Criminal Bar
Listening to the BBC Today Programme, heard a representative of the criminal Bar talking about how members of the criminal Bar are now suffering heavily from lack of work, and so fees. The courts have been closed or largely closed for 6 months. Barristers in private self-employed practice are subject to Lenin’s dictum, “he who does not work does not eat“— Кто не работает, тот не кушает [Кто не работает, тот не кушает]. How well do I remember that! I mean life at the practising Bar (1992-1996 and 2002-2008).
My Bar practice, especially in earlier years, in the early 1990s, was very much illustrative of that. I was in pretty poor London chambers at first, which supplied equally poor work, mostly criminal. I had to hustle, as the Americans say, to get work of my own in various ways, because chambers had poor work and the single Clerk was almost useless.
Before very long (it seemed long at the time), the magistrates’ court and Crown Court appearances gave way to High Court (i.e. non-criminal) cases, mostly judicial reviews, and other non-criminal work (mostly contract cases) in the County Court, as well as Tribunal appearances of various kinds. Quite mixed.
One day, a High Court brief marked at (for preparation time and first day or part) maybe £2,000 or even £5,000 for half a day or a day (this was about 25 or 27 years ago; today, it would be far far more), the next day a tiny magistrates’ court appearance at perhaps £100 (or less), or a “Mention” (a brief Crown Court appearance which might be only a few minutes in length), with criminal legal aid fee officially fixed at £46! The following day? Maybe nothing at all. The week after? Sometimes, still nothing at all! Followed by…whatever. Some weeks, one might do work in the thousands or even more; more usually, the fees would amount to a few hundred or a thousand; not rarely, I would make absolutely nothing in a whole week.
My spending was likewise up and down; one week, Rules restaurant, the River Room at the Savoy, Julie’s in Notting Hill, and a weekend at Cliveden [ https://www.clivedenhouse.co.uk/]. The next week might be an egg-on-toast breakfast at a workers’ cafe, and maybe a loaf of bread and a tin of tuna (plus decent red wine, though!) for the evening, and a walk in Regent’s Park for weekend recreation (depending on luck…).
Reverting to the Today Programme, my reaction (apart from Memory Lane reminiscence) was two-fold. I recognize that a civilized society needs a cadre of criminal defenders. Likewise, they need to be paid at a reasonably generous level to reflect their years of study, continuing study, and their responsibility.
Of course, many at the civil, Chancery and other parts of the Bar are not affected much, or even at all, by “the virus”. Still, the criminal Bar and maybe the family-law Bar are affected severely. A serious problem for society as a whole.
On the other hand, when I was attacked by a malicious pack of Zionist Jews, a persecution which led eventually to my unjust disbarment in October 2016, not one barrister spoke up for me, for freedom of socio-political expression (“free speech”) generally, or for fairness. Not one who had known me personally. Not one who poses as a champion of “free speech”, political liberty etc, and virtue-signals accordingly. Not one.
That being so, I have to admit that, harsh though it may be, I am laughing now as many members of the Bar are suffering, nearing penury and even bankruptcy. What goes around comes around, and I am not going to shed too many crocodile tears for people who failed to say one word for me or for free speech.
In fact, a few barristers, either Jews or very tied up with Jews and/or (probably) dependent on Jewish solicitors for work, tweeted joyfully about my getting disbarred; one or two were even gratuitously rude to me directly, either then or much later. Don’t worry— you happy few have not been forgotten.
Incidentally, the five tweets which resulted in my disbarment were all general comments; not one was addressed to any individual, and they were all true! Example? Michael Gove as “a pro-Jew, pro-Israel expenses cheat“. That was all demonstrably true, yet was deemed “grossly offensive“! Now, of course, we know that Michael Gove is also a cocaine-snorting drunk, who was even filmed not so long ago drunk and/or drugged, and staggering, in the Chamber of the House of Commons! Ye Gods!
Tweets seen
…and it would be nice if the young wannabees who now pose as “journalists” could spell, and if they knew the difference between “praying” and “preying”…Stand up, Hull Daily Mail! [Update, 27 November 2020: the Hull Daily Mail must have seen my blog comment (or maybe others complained); they have now replaced “praying” with the correct “preying”…].
The politically-correct toytown police of the UK are unused to real British people standing up for their own and national rights…
https://twitter.com/MarkACollett/status/1321381733686747136?s=20
https://twitter.com/MarkACollett/status/1321088533990354954?s=20
Yes, if you made mock of the Jews the way that the Jew Sacha Baron Cohen mocks the Kazakhs, you would get prosecuted (if supported by a well-funded pressure group). That’s no “conspiracy theory”: look what happened to Alison Chabloz…and “they” are still trying to get her.
Incidentally, I know Kazakhstan, having lived there for a year (1996-97).
Everyone in the country should be aware of the conspiracy behind all of this. Resistance must emerge, before we are all just complete serfs of a dystopian nightmare.
https://twitter.com/ISCResearch/status/1320867796977393664?s=20
Below, a typical System-approved idiot thinks that a “lockdown”, if “strict”, can defeat a virus…
It never seems to occur to that type that “lockdowns”, however strict, merely delay the viral progress without “curing” the situation. Look at Spain now. And France. And Germany.
People who have not thought this through.
What has to be factored in is that anyone who has died within 28 days of a positive Coronavirus test is now deemed to have died of “the virus”, even if, in reality, their reaction to infection was slight and they died of other conditions! It’s mad.
Meanwhile, huge numbers of people are suffering and dying because undiagnosed, untreated, not operated upon etc for non-“virus” conditions. The NHS is limping along not doing its proper job.
In the world in general, only one person in every 8,000 has died from “the virus”; in fact, the statistics are so unreliable that it may be one in 10,000, or twenty thousand for that matter..
More tweets
Ian Robert Millard 