As a solicitor still doing some legal aid work while trying to get out of legal aid entirely, I read your Opinion in last week’s Gazette with interest (see [2008] Gazette, 2 October, 8).

However, it is not so much the case that legal aid solicitors are ‘occasionally’ prone to despair, as ‘permanently’ prone to it. While looking at the statistics, I wonder whether you would be prepared to publish and compare the history of increases in legal aid remuneration – say over the last 15-20 years – with the increases in MPs’ salaries and allowances. Not scientific, I allow, but I too am tired of hearing about ‘legal aid fat cats’.

Barbara Thorne, Chambers Rutland & Crauford, London