Legal aid

Now from the frivolous to something that shouldn't be. I guess after bankers and politicians lawyers are pretty much hated by the public, seen as money grubbing and out for themselves, which is why I guess they had very few defenders when Ken Clarke announced a "reform" of the UK's legal aid system.

For a moment let us concede to his arguement, which I would dispute, that the only things in life worth defending are one's liberty and one's home, and these are the only areas in which legal costs from public funds are justified. What then happens when someone with the financial means to do so brings a frivolous court case against someone of more moderate means. The "reforms" he has instituted mean that anyone with any assets must contribute to the costs of a case. He talked on the "Today" program very casually of people putting a charge on their homes in order to fund costs. So there is now a very real possibility of an innocent party being at risk of losing their homes when sued by an individual with more money then themselves, leaving them at the choice of settling out of court for a sum imposed by the other party, or going to court and seeing their own savings being burned away by the other party's financial firepower.

The Tory's first instinct is to protect their own, they have done so in almost every new policy they have instituted and proposed. This reform to legal aid will make the law and the courts the tool and plaything of their class again. But then again for most politicians the inclination is to protect their own, it applys to Labour just as much, I had thought the Liberals were above such things but I guess not as they have nailed their colours firmly to the Tory mast.