The Law, Kathy Lette, Foreign Journalists on the UK
Legal
Aid
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| Justice, James Thornhill (1675/76-1734) Photo Credit: City of London Corporation [CC BY-NC] |
The inquest was into the deaths of an unarmed police officer and
four pedestrians on Westminster Bridge in March 17. The pedestrians were struck
by Khalid Masood in a van and he then stabbed the officer to death outside the
Houses of Parliament.
…Now the sisters of PC Keith Palmer, the murdered policeman, have
expressed their “utter shock and disbelief” that the state agencies involved
spent almost half a million pounds in taxpayer money on legal fees.
“It sends a clear message that the victims’ families’ quests for answers
into the deaths of their loved ones is just not important. Protecting the
establishment is far more important,” they told The Times.
Calling for immediate reform of the legal aid system, they said
that their lack of funding “had a major impact on our case, as we were not able
to call experts during the inquest, which would have saved time and money. It
would also have highlighted the systemic failures sooner.”
(The Times, 2019)
The
Criminal Justice System
On the day a parliamentary report published in May 2016 began with
those nine damning words – the criminal
justice system is close to breaking point – not one single newspaper thought
it more newsworthy than repetitive scare stories about migration or, in one
case, a confected ‘scandal’ over Britain’s
Got talent.
When Karl Turner MP tabled a parliamentary debate on the parlous
underfunding of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in January 2017, his litany
of sobbing CPS staff and collapsing prosecutions – the things that we in the
courts see every day – was attended by a meagre handful of MPs, and met by a
virtual media blackout. When the courts upheld government initiatives to deprive
the wrongly accused of their legal fees, there was no clamour. Just deafening
silence.
If the criminal justice system were the NHS, it would never be off
the front pages.
(The Secret Barrister, page 14)
People
Kathy Lette, our favourite Australian
…has become a cougar at 60. No man with chiselled pecs is safe from the novelist’s
lustful pounces, she says…
“My skirts have got shorter and my
neckline has got lower. I’m now the reverse of an iceberg: 90 per cent of me is
visible.”
She has spent the winter dancing in
night clubs. “My sisters say I’m starting to look as though I just crawled out
from under a stone,” she adds. “Probably Keith.”
(The Times, 2019)
Two foreign
Journalists, one German, the other Italian, report on their views of the UK.
…It is a privilege and a challenge to be the UK correspondent
for a German newspaper. Our readers back home are incredibly knowledgeable
about this place. They speak the language, read British news online, travel to
every corner of these islands. They watch BBC shows, attend British
universities. By now they all know Mister “Order! Ordeeeer!” John Bercow, too.
(Stefanie Bolzen, Die Welt.)
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Street Life in Rome (The Letter Writer), Keeley Halswelle (1832-1891)
Photo Credit: City of London Corporation [CC BY-NC]
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Two weeks ago, I had the privilege of interviewing John
Bercow at Westminster. Today the Speaker is an idol in Europe for his bellowed
rhetoric that blends Shakespeare and Monty Python. Despite the Munchian
zeitgeist (never has an exhibition seemed so timely as the British Museum’s
this April), British politics is ever more appreciated abroad; Mr Speaker
explained to me why – it is because here, the parliament is the soul of
everything.
(Antonello Guerrera, La Repubblica)
(The Observer, 2019)
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