Steve Mannering hits the nail on the head at the end of his letter last week on legal aid (see Gazette [2008], January 17, 14).


The recent sad history of legal aid demonstrates that the government's purpose is to drive solicitors out of the provision of publicly funded legal services. What they have done to dentistry is small beer compared to what they will now achieve in the justice system.



Other contributors who give Legal Services Commission staff the benefit of the doubt are wrong. In the earliest days they might have believed the spin, but the intention is so clear now that they must be mad if they imagine they are providing a public service.



John Gardiner, Rothera Dowson, Nottingham