“People … prefer stories that affirm their views of themselves, and of others, and of the world around them. The challenge for those who want to place the discussion of law and policy (and other things) on a sounder basis is to find ways to make people care about the actualité of the case rather than the meme case.”

Thus concludes David Allen Green, in an article for Prospect Magazine (register for free access). He uses two recent high profile cases – with which we must all be familiar since they have been so relentlessly covered in the media – to illustrate his point.

Lucy Connolly was sentenced to 31 months’ prison for, on her own admission, inciting violence against asylum seekers via social media (“set fire to all the fucking hotels full of the bastards for all I care”). The judge’s sentencing remarks, published online, set out clearly why this sentence was appropriate.

In the Bell Hotel, Epping, case, the Court of Appeal discharged a temporary injunction preventing a local authority from continuing to use the hotel to house asylum seekers. The court prepared a special summary of the case, clearly setting out their reasons.

In both cases, the press largely chose to ignore the legal reasoning and to go after the clicks; and thus uninformed public opinion was eagerly published and amplified on social media.

DAG’s piece was written just before the Angela Rayner tax “scandal” erupted. This was not of course a court case, but it illustrates related points.

In legal terms Rayner’s case revolved around interpretation (or lack thereof) of the correct rate of stamp duty payable on the purchase of a property in her particular circumstances.

She owned a share of a first property and sold this interest to a trust she and her former partner had set up for her disabled son, a minor. She then purchased another property. Assuming this now to be her only property, she instructed her conveyancers on her purchase who calculated the stamp duty payable.

Her assumption turned out to be incorrect and she was due to pay the higher rate. The conveyancers had acted on her instructions and she had failed to do her due diligence; had she obtained specialist tax advice she would have been advised that the higher rate of stamp duty applied on the purchase of the second property.

Both the GOV.UK pages on Higher rates of Stamp Duty Land Tax and HMRC’s Guidance on Higher rates of stamp duty do explain the position.

So, access to the applicable law was readily available. However, Rayner had failed to consult it; or she had consulted it but not diligently; or she had simply chosen to believe what her common sense told her. The rules are far more complicated than they should be.

Photo by Cristian Castillo on Unsplash.