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A new high court ruling means that the Solicitors Regulation Authority, the watchdog meant to keep lawyers in check, now can’t demand to see communications between a law firm and its clients. Instead, the client has to agree to the request – something even the judge admitted could make SRA investigations “more difficult, less effective or ineffective”. That’s especially true of potential SLAPP cases, where that client-lawyer communications may be one of the only ways to prove a lawsuit was brought in bad faith to silence, exhaust or bankrupt a person’s critics.

In the latest edition of Muck Files, we’ve uncovered that the UK’s chicken farms are producing millions of tonnes of chicken litter every year – and it ends up in some surprising places. While much of it is spread as fertiliser, potentially polluting waterways, some businesses are sending waste to anaerobic digesters or incinerators. And, on the way, some companies have started sending lorries full of waste across the border to the Republic of Ireland – without oversight or regulation.

Insuring a home that floods is a risky business – that’s why there’s a government and industry scheme in the UK, Flood Re, to protect insurers and make sure people living in areas vulnerable to flooding can still get cover. But some of the major insurers benefiting from that scheme are also insuring coal mining businesses and natural gas projects. And why not? With Flood Re protecting their profits even if floods get worse, climate change doesn’t threaten the bottom line.