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[Lucia Lanigan]

I only notice how little TV news I watch on the odd occasions when I watch some TV news.

It's horrible, isn't it? The new job I started this month has a mega screen with BBC News on it (with subtitles). That must be the best of the bunch, but the degree to which available footage (and of course PR) dictates the news can be pretty hair-raising. Today we've got helicopter footage of the guy who'd just beheaded someone's gran running around in people's back gardens, and desperate migrants jumping in the back of lorries in Calais because the French drivers are on strike (UKIP catnip or what?). Seen them both five or six times already.

Yesterday there was a cat on a hang glider, which was obviously better but not really news.

Do you lot put yourself through this on the regular, or stick mainly to the written word these days? I'm starting to see why the UK election outcome felt so surprising to me now - I'm completely out of touch with what old people and denizens of the regions think reality looks like.

[Diable Rouge]

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And BBC News is positively sedate, compared to the crash, bang, wallop approach taken by Sky. Personally, apart from sport, I don't watch much TV, but of the rolling news channels, Euronews and Al Jazeera tend to present the news in the most holistic, analytical manner.

[Lucia Lanigan]

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Oh yeah, yesterday's news: Cameron was going to make a speech about "welfare" which didn't seem to materialise in the end. The footage they used was of some shifty looking lads in hoodies strutting around an abandoned street. Not pensioners or the hardworking families, in the parlance of our times, who claim the lion's share of benefits.

[Tubby Isaacs]

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I think there was a Q&A, if not a speech.

Or, more precisely, a Q. As here:

Q: What are your plans for mental health services?

Cameron says addiction is one of the things that keeps people poor.

Mental health= addiction. Addiction to being mentally ill, I presume.

There was also a Q session in Parliament with IDS. Including this, which he pretty much defines as non-answer himself:

Labour’s Madeleine Moon says disabled people are worried. Will Duncan Smith rule out cuts?

Duncan Smith says Labour MPs should not whip up fears about this, although he says he is not accusing Moon of this.

[Lucia Lanigan]

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Christ, what a waste of everyone's time. I suppose that's a tacit admission that they can't save even a tiny fraction of that £12bn on benefits and that their pants are on fire.

[Lucia Lanigan]

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God help us: "Today, Michael Gove is going to give his views on justice." Footage of him wallying around in ceremonial dress and looking like a cunt even in plain clothes. I wonder how substantial and informative his views on justice will be? You don't have to do this, BBC, they're not teachers and you're not kids.

In stark contrast, the other thing I note is how incredibly glam all the women are. Dressed like they're off to a ball, even at 9am (alright, 10am) when I get to the office.

[Tubby Isaacs]

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They might be trying the same trick they did with the deficit- ie give up on their target altogether but pretend they haven't. Their media pals (including the BBC) believe them, and everyone agrees Ed Balls is a discredited idiot and his political career finished.

Cameron's still claiming that the Coalition cut/saved £21bn. No evidence yet provided. Another lie.

And another lie here:

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jun/22/david-cameron-claim-12bn-saved-troubled-families-plan-pure-fiction

David Cameron’s claim to have saved taxpayers £1.2bn by turning around the lives of almost 117,000 of the country’s most troubled families has been dismissed as “pure unadulterated fiction”.

[Tubby Isaacs]

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Lucia Lanigan wrote: God help us: "Today, Michael Gove is going to give his views on justice." Footage of him wallying around in ceremonial dress and looking like a cunt even in plain clothes. I wonder how substantial and informative his views on justice will be? You don't have to do this, BBC, they're not teachers and you're not kids.

In stark contrast, the other thing I note is how incredibly glam all the women are. Dressed like they're off to a ball, even at 9am (alright, 10am) when I get to the office.

Did you see Gove's style guide? Among the gems were that you never start sentences with "however"- which will be news to anyone who read Gove's white papers at Education. One of them had 7 such "however"s in it.

The Permanent Secretary will be hoping that he keeps up that relative harmless activity.

Gove today opined that rich lawyers should advise the poor for free.

[ursus arctos]

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We do

[Tubby Isaacs]

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"Minister, I'm afraid we have let the law library get into a frightful mess. It really needs someone to put the books into alphabetical order..."

[Tubby Isaacs]

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ursus arctos wrote: We do

If you do, then why do hardworking taxpayers fork out for legal aid?

Eh? Eh?

[Tubby Isaacs]

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Jack of Kent @JackofKent
Glaring problem with asking City lawyers to do more pro bono work is that most City lawyers clueless in legal areas where need is greatest.

[ursus arctos]

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Because the private bar will never be able to satisfy the demand.

Jack of Kent's point is valid, but can easily be addressed by training. We provide our juniors with free training in immigration, housing, personal bankruptcy and other kinds of law they are likely to encounter with indigent clients.

[Tubby Isaacs]

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Gove not even making sense.

Gove said that he agreed with the judiciary that an extra £700m needed to be spent to modernise the court service. The Treasury would provide the funding, he said, but they would want to ensure the business case for it was robust.

He agrees with it but doesn't know if it's correct?

Cleverest man in politics.

[Tubby Isaacs]

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"When it comes to investing in access to justice then it is clear to me that it is fairer to ask our most successful legal professionals to contribute a little more rather than taking more in tax from someone on the minimum wage … I cannot accept that the status quo is defensible"

Levy on rich academy chancers to pay for state education, then?

I'd just cut the £340k that Sir Dan Moynihan's on, but I'm prepared to consider a levy.

[Lucia Lanigan]

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A rich lawyer advising a poor person for free, yesterday: "Bagger orf, you horrid little man."

[Tubby Isaacs]

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Or sends him to the firm's YTS paralegal, before getting on with his day job corporate work again.

[ursus arctos]

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Fuck off

[Lucia Lanigan]

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See!

[Tubby Isaacs]

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Might be a job as Gove's Spad going for you, Urs.

Gove's stupid and not stupid. While he's making us laugh, he's winding down FOIA.

I'm wondering if there's a rightwing newspaper columnist with a legal background to play the Toby role.

[ursus arctos]

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Do you actually give a shit about the quality of legal services being provided to the indigent?

[Tubby Isaacs]

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ursus arctos wrote: Do you actually give a shit about the quality of legal services being provided to the indigent?

I thought the sarcasm was obvious, given I was talking rubbish and purporting to agree with Michael Gove.

But apologies if it wasn't.

[Tubby Isaacs]

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Gove is one of those people you can assume I don't agree with.

Like Salmond, if you like. But much worse.

[ursus arctos]

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I find it genuinely hard to tell with you a lot of the time, so I'm glad to hear that.

Our experience here in New York has demonstrated that increasing the private provision of "legal aid" can be a valuable supplement but not an alternative to state-sponsored and private charitable efforts.

We have literally prevented people from being killed (both via execution and repatriation), which is the kind of thing that makes it easier to look oneself in the mirror every morning.

[Tubby Isaacs]

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That's good. I assume it was voluntary.

Gove seems to be suggesting something complusory, though it's hard to tell what he means. Beyond starting a straw man row with someone his mates can caricature.