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The judicial recruitment crisis is certainly a concern. But I can't help thinking it would be a shame if something were only done about it because in this one round one of the normal go-to groups from which appointments are traditionally made - namely Chancery silks - stayed away in their droves. So much for widening the pool from which selections are made! No, let's put it right to make sure we can continue to appoint lots of Chancery silks.

What's more, imagine being an unsuccessful applicant from amongst only 52 applying for 25 posts, seeing that they found only 10 (considerably less than less than 50% of the vacancies) to be worthy of appointment and realising you were not one of them. The JAC couldn't peddle the usual line "don't worry it was a very competitive process and others were really good". There is no disguising the fact that you weren't even considered good enough to fill one of the 15 unfilled vacancies!