Jon Robins observes the fallout from the recent legal aid protests
It was handbags at dawn. The offending item being one Mulberry Bayswater handbag reportedly worth £1,100 and belonging to “a lady barrister”, as the Daily Mail delicately put it in its coverage of barristers protesting last week outside the Old Bailey.
The gathering was, according to the Mail , “the most privileged picket line ever”. “Some junior barristers earn as little as £13,000 a year, their leaders said” and so, the Mail sniped, “perhaps it was a mistake” to sport such a lavish accessory to a demo. All strikes have their hate-figures, reflected The Independent . “For the miners in 1984 it was Margaret Thatcher. For today’s barristers, the proposed cuts...have become the equivalent of pit closures.”
The standoff between the criminal defence profession and the government is a complex and convoluted state of affairs. It must be difficult for the public to make sense of last week’s walkout which was supported by thousands of solicitors as well as barristers.
