Obiter has been officially outdone. For some time now the Gazette has been trying to bag an interview with our own justice secretary (yes, you, Mr Straw), only to discover that not one but two new starters at Leeds firm Schofield Sweeney are rather more adroit at securing access to the great and the good, albeit in foreign lands. Solicitor Richard Jobes was given a month out of his training contract last year to work at Barack Obama’s campaign HQ in Richmond, Virginia, where he canvassed suburban voters and helped organise rallies. ‘I had major misgivings about how a British citizen might be received in the midst of a presidential campaign,’ he says, noting that fellow campaigners responded to his presence with ‘enthusiasm mixed with curiosity’. Nevertheless, he was treated to the daily spectacle of ‘legions of old ladies who descended each night with vats of lasagne, buckets of deep-fried chicken and freshly baked cookies’ in recognition of his and other campaigners’ efforts. It’s tough at the top. Meanwhile, another new joiner Adrian Ballam, formerly of Eversheds, once scooped a one-on-one interview with Nobel-prize winning Lech Walesa, the former Polish president. Come on, Mr Straw, we can’t be outshone like this. What are you afraid of?