Police accused of double standards in fuel blockades

The fuel crisis last week prompted trade union lawyers to accuse the police of having double standards in how they deal with blockades.

The Independent said the police had the power and the laws to break the blockades, but lacked the political will (10 September).

Stephen Cavalier, the head of employment at top trade union law firm Thompsons, told the paper: 'If this was picketing or a union- organised demonstration done in the same way, the police have shown in the past they are much more willing to exercise their powers.'

The Times looked ahead of next month's implementation of the Human Rights Act 1998 with an interview of Home Secretary Jack Straw (12 September).

He dismissed the view that the Act would be a 'gravy train' for lawyers and that there would be a 'deluge' of court cases.

Although Mr Straw said lawyers were 'skilled at spotting opportunities', in a rare move he actually defended the profession he has made such a habit of attacking: '[Lawyers] are there to ensure that people receive fairness and rights even if their cause is unpopular or their behaviour has been seriously criminal.'

Express columnist Mary Kenny took a far more populist approach the same day, however, with an article entitled 'Human rights will be a nice little earner for lawyers'.Describing the Act as a 'bonanza' for lawyers which would open the floodgates to allow people 'to sue away merrily about almost anything and everything which allegedly infringes our human rights', Ms Kenny bemoaned a culture in which people do not take responsibility for their own mishaps.

She concluded: 'I think my children have grounds for suing me - for not raising them as lawyers and thus depriving them of the right to security for life as, of course, also guaranteed by the Act.'

Two days later, Home Office minister Mike O'Brien wrote to the paper, trying to point out that under the Act, 'the basic liberties of Britons will become enforceable legal rights'.

Elsewhere, Insurance Day, a supplement to Lloyd's List, considered the talk that many law firms had not arranged professional indemnity insurance (PI) by the 1 September deadline and now face the punitive assigned risks pool (14 September).

The paper noted how it was law firms themselves that pushed for the chance to get insurance on the open market, adding: 'You would also think that those firms who have been sued time and time again would have been the first to seek PI cover before the deadline.'

It was less than impressed by the suggestion that solicitors saw PI as something akin to travel and motor cover.

'Strange, because we cannot believe that there aresolicitors driving to work todaywithout car insurance because they simply forgot it needed renewing.'

While noting that some of the blame also falls with insurers not willing to 'quote on anything but the cleanest of risks', the paper concluded: 'You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink.' The threat of the pool meant suddenly that 'a number of law firms have developed a thirst'.

Leslie Perrin, the charismatic head of Bristol-based law firm Osborne Clarke, had the chance to trot out his well-practised actor-turned-solicitor spiel in the Guardian's 'My big break' interview (17 September).

'My first big break was when I went for an audition for German soap powder which involved me dressing up in a white suit, going into a launderette and having a hausfrau throwing all kinds of crap at me.

I didn't get the job and that's when I realised I had to leave the profession.'

But even Mr Perrin's legendary marketing ability was flummoxed by the Guardian's even more famous sub-editing problems.

Nowhere was he able to get across the correct name of his firm, which was spelt variously as 'Osbourne' and 'Oswald' Clarke.

Neil Rose