Guess who got sacked?

A quick recap for the uninitiated: Hazel Blears is a hideous dwarf who first Blair and then Brown kept in the Cabinet as Minister for No-one Can Remember What. Blears managed to neglect to pay tax on some property she had made a killing on via public funds. Brown pronounced himself unimpressed and Blears behaviour 'totally unacceptable'. Blears 'voluntarily' paid the £13,000 in tax some nasty people had been suggesting she ought to have paid in the first place. She made a big display of wagging the cheque in front of the cameras (see above). Blears was NOT sacked but resigned as part of an attempted Blairite coup against Brown on the eve of Euro/local elections. her timing pissing off the three remaining grassroots Labour members.

So far so grubby and uninteresting.

Enter Lisa Greenwood, a very junior civil servant, who sent an e-mail from her work computer to Ms Blears's website saying MPs had "swindled taxpayers".
The e-mail contained her work address at the Department for Children, Schools and Families (don't government departments have stupid names these days?)Miss Greenwood contacted the minister via a link on a website called - erm - theyworkforyou.com. She wrote to 'I was appalled to see you on national television this morning waving a cheque around as if it was going to make everything OK. You are not sorry at all. (Only sorry that you have been caught.) You are a disgrace. Why haven't you been arrested and why have you not been sacked? Not that my comments will have any impact. I doubt you will even read this'.

Lisa Greenwood was understandably pissed off that the money Blears had trousered until caught out was only £3,000 less than she made as an annual salary. Initially she had tried to send the comment via her personal hotmail account but for some reason she couldn't send it that way. So she sent the e-mail via her work address.

Result - she has been fired for breaching civil service impartiality rules. Blears wasn't sacked - but for this infraction the unfortunate Lisa Greenwood was.

Two questions arise: firstly, why such an extreme penalty exacted for what on any sensible view ought to be viewed as a minor infraction at worst? It just looks plain vindictive. Secondly, how did the use of the work e-mail address come to the attention of the Department for Whatever-it-is-called. Has she been fingered and if so by whom? But there is a mystery here. Theyworkforyou have pointed out that it would never have revealed who the person posting the comment was, and moreover that that comment has never appeared on theyworkforyou. This seems to be accurate. So if this is right, how did the Department for Whatever-it-is -called know about the heinous comment? Do they spend huge amounts of time checking on theoir own staff e-mails? It would be interesting to know. The rabbit is contemplating an enquiry to this effect under the Freedom of Information Act.

On a more cheerful note, what drama to end the First Test! Two points: though I don't knock 20/20 cricket - it's hugely entertaining - it could never produce drama such as that laid out in the last hour or so as Anderson and Monty defied all logic and expectation. Like the Alamo except more so. Secondly, how typically English - to produce a sort of triumph out of a complete shambles. Makes you proud (sort of)...

Gary McKinnon and extradition

The pic above is of Gary McKinnon, also known as Solo. He is a Scottish hacker and has been diagnosed as suffering from Aspergers Syndrome (by no less distinguished a person than Professor Simon Baron-Cohen (cousin of Brüno or whatever he is called in real life). Gary McKinnon - I suppose I have to say allegedly although there doesn't seem any dispute over what he did - hacked into 97 US military and NASA computers. He is evidently very good at this sort of thing. To get an idea of where he is coming from it is necessary to understand why he was applying himself so diligently to this hacking - he wanted to prove the existence of UFOs, antigravity technology and "the suppression of 'free energy'" (no I've never heard of this either - it's apparently some sort of conspiracy theory).

You get the flavour of the guy - The US government however, its dignity thus affronted, wants to extradite him as some sort of cyber terrorist. He was originally arrested in the UK under the Computer Misuse Act. The CPS declined to prosecute. The US government then went for extradition. The story is really how supine the British Government is in face of the US demands for his extradition. Under British hacking laws - and he contends that the oiffences were committed here - he could face up to 5 years in prison. The Americans want to make an example of him and he could receive a sentence in the US if extradited measured in decades.

And the response of British Home Secretaries? John Reid: approved the extradition with unsurprising alacrity. Jacqui Smith (if you'll pardon the expression) waved the extradition through without even seeking any guarantees as regards bail or return to the UK to complete his sentence. Alan Johnson reprises the Pontius Pilate gig, announcing that his hands are tied. Ther is a more general problem here. And there is a general problem as regards the Anglo-American Extradition Treaty. It is cock eyed in that there is not equality as regards safeguards. The issue of inequality as regards US/UK extradition came up before with what came to be known as the 'NatWest Three' (he typed struggling to work up any sympathy for bankers).

The problem goes broadly like this: The effect of the US/UK extradition treaty is that that UK citizens have fewer rights to due process of law than do American citizens. It centres around provisions in the treaty that require Britain to surrender its citizens on American request without the Americans providing a jot of evidence that they are guilty of anything. The treaty is not reciprocal. The UK must provide evidence of guilt before an American can be removed under the treaty.

What collection of snivelling sycophants agreed to such an unequal and fundamentally unfair treaty? New Fucking Labour, that's who! There have been Parliamentary challenges to the treaty. They have come to nothing. In the particular case of Gary McKinnon, the courts (including Europe) have been to no avail so far. Further comment seems superfluous. Perhaps it's time for us to declare independence and start by telling the US where they can put their extradition treaty.

Australia 649/5 at time of writing, Cruel and unusual punishment.

Suddenly there's a lot of it about

Following yesterday's pic from Iran, here's an elderly woman on crutches confronting Chinese troops in the ethnic disturbances in Xinjiang province. Damn - she's got guts.

More frivolously, Unique Stephen seems to be getting excited in Sydney - otherwise noted for its Harbour, Bridge, Opera House and bonkers Archbishop - exclaiming 'Boonie Boonie Boonie' in a comment on my last post. This is quite normal for an Australian and need not cause alarm. Continuing my educational campaign for the cricketingly challenged 'Boonie' was an Australian cricketer noted for two things: his alarming moustache (see left) and his drinking talents.

Our man holds the record for consuming cans of beer on a flight from Sydney to London, namely 52 in 1989. This broke the previous record held by Rodney Marsh (45) except there is an argument as to whether Marsh actually finished can 45 and he may only have equalled the previous record held by Doug Walters. I'm very glad I wasn't sitting next to the beer monster at the time given that he once honked all over the pitch at the Adelaide Oval in a WSC game. He went on to score 122 and win the Man of the Match award which shows the power of positive vomiting. He could bat a bit but that's beside the point.

Ever vigilant in the cause of freedom of speech, some particularly insidious censorship has come to the rabbit's attention and needs exposing for what it - erm - is! Twitter has banned Mrs Slocombe's Pussy (see below) from its hash tag tweet list - whatever that is. As is only right and proper, at one point 'Mrs Slocombe's Pussy' overtook Michael Jackson and Iran elections as the most used Twitter phrase. The Nazis at Twitter having done their worst, hash tagging 'Mrs Slocombe's Pussy' now apparently produces 'no results'. Twitter is run by Americans and one explanation is that Americans don't get it and think - perish the thought - that there's something rude going on here. Tsk! A dirty mind is a perpetual feast! Shame on you! Have some more...

Excellent stuff from Iran

Hat Tip to Natasha Phillips via Charon QC

And with the Ashes upcoming, here is a helpful explanation for the cricketingly challenged.

Belated 4th July greetings...

By tradition going all the way back to - well - last year, the rabbit sends 4th July greetings to his American readers. By tradition, the greetings are a day late. Last year I posted Brad Neely's Washington and Bruce's Darlington County -http://ohdearohdearishallbelate.blogspot.com/2008/07/4th-july.html - This year a story - American readers will have to bear me if this is well trodden ground for them - the story is hardly known over here. The snake - rattlesnake to be accurate - thing begins with Benjamin Franklin and a political cartoon made as a woodcut during the French and Indian war featuring a snake chopped into eight bits. The snake represented eight colonies with New England as the head and South Carolina as the tip of the tail in order as per the east coast. the slogan was 'join (later unite) or die'.

The snake began to become a symbol for the colonies as independence grew closer. The United States navy was established in 1775 and set about recruiting Marines to help intercept British ships bringing military supplies. The first Marines (from Philadelphia) they carried drums painted yellow, depicting a coiled rattlesnake with thirteen rattles and the motto 'don't tread on me'. The flag above is called the Gadsden Flag after a Colonel Gadsden of South Carolina who presented the yellow rattlesnake flag to the Commander of the US Navy and to the South Carolina Legislature. The flag is still sort of in use and associated with the US Marines. It is also associated sometimes with right wing extremism, which is a pity as it is a fun flag and a fun story.

Okay, here are the elderly gents with Uncle John's Band, including the lines...

'Goddamn, well I declare, have you seen the like? Their walls are built of cannonballs, their motto is don't tread on me...'



Ending on a distinctly non-American topic, the rabbit is counting the days down to resumption of the greatest - as well as one of the most historic - sporting conflicts in the entire history of everything. Come on you Aussie bastards - BRING IT ONNNNN!!!!!!

Planet Bonkers and Mrs Slocombe's Pussy

The image is of course The Tyger by well-known top bloke Wild Bill Blake. While on the subject of tigers, the rabbit was distraught to read the following headline - 'Pet tigers told of Jackson death'. Evidently Michael Jackson - for it is he - owned two tigers called Thriller and Sabu but they were adopted by Tippi Hedren who has some sort of animal sanctuary.

Our heroine has had a chat with the tigers. 'I went up and sat with them and let them know that Michael was gone' she helpfully explained.

She hoped they understood. Then she (surprise, surprise) asked for donations.

Planet fucking bonkers...

While on the subject of cats, the rabbit was sad to read of the death of actor Molie Sugden. Her most famous role was of course Mrs Slocombe in Are You Being Served? Mrs Slocombe was of course devoted to her pussy. Who, I ask anxiously, will look after her pussy now Mrs Slocombe is no longer with us? Perhaps give it regular strokes...

I'm taking my cue from Tippi Hedren and am inviting donations. Cheques should be made out to me personally and should be in substantial sums.

Thanking you all in anticipation

Didn't know this...

...but today is Canada Day.

Apparently.

Hat Tip to Savannah for pic, pinched from her blog. While on the subject of pinching things, I helped myself to this from Jailhouse Lawyer. He seems to be suggesting it is something to do with Michael Jackson. Tsk. Such poor taste.

banned video, twentytwelve, Glastonbury and a snake

The New Young Conservatives
Uploaded by DontPanicOnline. - News videos hot off the press.

A strange story has come to my attention. The online magazine Don't Panic is in a spot of bother with Conservative Future - a rebranded version of the Young Conservatives - over this videoclip. London Conservative Future has managed to get the above clip taken down on YouTube after claiming copyright. Not liking that sort of censorship under the guise of copyright - can't these people take a joke? - here it is...

Young people these days. Tut...

My profile includes an exhortation to WR readers to buy my novel twentytwelve in a desperate bid to get its amazon.co.uk rating below half a million. No-one took any notice at all and the amazon rating drifted down and down to over 1.1 million. Imagine my surprise when checking for the first time in ages yesterday to see an amazon rating for twentytwelve of a mere 110,000, Before I got too excited, I reminded myself that this probably simply meant that someone had bought a copy. There are two things amazon will not explain: how many copies of anything they sell and what their ratings mean. Ratings can whizz up and down in bizarre patterns and small sales can cause huge shifts in ratings. I occasionally think whimsically that everyone who has vaguely thought of buying twentytwelve when they get around to it should form some sort of virtual flash mob and order it at the same time. The rating would (briefly) go stellar! I can dream...

I caught Neil Young at Glastonbury on TV on Friday night. It must be said that the elderly gent was on stonkingly good form. What particularly amused me was that at one point he was performing with one sleeve of his jacket having arm inserted and one sleeve flapping loose. He doesn't care. He's not called the godfather of grunge for nothing. On Saturday, I moved out of London flat with the aid of the Polish removal guys (see WR 12 Feb for Polish removal guys and background). I'd got the flat at the end of 2008 and it came to represent everything that pissed me off. I don't like living on my own, it cost far too much for somewhere I didn't spend much time in because now pretty much all my work is in the Midlands and not in London and the flat was nothing special for something so expensive. So I invoked the break clause in the tenancy agreement and the present deal is that I should be moving into a flat in Birmingham to share with a colleague in the not too distant future until - well - something else happens. In the meantime, I'm of no fixed abode again but hopefully for no more than a couple of weeks.

I celebrated being of no fixed abode by going to a very fine - and not too expensive Indian restaurant in Brockley - South East London for the uninitiated - and much to my annoyance missed Bruce at Glastonbury on TV due to the very short gap between returning from restaurant and retiring to share a room with a snake. It was okay - the snake doesn't do much. Apparently all it does is eat one large or two small mice a fortnight and then sleeps the meal off (it swallows them whole) and sheds its skin once a month. Personally, I would prefer a more active pet.

Having mentioned Neil Young, here is the elderly gent (when hugely younger) with The Band and Helpless. I do like the line 'blue, blue windows behind the stars...'

A hectic weekend coming up...

...in which the rabbit moves out of his London hutch (too expensive, don't particularly like it, only there at weekends mostly, break clause time) without quite having sorted flat in Brum yet (spend all the working week there and thereabouts now). It should be interesting...

In the meantime, here are some pics by some wags who tweak World War II posters for the era of blogworld.

Good stuff from Germany...

Remind you of nearer home?

Iraq 'Inquiry' farce plus don't tase me dude Nottingham style

Brown being on the ropes, an Iraq inquiry was promised to his irate backbenchers. Let it never be said that Brown is not a man of his word because we lucky punters have got one!!! Except...

It's in private! Oh - and guess what? It will report after the next election.

Why am I not surprised?

The starting point is to look at the composition of the 'inquiry'. The head honcho is a Sir (it seems you have to be at least a knight to get in on the act) John Chilcot. It is considered unlikely that our man will kick over the traces. A retired civil servant, he doesn't do that...

Next we have Sir Lawrence Freedman. Apparently he promoted the theory of 'liberal interventionism' to Blair who took the theory to heart and - erm - invaded Iraq. Reassuring to have one of the numpties who dreamed up the template for the Iraq cockup in the first place sitting in judgement on it.

And then Sir Martin Gilbert who is even older than Sir John Thingy and once compared Bush (as in the idiot son) and Blair to Roosevelt and Churchill. Don't hold your breath waiting for stinging criticism from this one.

Finally we have Baroness Usha Prasha and Sir Roderic Lyne. No, I haven't a clue either.

Presumably if the hearing is in private, there will be no reports of its proceedings - no TV, radio,newspaper or other simultaneous or next day reportage. By extension anyone leaking its proceedings will presumably be in peril off some sort of sanction. I assume there will be no right of representation - for example for the parents or spouses of British soldiers killed in Iraq. Who will summon the witnesses? Will they (or at least the British ones - it strikes me as unlikely that Cheney or Rumsfeld or the idiot son would show up and there would be nothing to make them) be under any compunction to attend?

And who will ask the awkward questions? And is there any point in asking them? Will we ever know that they were asked?

PUKE! PUKE! PUKE!

What is to be done? The 'inquiry' seems to me to be beyond redemption in its present form. Perhaps the only thing to do is to treat this latter day Star Chamber with the contempt it deserves and provide it with nothing that gives it any form of legitimacy - such as appearing before it.

Otherwise I can only think of an alternative, unofficial enquiry - open and in public with representation if sought. What's to lose?

Hat Tip to Beau Bo D'Or (link to left) - not for the first time - for artwork.

Meanwhile in Nottingham, the local police are having fun with tasers (see clip). The Nottinghamshire Police announce that they have voluntarily passed the video to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (a body usually as much use as - erm - the Iraq 'Inquiry' may be expected to be). Assistant chief constable Peter Davies helpfully explains 'We understand that some members of the public may be concerned about this...'

Oh very perceptive...

swine flu bad taste...

Tsk... Such bad taste. Swine flu seems a bit of a damp squib so far. Apparently there were flu epidemics in 1958 and 1967 that killed about 50,000 people apiece in the UK alone. No-one got very worked up.

Memo to Labour MPs and some some velvet morning

The image is from the consistently excellent Beau Bo D'Or (link to left). As I have sworn never to vote Labour again while well-known war criminal Tony B. Liar lives and breathes, I'm not sure why I'm doing this but here goes. This is a memo explaining to Labour MPs what to do. I'll type slowly as some of them are not the brightest...

1. Dump Brown. Drag him kicking and screaming out of No 10 leaving ten smouldering streaks of fingernail indentation in the carpet. The guy is box office poison. End of. Whereupon the Tories and their preppy twerp of a leader will start shouting for an election because they think (probably quite rightly) they would win it. Tell them to fuck off.
2. Elect whatever new leader is best bet for at least limiting the damage so that the next election is a defeat as opposed to a 1931 type slaughter (apparently Johnson, he typed with a shrug).
3. New leader announces a flat out programme of constitutional reform featuring:

• Electoral Reform - ideally STV but at least Alternative Vote+
• Four year fixed term Parliaments
• Right of recall for errant MPs with some safeguards against abuse of recall powers
• Open primaries for major party candidates.

4. Once legislation is in place a referendum on the four points set out above.

5. If referendum votes in favour, election under proportional representation system as soon as possible.

This may actually save a lot of Labour MP bacon but is there any chance they will do this or anything like it? Nope - cos they are thick, tribalist and have a death wish. We will be governed by a preppy twerp who thinks his wife is unconventional because she went to a day school. Labour deserves this but the people they are supposed to represent do not.

On a more cheerful note, I see Australia got knocked out of the World Twenty/20 having lost both games...

HA! HA! HA!

Polls for the most erotic song ever are usually won by Some Velvet Morning and I'm not arguing. Embedding on the original Lee Hazlewood/Nancy Sinatra version has been disabled by request of some arse so here is the Primal Scream version featuring - um - Kate Moss. I was amused by the story that CBS who issued the original then had censors, people whose job it was to spot the mucky bits and cut them out. Lee Hazlewood managed to persuade the CBS censors that the lines...

Some velvet morning when I'm straight/

I'm gonna open up your gate.

Were about the nice little boy holding open the garden gate for the nice little girl. Nice one Lee...

Pigeon Murder most foul...

It is my unpleasant duty to report a case of pigeon murder in the city of my birth. The faint hearted may care to avert their eyes...

fascism and monotesticularity

It has been drawn to my attention that the late Spanish fascist dictator Francisco Franco had more in common with Adolf Hitler than had previously been known. Or did he? It turns out that Franco was wounded in the lower abdomen at El Biutz, near Ceuta, Morocco, in June 1916. No less reputable a source as the BBC pronounces 'Biographers have long speculated this affected the reproductive organs of the dictator'. They have? The phrase 'should get out more' springs to mind'. Now one Dr Ana Puigvert, the grand-daughter of Franco's urologist, has spilled the beans (as it were) to an unsuspecting world. "Franco was monorchid - he had only one testicle," she said. Monorchid. There's a weird word. Why are bollocks named after a family of flowers? I think we should be told...

Hitler, it was frequently asserted, not least in song, only had one ball. But is this actually true? The evidence seems a little tenuous. A Doctor Johan Jambor who treated Hitler during the Battle of the Somme in 1916 told his priest that Hitler had been injured in the abdomen and lost a testicle. He said the first question Hitler had asked him was: "Will I be able to have children?".

Nope. Unlike Franco who had a daughter.

Oh and the Soviet autopsy on what was left of Hitler after the deep fry job on his mortal remains announced that our man was - erm - monorchid too. Whether anything put about by the Stalinists of that era is to be believed is another matter...

So what is it about fascists and missing testicles? Does the creepy Nick Griffin have anything to tell us?

At least the stories of the time kept the British army occupied as they marched along singing (to the tune of Colonel Bogey)..

Hitler has only got one ball
Goering has two though very small
Himmler is very similar
And poor old Goebbels has no balls at all

Or assorted variants...

On a completely different topic, Minx kindly asks about my welfare. I am pleased to say that I am now completely off crutches (day 3) and hope and expect a full recovery.

Now all together...

I got e-mailed this...

The caption was 'first case of celebrity swine flu'. At the bottom it says 'and we know who the carrier was'. I'm thinking about that one... ;)

For some weird reason it reminds me of St Sebastian.

A bit more law...

I'm saying nuffin (again) ... http://news.uk.msn.com/uk/article.aspx?cp-documentid=16400564 ...except it occurred to me that I've never put up any Rolling Stones stuff - until now.

Odds and ends...

The above clip is from the Kinski remake of Nosferatu the Vampyr, which naturally takes me to smeargate and unfounded rumours about Tory MPs. The splendidly named Nadine Dorries is threatening to sue over some allegation she did something or the other. The allegation is of course completely untrue. Here is the terrible truth: Dorries is 'tasked' (another loathsome neologism that ought to be banned) by Conservative Central Office with obtaining the blood of virgins to be fed to Thatcher to preserve her (Thatcher, that is and not Dorries) in her un-dead status. There was one unpleasant incident when Dorries, finding herself a bit stuck on the virgin front (the permissive society etc) offered Thatcher, by then in the advanced stages of blood withdrawal, Ann Widdecombe who though technically qualifying was not to Thatcher's liking at all. Thatcher attacked Dorries and inflicted nasty throat wounds. Since then Dorries has been careful with her choice of victim. In fact the above clip is not a re-make of Nosferatu the Vampyr at all but Dorries doing the rounds. Honest.

Random fact the rabbit didn't know until last week - Procul Harum (a popular beat combo from the rabbit's youth) was named after someone's cat.

Least surprising headline of the week: something to the effect that the Israeli Defence Forces had investigated themselves as regards any human rights abuses/war crimes while dishing out the Guernica treatment to the hapless population of Gaza. Having investigated itself, it concluded there weren't any. Well there's a surprise. Yeah. Right. Sure...

For the sake of completeness, following the comments of HHJ Gledhill (see last posting on HCA's) the relevant firm - Bullivant and Partners - have bitten back (oh dear, a lot of biting in this post) with a response http://www.wikicrimeline.co.uk/images/c/c9/Hcaresponse.pdf

Allegedly the Judge said 'solicitor' in a funny tone of voice or something - allegedly...

Picasso's Guernica in case anyone didn't know...

Sorry to drag law into this...

The image is a combination of Hogarth's Beer Street and Gin Lane for no particular reason apart from why not?

A series of observations by His Honour Judge Gledhill QC as regards some HCAs (Higher Court Advocates) who appeared before him has come to my attention and deserves wider dissemination.

REGINA

V
OIU YEU

KHI-SAN VOONG

QIANG XUE

DAU YEE CHENG

"Miss Roxborough, I will address you if I may, as during the course of this trial you are the only one of the 4 solicitors representing these defendants that I have had no cause to criticise. What I have to say therefore does not arise from your conduct of the case. Conspiracy to Defraud is on any view a most serious allegation and on conviction, on the facts of this case, merits a substantial term of imprisonment. It follows that each of the parties, including the prosecution, should be represented by an advocate, that is, a barrister or solicitor, who is experienced enough and competent enough to properly represent their respective client. Mr Fitzgerald has demonstrated that he has both those qualities essential to prosecute the case. As I made clear, during the course of the trial, I have been concerned that when prosecuting originally 5 defendants, 4 at trial, he should have had more assistance – either in the form of a junior or at least a representative of the CPS in Court. For much of the trial he has only had the help of the officer. Whilst that help has obviously been invaluable, there have been times when it has not been enough.

You will recall that during the prosecution case, I have on a number of occasions been critical of your colleagues who represent the other defendants. Basic rules, both of law and procedure, have been regularly broken. One solicitor in cross examination on 2 occasions addressed the jury directly. Another clearly had no idea what the rules of re-¬examination were. The jury were misled about one of the defendant's bad character, until it was corrected by prosecution counsel. Some of your colleagues appeared to have little or no understanding of hearsay. The list goes on and on. At one stage I was so concerned with the cross examination of a prosecution witness, that I had to rebuke your colleague in rather stark terms. I was concerned that that solicitor had neither the experience nor competence to adequately represent his client. I was also concerned that if his representation continued in a similar way, the stage would be reached when I would conclude that the defendant was not properly represented and that I would have had no alternative in those circumstances but to discharge the jury. Fortunately, that stage was not reached.

When I raised these concerns, I asked your colleague whether his client had been advised that under the rules governing the Legal Aid scheme, the defendant he had a choice of representation – either an independent barrister with sufficient experience and competence to conduct the case, or a solicitor with higher rights who had the necessary experience and competence. At first your colleague declined to answer the question. I will put that down to simply been taken by surprise at being asked the question. When I pointed out that I was not asking him to breach his client's privilege, but simply to tell me whether he or his company had fulfilled their duty, he told me that his client had been told of his right to choose the advocate who represented him in court. His reluctance to answer the question has caused me to consider asking the defendant the same question directly. In the event, I have decided not to do that.

I have also considered requiring the senior partner of your solicitors to attend and explain how and why this solicitor was selected to represent this defendant on such a serious charge. I have no doubt that that solicitor has done his best to fulfil his duties. However, his knowledge of the law, procedure and advocacy skills fall below that which is needed in this case. Of course, he did not deliberately flout the law and the rules. He simply does not have the experience necessary to conduct such a serious case. No doubt with time he can acquire those skills. I very much doubt that he had little if any say in whether he undertook this case. I suspect he was told that the case had to be kept in house and he was going to do it. Similar observations of the experience of your other colleagues could be made.

Why then was the solicitor selected to represent this defendant. Several considerations would have come into play. Firstly, the prosecution case was largely admitted and the defence was relatively straight forward and so it might have been thought that little experience of Crown Court trials was needed. With a moments thought, if that was a consideration, it was a very naïve approach – as indeed the events occurring during the trial have demonstrated. Perhaps more importantly, finances played an important role in deciding who would conduct the defence. By instructing an in-house advocate, the fee for representing the defendant at trial, the litigators fee, would be paid to the company, rather than to a barrister or INCA from without the company. The solicitors would therefore get both the preparation. fee and the litigators fee, in effect doubling. the income from the case. I am well aware that recent reductions in the rates of Legal Aid have hit solicitors particularly hard. On a practical financial level, it must be sorely tempting to keep the trial within the company. I understand that. However, if the consequence is that an accused person is not adequately represented, it is simply not acceptable — not acceptable to the defendant, and not acceptable to the public as it is not in the interests of a fair trial and therefore not in the interests of justice. In some cases, neither will it be in the interests of the solicitors company, because if a jury has to be discharged, they risk having Wasted Costs Orders been made against them.

This is not a question of a judge favouring barristers against solicitors, or one solicitor against another. It is about the principal duty of a trial judge to ensure that each of the parties have a fair trial. Every defendant who has the benefit of Legal Aid should be clearly informed of their right of choice of advocate, and that advocate, whether barrister of solicitor, should have the appropriate experience and competence to conduct the trial.

In the circumstances, I have decided not to ask the senior partner to attend court. The remarks I have made speak for themselves. I hope they are widely distributed through the criminal legal professions."

The rabbit ain't sayin' nuffin...

Irritating words and phrases...

The pic is good, innit? It came up when I googled 'words picture'. The rabbit continues to be on the mend 23 days after accident. I can now get around on one crutch on flat surfaces and even take a few steps without a crutch at all provided there is something available to cling on to. Hopefully in a couple of weeks, I will be off crutches altogether but in the meantime I am slower and clumsier as regards anything physical but - with support - have been working since a week after the accident. the woman from the bank asked how long I was signed off for. I said I'm a self-employed barrister. We don't do signed off. Now to the main business...

There has recently been a report concerning words that are disappearing from the language. The report occasioned some minor media excitement. I have a different take on this, namely words and phrases that ought to disappear from the language. There are two rich sources of irritating gibberish: the drivel emanating from the disembodied voices that plague the public transport system and commercial newspeak. Actually, there’s a third: the mangled and excluding governmentese (I think I just invented a word that ought to disappear from the language!) spewed out by the political and bureaucratic class. Okay, there’s a fourth: sporting commentary by clunking cliché. Here’s a list of verbal rubbish for banning in no particular order of dreadfulness:

How are you spelling that? I’m not yet. The genesis of this nonsense is the bizarre belief that to ask ‘how do you spell that?’ is excessively confrontational

I won’t be a second. True, you’ll be a lot longer than that. Taken literally, the statement is preposterous. It’s usually a fob off prior to a protracted wait.

You are? This means ‘what is your name?’ I don’t know quite why, but there’s something about ‘you are?’ that makes me want to smack the questioner in the face

I can only apologise. This translates as ‘we fouled up but we’re not going to do anything about it’.

Planned engineering works. Our first railway related horror. ‘Planned engineering works’ are a device to torment anyone having the temerity to actually want to travel anywhere by train or tube on a weekend to no discernible benefit. Actually, it’s more the activity than the phrase that I want banned.

Customer. It’s not so much the word I object to but its inappropriate use by public transport systems. When I go to the corner shop I am a customer; when I get on a train I am a passenger.

Your call is important to us. This piece of commercial hypocrisy is regularly churned out when you are waiting forever on some commercial enterprise’s automated system waiting to speak to an actual person. NO IT’S NOT!!! Just my money.

This train is formed of eight carriages. What’s wrong with ‘this train has eight carriages’

Literally – or rather the misuse of literally as in ‘I was literally over the moon’. You were? Impressive trick! Football people infamously tend to be over the moon when they are not being as sick as a parrot.

This is not original – it came from an article in the Observer by the splendidly named Carole Cadwalladr: wags, camel toe (she confesses she really wishes she didn’t know what that one meant) and Croydon facelift. I agree as regards the disappearance of wags being no loss to the language but the infantile vulgarian in me rather likes camel toe and I am similarly fond of Croydon facelift. I even like Croydon, a place much patronised in journalistic cliché by people who have never been there.

Otherwise, I am resisting the temptation to make up rumours about Conservative politicians even more scurrilous and unfounded than the Smeargate ones (to the extent that we may gather what they are). I may have to give in to temptation...