A new week, a new swathe of lies and misinformation from all sides…

… aka a modern UK General Election campaign. The good news: Full Fact has been awarded funds from the Nuffield Foundation to fact-check Election claims – or as Onan might have said to his brother, “Er, that’s it”.

Akhter v Khan again

Regular readers will no doubt recall the dispute in Akhter v Khan [2018] EWFC 54, in which Williams J held that Nasreen Akhter was entitled to a decree of nullity after the breakup of her marriage to Mohammed Shabaz Khan, notwithstanding the fact that they had married in a nikah ceremony in 1998 but had never had a civil wedding. An appeal began on Wednesday, and The Times reports that the Attorney is intervening to argue that Williams J was wrong to recognise their relationship as a void marriage rather than a non-marriage.

Same sex marriage in Northern Ireland: here we go again

The Guardian reports on an unfortunate glitch in the new law providing for same sex marriage in Northern Ireland. Continue reading →