I am sure every litigator has experienced horrors similar to those outlined in the recent series of letters describing inefficiencies in the court system. Do we have any reason to believe they are caused by anything other than budget cuts?

My ‘favourite’ recent experience was of spending all day trying to phone someone at the Principal Registry Family Division. When I finally got through and made some cheery comment to the poor beleaguered telephonist, he told me he was the only telephonist working that day.

When we hear politicians stating that budget cuts ‘will not affect frontline services’, we must ask ourselves whether they actually believe this and are, therefore, ill-informed.