Politicians may be known for many things, but honesty isn’t normally one of them. So Obiter was intrigued by the disarming veracity of panel members at pro bono group LawWorks’ Question Time-style panel debate on legal aid last week. With Robin Knowles QC, LawWorks trustee, filling the David Dimbleby role, questions from the audience were answered by legal aid minister Lord Bach; Conservative shadow justice secretary Dominic Grieve; Liberal Democrat justice spokesman David Howarth; and Law Society chief executive Desmond Hudson. Bach set the tone by responding to a question on the legal aid budget by admitting there would probably be cuts, saying: ‘There are moments when politicians have to tell the truth and this is one of them.’ While Obiter would naturally applaud his desire not to mislead on this occasion, the unavoidable implication of his remark is that there are other instances when politicians feel at liberty to be more ‘economical with the actualité’, as the late Alan Clark once said.

Bach was not the only panellist who appeared to have been injected with truth serum. Explaining why it is hard to improve the legal aid system, Grieve piped up: ‘Because legal aid has been squeezed, fewer people benefit from it, so it has become less relevant to the public… It has little resonance over how people will vote and is the first thing that many people think we should cut.’ His message was clear – legal aid is not a vote winner, so it’s not really high on any party’s agenda.

As the politicians fought it out for who could be the most ‘real’, the Law Society’s Hudson sat brandishing a huge pile of green Law Society literature. As he pointed out during the debate, he was in fact the only member of the panel with a manifesto.