I wonder whether solicitors like your correspondent Franklin Sinclair have considered that, in the long run, they might do their clients, including the most vulnerable, more good by refusing to carry out large amounts of unpaid work for the benefit of an ungrateful taxpayer, than by flogging themselves to death in a hopeless cause.

Whether Kenneth Clarke should be ashamed or not, nothing is likely to have a greater impact on government policy than the widespread adoption of a fully commercial approach to publicly funded work.

Clive Wismayer, Wismayers, Great Bookham, Surrey