They have a right to withdraw labour same as anybody else.

Not all of them are on big wonga.

Incidentally, I was appalled to see that the lawyer representing Abu Hamza in New York was a man wearing an ear ring. Surely you could be struck off for that sort of behaviour?

Most criminal hacks at the bar have been on very small commons because legal aid rates were not increased after 1995. Now legal aid for crime has been cut right back and the criminal bar is totally finished. Michael Mansfield's set is closing down and others too. The trouble with many people is that they believe what they read in the newspapers and join the populist tirade against 'lawyers'. I am no great fan of them myself - but there are  many competent criminal hacks (whose income soon levelled out) who did a great job for little pay - and many of them were at the bar as a useful pastime. The trouble is that the peasants and various groups of chippy brothers and sisters have got onboard and tried to turn a vocation into a barrow-boy's trade. Constance Briscoe is a prime example.

Last edited by Dudley Clarke (2014-05-24 04:32:21)

Everybody hates lawyers, until they need one that is...

The big money is in corporate as already said.

The socialists do indeed soak-up fascism, and our politics and media wallows in impoverished Newspeak - we're already here if anyone hadn't noticed!

I would just add that the argument that too many toe-rags go free because of 'technicalities' is an old chestnut but, at the  end of the day, as that policeman said about the Constance Briscoe case, the law is there to be obeyed by everyone. That includes the police and the prosecuting authorities and, if they cock-up a case to the extent that is fundamentally deficient, then it is right that the matter should be resolved in favour of the defendant - however 'undeserving' he may appear. There simply cannot be different rules for different cateories of defendants, just as there cannot be choices for doctors in deciding whether a patient is 'worthy' of treatment. Problems arise in c:-) riminal trials because of police incompetence and even corruption. Sorting out the criminal justice system would cost money and finding it, or money to retrench the NHS, would mean raising taxes and no political party will run with that line because it goes against modern spin-doctoring, as it might lose the toe-rag politicians votes.

Last edited by NJS (2014-05-25 16:41:27)

Another point  is that the great economist Nigel Lawson should have thought about means-testing health care (apart from emergency treatment) and legal aid,. instead of becoming the architect of Thatcher's free-fall 'modern Britain'; for it was she, rather than Bliar, who led Blighty so far astray.

Consequently, anarchy, chaos, and mayhem loom. Poor old Blighty is in the throes of joining the Third World.

Last edited by Dudley Clarke (2014-06-04 06:57:36)