Fresh faces at justice ministry after reshuffle
A criminal law barrister and former Labour-supporting law firm founder are among the new faces at the Ministry of Justice after a sweeping reshuffle of ministerial posts.
After replacing Kenneth Clarke with Christopher Grayling as justice secretary, Downing Street confirmed this morning that ministers Crispin Blunt, Jonathan Djanogly and Nick Herbert would also leave. Replacements named last night include 2010 Westminster entrant Helen Grant (pictured), MP for Maidstone and The Weald, who founded her own solicitors practice 16 years ago.
Currently employing around 15 people, Grants Solicitors focuses on family law and has set up its own free advice service for victims of domestic violence. Previously the London-born mother of two was a clinical negligence solicitor at Hempsons in London and equity partner at Fayers & Co in Wimbledon.
She was a member of the Labour Party until 2006 but left to become the first Conservatives’ first female black MP at the general election. Grant will have also have a role as minister for women’s and equality issues.
Joining Grant at the MoJ will be Jeremy Wright, MP for Kenilworth and Southam since 2005, who was called to the Bar nine years previously. Specialising in criminal law, Wright practised on the Midlands and Oxford circuit. A father of two, he served on the justice committee in opposition and was made a government whip in 2010.
Prisons minister Blunt, who five days ago announced that squatting was to become a criminal offence, returns to the backbenches. Djanogly will join him, after steering the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act to royal assent earlier this year. Neither Blunt nor Djanogly has made any public announcement concerning their departure.
Also leaving the MoJ is Nick Herbert, who had worked in a joint Home Office/MoJ role as police minister and had been tipped for promotion. He tweeted: ‘Decided to step down from Govt. Honoured to have worked with police & driven big reforms. Will focus on new ideas & protecting countryside.’
Damian Green moves from immigration to assume the role, which also includes responsibility for criminal justice. Just two justice ministers survived the reshuffle: Lord McNally, the only Liberal Democrat representative and Dominic Grieve, attorney general.
Comments
No change
Expect more sonorous pronouncements based on everything but the views of the people who actually have to practise law every day.
Hang on - the people above
Hang on - the people above have actually practised law fairly recently. Helen Grant will at least know that doing legal aid work isn't a form of winning the lottery.
Yes I agree, there is
Yes I agree, there is certainly reason to be hopeful with this new bunch and at least the ghastly Djanogly has been shown the door!
Cause for hope ?
You will excuse my profound cynicism and negativity when we recently had two ex-lawyers in Cabinet posts with one of them (a Prime Minister no less) twisting another senior lawyers` arms to sanction a war crime, and another snivelling glibly over "BMW-driving human rights lawyers" as his reference to his former profession .
A third lawyer-turned career politician expressed doubts over the advisability of the Iraq war and when pulled up about his apparently unreserved previous support for it, slimed, "well I`m a lawyer aren`t I -I just argue the case I `m given ". Difficult to conceive of a more succinct expression of the abysmal political amorality of our lawyers-turned-career politicians.
So in other words I`m not holding my breath.
The Law Society were so far
The Law Society were so far up the new Labour fundament that they would do anything they were told including abdicating all power to an unelected board and agreeing ABSs. This is the root of most if our problems not the coalition.
The Law Society and the Labour Party
Anon above is bang on the money - the Law Society (and much of the material in the Gazette) does come across as being written in a hurry by an intern on The Guardian. The brisk hatchet job done by the Gazette on Chris Graying is hardly going to endear the solicitors profession to him.
The Law Society has got to realise that it's not Labour with law degrees, but the representative group for solicitors. It's job is to make friends and get heard, not make enemies and be ignored.
Quite! As a lobbying
Quite!
As a lobbying organisation the LS is utterly hopeless. It is there to represent solicitors no matter what the political hue of the government of the moment. That is not best achieved by name calling and blanket hostility. That would no doubt be fine if the legal profession had economic clout (think miners, dockers, etc. of old) but we don't.
MOJ
Same s**t, different bucket.
How we get it wrong
The Law Society is just so unintelligent in its lobbying role. As anon said above, the name calling is counterproductive. What is needed is persuasion, not alienation. No advocate stands up before a court and tells the judge that he's a homophobe who wants to murder burglars. Why cannot the Law Society deploy a bit of subtlety and not depict us as a bunch of Dave Sparts?
Helen Grant
Hmm so she supported Labour until 2006 but then presumably in a "road to Damascus moment " saw the light and became a Tory M.P. Am I being over cynical or does that not smack of career opportunism? I wouldn't place too much faith in her supporting legal aid Patrick. She sounds to me the type who will not let moral scruples stand in the way of her ambition. I hope I have not misinterpreted the position.
Damian Green as Police Minister
Problem is that Damiian Green didnt prove to be very effective or competent whilst at Immigration and seemed incapable of reponsding to correspondence until threatened with the Ombudsman and then his department's response was to claim the 5th amendment (Data Protection Act) Lucky Police