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Panorama was on this occasion lacking in its usual vigour.
There could have been better cases to demonstrate the agony suffered by hard working people on low incomes who cannot afford a lawyer. There could have been all the little firms of solicitors represented so why choose to interview a firm which was shown to earn ( in total) very large sums from legal aid?
Clarke was disingenuous and he knows it but the interviewer obviously did not. It was not lobbying over the years that brought about Legal Aid. It was part of a package which also launched the NHS.
The idea that someone's case must be of a kind which is uniquely placed to further the development of law itself in order to attract legal aid is mindlessly cruel
When taking about the legal aid budget it is disingenuous to add criminal and civil legal aid together
Make no mistake, it would not matter which of the main parties are in after 7 May. The idea of legal aid is dead. The idea of a public defender service is the only game the state is willing to play.
What brought legal aid into disrepute were large sums earned from legal aid, but these large sums were earned by barristers ( of which Clarke was one) and "experts" upon which the court insisted, and who took advantage of the system in a huge way.
The court system was so obscure, so full of regulation, hidebound by procedure, so impenetrable, it made everyone's life a misery, did not serve justice, and made legal representation far more expensive than it needed to be.
The witch hunt - blaming the poor, and their legal aided solicitors has been a travesty by both main parties and the media which led them. A discontented and uncooperative poor follows - watch the space

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