Playing it safe

We do not lack examples of entropy in the justice system that serve as a metaphor for the whole. This week, we’ve had at least two.

First, a flea infestation at Hull Crown Court that required the mobilisation of pest controllers. Rats, yes – but fleas? That must surely be a first.

Second, a Grade II-listed old courthouse in Cockermouth, Cumbria, partially collapsed, threatening to take the law firm next door with it (it didn’t, fortunately). Did this ancestral building come out in sympathy with its descendants?

Promising terrain for an opposition party which shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves says is intent on ‘rebuilding Britain’. Or so one might have thought. But this latest iteration of New Labour is not even throwing justice a bone, never mind the joint. Shadow justice minister Alex Cunningham told lawyers at the party conference: ‘We want your ideas for how to fix the system, just don’t ask for any money.’ Which is at least honest – and entirely consistent with the line taken by former shadow justice secretary Steve Reed.

In fact, as John Hyde reports this week (p7), there wasn’t much evidence on show in Liverpool that Labour regards justice as any sort of priority. Shadow ministers wouldn’t be asking for ideas in such a jejune manner if it did. We had pledges to review laws that lead to women being disproportionately mistreated in the justice system. But this is safe and inexpensive ground. New Labour is much more comfortable talking about identity than redistribution and what would be costly investment in the public realm.

The Society of Labour Lawyers drafted a motion that proposed a National Legal Service that would ‘ensure that the NLS is adequately resourced to ensure civil and family legal aid is available at the point of need’. This drew from the blueprint published by former Gazette columnist Roger Smith and Nic Madge in the spring (tinyurl.com/34w8k7kz). But Keir Starmer is no Attlee. I can’t see it.

Ideas themselves, of course, are legion. So the Law Society was wise to focus in its new blueprint for civil justice on reforms that will save money in aggregate (news, p4). The green paper’s Monday publication date, as Labour convened, was surely no coincidence.