Report comment

Ultimately to me this can all be traced back to that very British establishment way of doing business, both actual and Governmental. That is, in an incredibly short-sighted manner with only money and the prospect of less responsibility on the mind. One only need look at the sell-off of national assets under Thatcher and subsequently, more recently the attempts to sell the Land Registry, the successful sell-off of Royal Mail, or the backdoor privatisation we're now witnessing with the NHS. Quick wins are what it's all about, the MO is roughly as follows:

Get to the top, sell what you can for as big a profit as you can and then get out before anyone is wise to it. Look at the profiteering culture which developed in the City during that period, both at the coalface and in the board room (Hi Formerlysir Fred, how are you?). Of course, there was much song and dance about city/finance reform which amounted to almost nought, whereas we see a constant onslaught - it's easier long-term for politicians to target PI practitioners (as one example) because one can easily equate what they do with what people pay from their bank account; but nobody pays an "RBS bail-out premium" once a month do they?

Look now at the language we see repeatedly used by the various limp junior ministers amongst the MOJ ranks when they talk about these reforms, or Court closures, or the demolition of legal aid; it's all about the money and absolving Government/Quango's of responsibility. Mix that with a bit of accepted market dogma (market knows best, market corrects itself, market can feed and walk and clean itself etc etc) and hey presto.

Legal aid cuts were enacted without proper consideration for what would come next in terms of access to justice. Similarly, the Wolf reforms came in without any real analysis of what the potential consequences might be (where's your self-correcting market now eh??!) and the various reforms which have come in the wake of Jackson's initial report have all been rushed through and lead to monstrous levels of satellite litigation and uncertainty.

Whether the consequences be purely about the bottom line, or about real life people losing real life jobs, the Government time and time again fails to consider them because it doesn't care, it only sees the figures immediately in front of it.

These reforms will be enacted, there'll be unforeseen but not unforeseeable consequences which cost somebody somewhere money or earache.. and the wheel will turn again.