Straw slams solicitors and then invites them to dinner

It was a case of moving from one barrister-turned-politician to another this week, as Home Secretary Jack Straw took the heat off of Lord Chancellor...It was a case of moving from one barrister-turned-politician to another this week, as Home Secretary Jack Straw took the heat off of Lord Chancellor Derry Irvine by dominating the legal news coverage; Mr Straw even found himself in his very own fundraising scandal.First up was Mr Straws blistering attack on greedy, grasping and aggressive lawyers who apparently never agree on anything except taking money from their clients (Daily Mail, 28 February) and moreover sometimes forget about their wider social responsibilities whilst trying to protect their niche markets within the local crime fraternity.

Mr Straw, an ex-barrister himself although, as John Mortimer sniffily pointed out in the Mail (1 March), one who never rose to great heights in the legal profession also criticised the growing number of lawyers, warning somewhat apocalyptically that if present trends continue, very soon lawyers will outnumber police officers (The Guardian, 28 February).

Predictably, members of the aggressive profession hit back in a characteristic fashion, with the somewhat overexcited (Norman Tebbit in the Mail on Sunday, 4 March) Home Secretary slammed for his hysterical attack by Mr Mortimer.

Both Law Society President Michael Napier and Bar Council chairman Roy Amlot QC described the remarks as disturbing; Mr Napier also called them inaccurate while Mr Amlot saw them as dark.The Sunday Express (4 March) picked up on Mr Straws claim that many defence lawyers were acting in a way that would have been inappropriate when I was practising 25 years ago, by splashing The scandal of the parasite lawyers who join their crooked clients on the wrong side of the law across two pages.

Although admitting that the collusion between bent lawyers and criminal clients is hard to prove, the newspaper still maintained that Britain does have a growing problem, according to the man who should know Home Secretary Jack Straw.

The Telegraph took a different attitude to the rather creepy comments about the ogres with the writs, with Mr Straw criticised for casting himself as pot in his attack on the kettle because of his role as the Home Secretary who presided over a fall in police numbers.

Police numbers may have fallen in recent years, but if the ten-year crime plan announced by Mr Straw last week has the desired effect, the streets will be freer of crime than ever before.

The sweeping (The Times, 27 February) changes are intended to lead to more criminals being caught, convicted, sentenced and rehabilitated, and to drag the justice system out of the nineteenth century.Most controversial of the proposed changes was the possibility that defendants previous records could be disclosed to juries in some trials.

Londons Evening Standard (1 March) criticised the plans as a step too far, a proposal that upends the principle fundamental to our common law that the accused is innocent until proven guilty.Not content with causing controversy in his own department, Mr Straw obviously felt the need to wade into the the murky mire of party funding so beloved of the Lord Chancellor (see [2001] Gazette, 1 March, 12).

The Independent (5 March) reported how the funding affair has been reignited by criticism of a letter sent to dozens of lawyers by Jack Straw inviting them to buy a 500 ticket to a Labour fundraising dinner.

Less than a fortnight after Lord Irvine was forced to defend his appeal to senior lawyers for Labour party funds, Mr Straw whose powers to appoint lawyers to public office are second only to the Lord Chancellor was accused of acting inappropriately, with senior lawyers invited to the dinner describing the letter as disgusting and sickening.And finally, from the grubby world of Whitehall to the more salubrious land of latex.

Marcel Berlins in The Guardian (27 February) reported good news for American artists who want to depict Barbie in sexually explicit poses the Court of Appeal last week decided that artist Tom Forsythe, famous for his photographs of Barbie in poses not normally associated with her famously non-sexual activities was not in breach of copyright laws.Victoria MacCallum