First, do no harm

Time to resurrect my hackneyed jibe about drip-dry robes bein de rigueur for the lord chancellor (see Gazettes, passim). Brandon Lewis has assumed his eighth ministerial appointment in eight years in becoming the 10th lord chancellor since 2010. For reference, a list of the previous 10 occupants of that ancient if much-diminished office takes us back to David Maxwell Fyfe, Viscount Kilmuir. Maxwell Fyfe was appointed to the role in 1954, the year of Britain’s last double (side-by-side) hanging. That’s a long time ago.

What can I offer here that is even remotely original? Lawyers experience the degraded state of our justice system every day. They can hardly be any more confident now than they were last week that the Treasury will pony up the funds for a comprehensive makeover. Even were Lewis to request those funds. There are no votes in justice, you see. That’s why Lewis’s first public statement led on prisons and protecting the public from serious offenders. Daily Mail touchpoints. (And then, ominously, there is the new incumbent’s stated willingness to break international law.)

To his credit, Lewis also pledges swift access to justice for all, which would certainly be a novelty. Can we assume – as I predicted a few days ago – that he will settle the legal aid dispute? (see In Focus, p8; Baksi at the Bar, p14). Would he have accepted the ‘hospital pass’ that is the justice brief otherwise? Lewis is, at least, a qualified barrister (though he never practised), so just might be more ‘simpatico’ than Dominic Raab.

The most we can hope for, perhaps, is that Lewis leaves the office having left his demesne in a better state than he found it. Few of his recent predecessors can be said to have done so, including Liz ‘Enemies of the People’ Truss.

One who can is Michael Gove, lately tipped to be the next editor of The Times. Gove succeeded Chris Grayling, so had a pretty low bar to clear. But he did prove that it is possible to do more good than harm at Petty France even within rigid budget constraints.