Technology | 2009.06.20
Hugh Muir's diary
Never mind addressing the court. How should one dress in court? That\'s the important question
Gordon\'s changing parliament, and the courts are not being left behind. First things first: what to wear. The result of deliberation by the finest legal minds brings us the following. In the chancery division, barristers will wear full fancy dress - horsehair wigs, gowns etc - for trials and appeals. In commercial court and the admiralty court let it all hang out - business suits for all occasions. Family division? Well that\'s trickier. The form is for a business suit, save for cases involving contested divorce and nullity petitions. On those occasions it\'s fancy dress again. But the complications don\'t end there for the advice - the work of the lord chief justice, Igor Judge (Eager Igor to friends), and Desmond Browne QC of the Bar Council stipulates that "counsel will wear court dress in any case where liberty is an issue". If it becomes an issue mid-trial, presumably the barristers will dash out and change.
• So the Labour crisis is over. They\'re pulling together now. OK, so not quite. On his blog, activist Chris Paul tells of a gathering of Labourites in Manchester. "The word \'treachery\' was used by several of those present. And in a not entirely unconnected context, the Rt Hon Hazel Blears MP was mentioned time and time again. One respected speaker, welcoming Gordon Brown\'s commitment to cleaning up parliament, added the following: \'If Hazel Blears is still a candidate at the next election ... we have not cleaned up politics.\'" If, they are saying. If.
• And here\'s Prezza, on his blog, explaining his expenses predicament. "I bought one toilet seat (and never claimed for it), but because it was an old Victorian toilet and the seat was modern, it didn\'t fit properly," he says. "If you\'re really interested, the seat was a metric measurement, the toilet was imperial." There\'s more about plumbers, tap leaks and a bathroom, which he paid for. Too much. Some things we still don\'t need to know.
• As a Yorkshire type, he\'ll be interested in Doncaster, where the new mayor is Peter Davies, of the English Democrats. Post-election, the new man visited BBC Radio Sheffield. It didn\'t go very well. "You\'re going to cut \'PC jobs\'," said presenter Toby Foster. "Which jobs are those?" "Well, er, I\'m going to look into that. Things like diversity officers, er, the things that are usually advertised in the Manchester, well - it\'s not the Manchester Guardian now - in the Guardian," said the mayor. "But that\'s what you put on your manifesto - you must have had an idea on your manifesto what you were talking about?" said the radio man. "Yeah, yeah, all these people who are, sort of, controlling thought processes and this sort of thing, and er, erm ... every department is riddled with this sort of nonsense these days." "You\'re going to cut translation services for non-English speakers. It\'s more than likely illegal, isn\'t it?" probed Foster. "I dunno ... again, I\'ve got to find this out," said the mayor. They discussed the pledge to cut the number of councillors from 60 to 20. "Can\'t do it, can you?" said Foster. "Er, well, we can appeal to their moral consciences," said the mayor. The plan to cut gay-pride funding. How much funding? How many cuts? "Haven\'t got a clue." Bemoaning the lack of "sensible" questions, he headed for the exit. "All I\'m asking is how you\'re going to deliver on your election manifesto," pleaded Foster. Silence. The mayor was gone.
• So it was Neil Kinnock to Gordon\'s rescue this week, and yet the former leader\'s plea for solidarity did not impress some of those who fought with him against Bennery and the militants of the 1980s. "Neil wasn\'t for unity then and he was right," grumbled one, a member of the Gordon Must Go camp. What\'s more, Gerald Kaufman, a Brown unity man this week, may not have been the only top Labourite to tell Michael Foot to his face he should step aside before electoral humiliation in 1983. Legend has it that Glenys Kinnock, now our Brownite champion in Europe, had a word. Another crisis. Another time.
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jun/12/hugh-muir-diary-labour
