· I don't question the moral revulsion at Iraq's parading of US prisoners on television, but the legal position under the Geneva convention is not quite as clear as has been assumed. Article 13 of the third convention: "Prisoners of war must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence and intimidation and against insults and public curiosity." It is that "public curiosity" bit that forms the basis for the assumption that showing prisoners' faces publicly is somehow prohibited.
First, of course, the Geneva convention only binds states involved in hostilities; it cannot be binding on an independent media. If they wish to show faces, they can do so, even if the government of their country has asked them not to. I noticed that when Iraqi soldiers surrendered to British and US forces last week, some television reports and newspapers pixelated their features. Yesterday, I saw no pixelating of the US prisoners. Was the al-Jazeera television network legally constrained from showing the pictures? No, it is not a state. So we are left with castigating the Iraqi government for allowing the prisoners to be filmed (as the Brits and Americans had done when the Iraqis surrendered). But was the purpose to meet public curiosity? It was done for propaganda purposes, which is not the same thing. Even if article 13 applies, where is the line to be drawn between the acceptable showing of faces - as in the unsensational footage of the Iraqi prisoners last week - and the unacceptable, distressing scenes involving the US prisoners? There is a moral distinction, but it is difficult to discern a legal one. What about the detainees of Guantanamo Bay, whom the US government allowed to be photographed? The answer is that the US cleverly classified them as "unlawful combatants" (a term hitherto unknown to international law) which meant that they weren't prisoners of war after all, and therefore not subject to the Geneva convention.
· I am naturally dismayed that Lord Bingham has failed to become the chancellor of Oxford University. Had he won, he would not have greeted his victory with the inelegant cliche that Chris Patten chose: "I'm as pleased as Punch." There is, though, a more serious question that arises from Lord Bingham's loss. What about all those people who, faithfully following the instructions on his website, started to call him Tom? Do they now have to revert to calling him Lord Bingham? Or is it once Tom, always Tom? Has he opened the floodgates to Tom-callers forever?
· How pleasing it was to learn that, overall, I am more trusted to tell the truth than a judge. I say overall because I have had to take the average of two of me. According to a survey by the polling company YouGov, journalists on broadsheet newspapers, of which I am one, were trusted by 65% of the 2,000 interviewees that represent the nation. The figure for BBC journalists, of which I am also one, was 81%. Splitting me down the middle, 73% believe that I tell the truth - above the 68% who trust our judges to do so. OK, I have had my bit of fun; but I find one conclusion of the YouGov survey, even with all the usual reservations about all such polls, slightly disturbing. Nearly a third of us can't trust judges to tell the truth. That's pretty high. Perhaps people answered as if it had been a different question, for instance: "Can judges be trusted to come to the right decision?" Then the figure would have been explicable. But for 32% to think of the judiciary, in effect, as liars is worrying.
· Novels with a judge as the central character are rare, other than in crime fiction and courtroom drama. Judge Savage (Secker and Warburg), by the respected writer Tim Parks, has as its flawed hero a black crown court judge, Daniel Savage, appointed to the bench partly because of his ethnic background. I do hope that readers do not take Judge Savage as an accurate portrayal of a typical judicial figure. For one thing, his adultery count is well above the norm; and even the most chaotic judges I have known do not have quite as many life complications as Judge Savage. This is beside the point. It is a novel, not a treatise on the legal system. Pompous me, seeking verisimilitude in art. But I can't help it. Sometimes I feel like that chap who reviewed Lady Chatterley's Lover in the honest belief that it was meant to be a tract on game-keeping and farm management; he found it wanting, as not providing sufficient practical advice.
