Tag Archives: news

The Barristers – Verdict In

Part 1 was a bit of a disappointment for me, but I’ll keep an open mind until the end of all four episodes…It was a bit crammed with the entertaining archaisms and amusing traditions which are frontloaded onto entry into the profession and frankly a bit hackneyed – the formal dinners and all the other stuff you have to contend with when training, and the whimsical stories everyone gets told on their first mini-pupillage (red bags etc). It’s not really representative of what the bar is all about. I can’t think when I last wore a wig and I have made a point of avoiding obnoxious formal dinners since I earnt my twelfth dining point and got called. And I shake other barrister’s hand just to annoy them (tradition says we don’t do that at the bar).

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I had understood that one of the barristers being followed was a family barrister, perhaps he or she will make an appearance in later episodes along with a bit more reality tv (I mean that literally not pejoratively) and a bit less confirming of stereotypes.

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Notwithstanding all the mildly amusing stories it wasn’t exactly an exciting piece of telly, but don’t let that dissuade you from watching future episodes – we are really not as dull as you might think from part 1 and I think it will get better….

Race Row

The sacking of Sam Mason for her ‘racist’ comments to a taxi company has not only made the national news but has generated an astonishing amount of local comment (I gave up before I got to the bottom of the comments listed). Although there are big pockets of the west country which are not at all culturally / ethnically mixed, Bristol to me has always seemed a pretty cosmopolitan city. But having moved back to the area after 10+ years away I can see that the local mix has changed quite significantly and I guess that’s a learning experience for everyone.

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It’s really quite interesting (depressing?) looking at the comments on the At Bristol report of this story to see how people articulate their very different views about these things. There seems to be no community consensus about what is or is not racist and what is or is not acceptable or lawful, and no common language through which to discuss these issues. My two penn’orth: one can make an unacceptable or discriminatory comment without intending to. Identifying a ‘racist’ is more complicated than simply saying anyone who has ever acted in a discriminatory way or who has upset someone by a remark pertaining to race is de facto ‘a racist’. If you’ll excuse the pun (I can’t think of a metaphor which doesn’t involve one) it’s not a black and white issue, but a spectrum. I would hazard that all of us have said or done something that might be reasonably called ‘discriminatory’ or which may have offended someone (most of us hopefully inadvertently) but I don’t think we are all racists. Language is complicated and we don’t always wield it well.

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The Unverifiable Truth

Another article from Camilla Cavendish at The Times today about Family Justice. And again more heart rending tales of injustice which are completely unverifiable. She writes of Ann who was accused by her violent ex husband of having Munchausens by proxy (Fabricated or induced illness) – on the basis of her account it seems a terrible wrong has been done to Ann and her family in the removal of their children on the basis of false allegations. But in order to conclude that this is so (as Camilla Cavendish has done) one must assume firstly that Ann did not suffer from FII – the tenor of the article tends to suggest that the Munchausen’s allegation is self-evidently untrue because it was initially made by a violent ex-partner.

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I don’t know what the true facts are – and in point of fact neither does Camilla Cavendish. And although this unverifiability is itself one of the points the article is seeking to highlight – is it responsible journalism when emotive stories of this kind are presented as factual reporting when the sole source of information is the individual most likely to see things in a highly subjective way – the parent whose child has been removed against their wishes?

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