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Telling this nursery rhyme to an elected politician is, as they say, like playing chess with a pigeon*

An elected politician's event horizon is never more than five years' hence - the date of the next election - and Mr Grayling is presently working to a date of May 2015. He will still be an MP after then, but he's most unlikely to be Justice Secretary, either because he'll be in opposition, or he'll have succeeded in moving on to higher things. Consequently, there's no point in telling him that saving a ha'porth of tar now will cost more in the long run. He's only interested in now. That's why the reasoned arguments of the representative bodies in consultation responses is of no interest to him, and the only thing that will bring him to the negotiating table is hurting him NOW - by not doing the cases.

The days when the Lord Chancellor was an eminent lawyer, and given a seat in the Lords - i.e. it was the pinnacle of a career, not as it is for Grayling, a stepping-stone - have gone. legal aid lawyers need to be as hard-nosed as he is.

* a pigeon doesn't know how to play chess. It will sh*t on the board, knock all the pieces over and then strut around as if it beat you anyway.

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