A quick trawl to find out what the press is saying about lawyers today:
The Attorney-General
Matthew Norman of The Independent has a fairly robust approach:
“It is a testament to the Attorney General’s status as the most transcendently faceless public figure in a generation that the most interesting fact about him is that he went to the same school in Liverpool as John Lennon. The studious Peter Goldsmith arrived at Quarry Bank Grammar School just as the non-comformist Lennon was about to leave, and from that intersection their lives diverged. One went on to devote himself to ridiculing the British establishment, shining the halogen lamp of public scorn on its inherent hypocrisies. The other founded the Beatles.
That Lord Goldsmith has done such harm to the system he serves with no trace of rebellious intent (not once, so far as we know, has he smoked dope in the Buckingham Palace loos preparatory to receiving an honour from the Queen) is not the point. No more than ignorance is unwittingness a defence in the law of the land which the Attorney General has three times been invited to safeguard; and which, even as another Peter did to Christ at the crowing of the cock, he has thrice betrayed.”
Lord Goldsmith may soon be called upon to determine matters in relation to the “cash for honours scandal’ if the Police do come up with anything worth prosecuting. While The A-G has not, yet, commented on this matter, it seems that Lord Falconer, the “Lord Chancellor felt obliged publicly to state what Goldsmith will not: that under no circumstances would the Attorney General be involved in deciding whether anyone in or close to No 10 is charged over the sale of peerages.”
Peter Goldsmith was reported somewhere in the press yesterday – unless I had taken too much Rioja on and imagined it – as saying that while he was flattered to be described as a friend of Tony Blair, he was not a ‘close friend’.
Last night I watched the end of Question Time and there was Harriet Harman QC MP revealing political solidarity by stating that the cash for honours episode “…has eroded trust and it’s been an unfortunate, to say the least, situation.” I am certain that she was not, in any way, positioning herself for promotion in the new government soon to be headed by Gordon Turpin.
Ms Harman then went on to reveal her green credentials and that she was doing her bit (as I am) for the environment by reducing her ‘carbon footprint’. She expressed the wish that her husband had turned the lights off in their home. Presumably he was watching Question Time in the dark like a good ‘Greenie’.
Unless I was overtired, I am fairly certain I saw Mark Oaten MP on Question Time as well. The camera kept cutting to a number of women in the audience when he was speaking – all of whom seemed to be rather ‘tight lipped’. Clearly, Oaten believes that his extra-curricular problem of a while back has vanished into the mists of memory and he can nip back for another go at being a public figure. Doesn’t bother me what people get up to in their spare time. So good luck to him. By the way…taling of Lib-Dems… What is ‘Scrabbleman’ up to… has his cheeky girl disappeared…. ?
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