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To Anonymous 18.49, who never misses an opportunity to give insurers a good kicking (obviously you do a lot of PI work), you're barking up the wrong tree - the insurance industry never had the abolition of Legal Aid "in their sights". It was the Labour government in the mid 90s if you recall (maybe you were still at school), but the LCs Irvine and Falconer stated categorically on numerous occasions that Legal Aid at more than £4BN per year was "unsustainable" - to quote Irvine - 'education and health must have greater priority than paying lawyers'. Those were his words. That was Legal Aid's death sentence - and still is. 'New' Labour abolished Personal Injury Legal Aid overnight - if you recall. The vacuum which was then created was filled with CMCs (Claims Direct - which listed on the stock exchange for £330M in early 2001, then spectacularly crashed 3 months later !) Labour under Blair tried to prop up the mess using LEI. And quite a number of insurers crashed after that point as the entire scheme was a disaster - and still is today. In the early noughties, some insurers would laugh at you if you suggested they go anywhere near LEI. ATE was considered an abortion and an easy way to go bankrupt by insuring overly-optimistic cases. For over a decade, the entire system devised by Irvine and then Falconer was an unmitigated catastrophe. So before you accuse insurers of trying to destroy Legal Aid, I suggest you go back and have a proper look at what really happened at the time. The CMC environment of cold calling and referral fees etc today was the product of the Labour government. Get your facts straight before you start criticising unfairly.