Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. So, the chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland – a public servant – is set to trouser £10m if he sorts out the mess bequeathed by ‘Fred the Shred’. Meanwhile, Alistair Darling delivers a feeble speech to City high-rollers at the Mansion House signalling that the government’s appetite for radical reform of banking regulation is waning – not that it ever existed, in truth.

What does this have to do with solicitors? Not much workwise, except that it betrays the mindset of a government apparently stone deaf to the new mood in the country.

Read across to best value tendering. The BVT proposals tick many New Labour boxes. There is the quasi-religious faith in market forces to produce the right result, in defiance of all the evidence (how clean is your local hospital?); and the sly bid to save money by targeting the vulnerable while making pretty speeches about social exclusion (there is, after all, no traction with the tabloids in paying to ensure that people accused of crimes are properly represented). And finally, the coup de grace – professionals who oppose reform can reasonably be ignored because they must be motivated by pecuniary self-interest (unless they’re bankers, of course).

And Lord Bach wants us all to celebrate 60 years of legal aid. But not with a wake, presumably.