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Agreed. It should be possible to identify people of the required intellect, measured approach, fairness, ability to manage and chair both lawyers and lay people, etc, and help them to learn to be good judges. At all levels, including the Supreme Court. Barristers in private practice have a huge head start because they have already learnt, on the job, many of the skills required.

But that would require a more radical solution than having solicitors on the Court of Appeal who start as parking adjudicators. Not everyone is so enamoured of being a judge that they would want to start in that kind of role.

We say we want diversity, but until the upper levels of the judiciary decide to act to allow different models of recruitment, we are unlikely to get much change from the present system.