Bit late for most high street practitioners who are now broke or leaving the profession. The sad fact is legal aid has been consistently cut for years ,a process started off by Labour who encouraged the widespread vilification of solicitors by dubbing them ‘fat cats’. The barristers ,on the other hand, and all the hanger on agencies and experts just made more and more dosh. Barristers were highly represented in cabinet by some strange coincidence.

Blocking roads is not a good tactic IMO.
It’s also pretty annoying and comes across as narcissistic.
The Countryside Alliance could do the same thing – and who here would support that?
Plane Stupid being there would be a big no-no for me, as they come across as ccompletely stupid.

damon @ 2:

Yes, counter-productive, narcissistic, adolescent protest.

This is rather inevitable. In a society without justice you won’t get law and order.

The bleak and difficult future for civil and criminal justice ahead was the subject of a warning by Lord Carlisle of Berriew QC, the former adviser to the Government on terrorism legislation given in Ealing on November 21st last year.

Speaking at a dinner hosted by the Law School of University of West London in Ealing to an audience of lawyers, academics, members of the judiciary and students his speech was entitled “Advocacy after Legal Aid” painting a bleak and worrying picture

From April 2013 many people have been unable to obtain advice and representation in civil cases and the degree of expertise available in criminal cases is being drastically reduced. Lord Berriew warned of both miscarriages of justice ahead and in many cases and denial of justice with unrepresented litigants and those being wrongly sued.

Ultimately, Lord Berriew warned the impact will be felt not only by vulnerable individuals and those without lawyers by all court users. All other users are now being inconvenienced and subject to increasing costs and delays, with serious implications for the resolution of commercial disputes as well as many individual miscarriages of justice

This is because a further knock-on effect of legal aid cuts is a further increase in clients forced to represent themselves in court. This has already recognised by members of judiciary

Increasingly, both claimants and defendants are left without any representation leaving them to act as best they can as litigants in person. This causes problems at every stage of litigation in the County Courts and is making hearings exceedingly time consuming and slowing down proceedings for everyone.

One day of blocking the roads is sadly nothing compared with the social harm which is actually being caused to court users. British justice used to be “the best in the world”. Not now.

“This is rather inevitable. In a society without justice you won’t get law and order.”

A sweeping statement. Justice is not being abolished; and it is an empirical matter whether Lord Carlisle’s worst fears will be realised. So there is no justification for breaking the law and inconveniencing drivers, bus passengers and cyclists by blocking roads.

And these protestors are not disgruntled litigants or campaigners aiming to rectify miscarriages of justice: they are an adolescent-minded rent-a-mob, high on their self-regarding moral rectitude.

@5 TONE
Spot on regarding this particular crew of ‘professional’ protestors. But I have to disagree slightly with your statement that no-one’s abolishing justice, no they’re not, they’re just pricing people out of the market.
Our legal system is ferociously complicated and the idea that the average person could effectively represent themselves against professional counsel is ridiculous.
Witness most of the hilarious ‘sovereign citizen’ footage on youtube.

““dangerous changes that will destroy democracy”.

They said this week they plan nationwide road blocks to protest against government plans to cut legal aid.”

Eh?

Cutting legal aid might lead to a decrease in the rule of law, something to be avoided. But it’s not going to change democracy one iota.

7. Tim Worstall

‘Cutting legal aid might lead to a decrease in the rule of law, something to be avoided. But it’s not going to change democracy one iota.’

I take it you are not in favour of the cuts then. Your big mistake isn’t the fact this latest round of cuts might lead to a reduction in access to justice,it’s that this process has been going on for years firstly with curtailments to scope and recently with limitations to entitlement and remuneration.Further curtailments include Judicial review which is a principal vehicle by which the citizen may challenge the state. A key aspect of a democratic system. At its worst it can and does involve individuals being illegally incarcerated by the state with no recourse to any judicial process.

Legal aid cuts have lead to a reduction of civil liberties in a number of significant ways. Rule of law as practiced by the state will remain unhindered unless the methods of physical restraint exhaust. Justice,however, is the thing that will suffer with individuals wrongly convicted, children snatched ,women beaten and children placed in care with all but provisional consideration.These changes usually affect the disaffected poor. If you remain unperturbed maybe it might help to think that one of these oiks ,whose liberty isn’t worth defending might come and burn your house down one day.

In terms of democracy it depends how you frame it. Democracy in part is predicated on the notion of enforceable rights,without which individuals cannot participate and associate freely in a democratic society.
So in very real terms this is a threat to democracy.

It may be a nice distinction for a lot of middle class commentators like TONE ,whose head is generally up his arse, but at ground zero amongst the shit poor things are very different. Try talking to them about democracy!

UKUNCUT are a least trying to rectify not only an injustice to our society but an extremely expensive folly which any evidenced based policy maker would have instantly recognised.

Damon & TONE accusing protesters of narcissism? Oh the irony!

@ 1 Yep a huge surprise when the PM at the time (and his misses) were both barristers.
Where were these protesters when Blair drove a coach and horses through fundamental principles of English law – Innocent until proven guilty and double jeopardy, effectively abolished the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act, and introduced guilt by suspicion and criminalising people who have never been charged let alone found guilty of anything. This smacks of a feminist protest against the withdrawal of legal aid for divorcees.

“But we know that this kind of direct action works”

We do?

When I was a teen or a 20+, there were sort-of-three types of direct action.

1. Assemble tens of thousands of people in London (or wherever) to wag their fingers at government or an agency. Lots of people in a single place.

2. Establish a continuous centre of disruption (eg Greenham Common) from which continual protest logically follows. Lots of people consistently there.

3. Identify a local target directly associated with the political aim, and demonstrate against it. That campaign might be accessible to local people.

Some folks splashed cans of paint over spy planes and nuclear submarines.

UK Uncut is unlike predecessors because there is no consistent target. UK Uncut objectives cannot be explained to Jo on the street. UK Uncut actions are fucking dumb.

Cutting lawyers’ livelihood is always going to be popular. It may be stupid, but it will always be popular.

And UK Uncut, Newswire and the majority of your commenters need to get out more. The notion that the police only arrest criminals is deeply held by many (white) working-class people, especially older women.

12. Charlieman

I thought UKUNCUT’s objectives are contained in the name. There general theme is that the State should tax equitably and not cut services to the vulnerable.

The diversity of presentation rather reflects the sporadic nature of who’s services are being cut and when.

Ultimately, I don’t think its that difficult to understand.

@ 14 I disagree, it’s too diffuse as an objective. There is no popular consensus on who “the vulnerable” are, or on what services are “essential”. I don’t need to say that a debate on what is “equitable taxation” would go on for a while, even among people who are in the same political church (e.g the left support green taxes but is that equitable ?). I personally do not understand why libraries are considered essential in the 21st C, but many people apparently think they are. Polls show that joe public broadly supports cuts and believes them to be good for the economy but joe public will wave placards around if their local hospital/library/nursery is closed or downgraded.
If you object to every cut then you just look like a reactionary agitator. Every government, even left wing ones, cuts something sometimes.
And I can’t think of a single example of direct action ever working.

15. Derek Hattons Tailor

‘There is no popular consensus on who “the vulnerable” are, or on what services are “essential”.’

Which is why organisations such as UNCUT play a role.
I would suggest there is no popular consensus because a lot of these issues remain clouded or misreported.

Consider the high profiling of offshore tax havens by UnCut. This issue is now mainstream.