales for Children. Consider this the “George: Who played with a Dangerous Toy, and suffered a Catastrophe of conside...
nearlylegal.co.uk
May 7, 2025 at 7:53 AM
Ooof. This is painful reading. Totally made up cases in an otherwise strong case, without any good explanation...
Reposted by Ed Kirton-Darling
1/5 This is heart breaking. But the coroners comment rings true.
“Women who are not fortunate enough to be able to access private clinics and facilities may not be able to access the services and expertise they need at a very crucial transitional phase in their lives."
#Edusky #EduskyUK #WomenEd
“Women who are not fortunate enough to be able to access private clinics and facilities may not be able to access the services and expertise they need at a very crucial transitional phase in their lives."
#Edusky #EduskyUK #WomenEd
Coroner expresses concerns over NHS menopause care after death of teacher
Report follows inquest jury’s conclusion that Jacqueline Anne Potter killed herself after mental health decline
www.theguardian.com
May 1, 2025 at 5:21 AM