Obiter sends out its very best wishes to former Bar Council chairman Lord Dan Brennan, one of the most affable people to lead the bar in recent years, after he collapsed in the House of Lords last week during a debate on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. Rather fortunately, in the chamber at the time was health minister Lord Darzi, an eminent surgeon who has been given time to maintain his clinical skills, and who later told fellow peers that it was the presence of a defibrillator in the House that saved Lord Brennan's life.


For the LibDems, Lord McNally reported that his colleague Lady Tonge, a doctor, had given Lord Darzi 'a clean bill of health on his performance', while cross-bencher Baroness Masham got to her feet to worry about her role in the scare: 'I hope that it was not my speech that made him have his episode, because I had spoken just before him,' she said.



Happily, it would appear that Lord Brennan is doing well - he was due home from hospital last week and we are told is still expected to fulfil his commitment to speak at the launch next week of an Anglo-Hispanic Arbitration Club, organised by City law firm Davies Arnold Cooper.