Charon QC…the blawg

Audio podcast: Charon Reports 6 - From the Cabinet War Rooms, London

I report, tonight, from The Cabinet War Rooms in London, last used during World War II by Churchill to direct Britain’s War effort against the tyranny of Nazi Germany. Tonight, these War Rooms serve a different purpose.   Tonight, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, Gordon Brown, has to face two facts - first that David Cameron’s Tories now lead in the polls with 52 % and, secondly, that FTSE has fallen well below the 5000 mark, closing at 4912. It is inconceivable that the crisis has ended…. there will be more banking failures to come, FTSE may well fall even further…. as Churchill would have said, if he was alive today,…. “This is Gordon’s Brown’s darkest hour.”

We have an unelected prime minister, surely in the death throes of his brief and all too lamentable tenure of the greatest office of state in the land.  Described by one of his own as the worst prime minister since Neville Chamberlain, Brown appears, a mix of Dithering Height and Lear, to be completely unaware of his duty to our nation.  If he was a Tory, it would be a trip to a metaphorical library where a glass of scotch and a loaded revolver would be laid out, tastefully, on a Chippendale side table.  Brown is unlikely to go voluntarily.  His mantra, oft repeated, that he is ‘getting on with the job”,  is just not good enough in these days of chaos, crisis and calamity.

I spent a few minutes on the internet reading political blogs.  I no longer trouble to read Nick Robinson of the BBC - a favourite of George Bush, because he doesn’t seem to know anything or get anything right in recent weeks.  The BBC appears to be spinning faster than a cheap washing machine from Comet on a spin cycle directed by Labour HQ.  Guido Fawkes talks of political and economic meltdown and his band of commenters, ranging from the profane to the proficient, provide a thermometer of opinion on the mood of the country.

Iain Dale of the eponymous Iain Dale’s Diary links to an interesting piece by Tim Montgomerie who has written a fascinating account of the dying days of IDS’s leadership, in which he draws parallels to the situation facing Gordon Brown and his inner team.

How long do we have to wait?  The Richard III of the Labour government, Jack Straw, is overseas telling foreign governments how to run a good justice system - ironic from the the Head of a Ministry of Justice of a government which has managed to do so much to erode civil liberties and make justice just that little bit more difficult to achieve over the past ten years - most recently facing a crisis where criminals may have to be released because barristers won’t work for the pittance being offered by the government.

David Milliband, who to my jaded eye seems to resemble the actor who plays Henry  VIII in the BBC production  The Tudors, has shot his bolt, arguably, and who is to say he would be any good anyway?  He was told to F**k off the other day by the Russian Foreign Minister and appears to have done so.

Well… there we are… this story has a long way to go… as Churchill may have said… this may not be the end for Gordon Brown but it may be the end of the beginning of the end.

This is Charon, reporting from the Cabinet War Rooms near the seat of government in London.

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Audio podcast: Charon Reports 6 - From the Cabinet War Rooms, London

Audio podcast: Charon Report 5 - Financial Meltdown?

I talk to you today from Lehman Brothers in New York. The 158 year old bank, once the fourth largest in The United States, has been put to the sword by Hank Paulson The US Treasury Secretary.  This was a case of the bank who liked to say ‘Yes’ to pretty well everything going - a bank whose  time on Wall Street ended when the US Government said ‘No’. This was a bank with a taste for sub-prime debt, a bank which, seemingly, failed to anticipate the US housing crash, whose complex mathematical models now stand as dust in a landscape strewn with bankers filing out of the building carrying their possessions, not in Louis Vuitton cases, but in austerity carboard boxes - perhaps a metaphor for what faces them as they complete with 25,000 others for jobs in a rapidly contracting banking sector.

Others far better qualified than me will bring you news of the reasons for this catastrophic failure of investment banking crushed on the wheel of the ultimate principle of capitalism:  “You can’t buck the market.”

I’m in New York  to improve my carbon footprint... it was just looking too good, too ‘Green’ and almost verging on idealogically pure.  My completely pointless trip over here, to report on something I could easily have done from a caff in Hoxton, is a metaphor for excess, to contrast the fortunes of a 158 year old US bank with the soaring fortune and fortunes of the greatest living Englishman, artist Damien Hirst, who has just flogged off two years of work for over £70 million quid; trousering most of that because Sotheby’s, perhaps bizarrely, waived their commission fee and Hirst decided not to line the pockets of rapacious art dealers and galleries as is the custom in the art world,  by selling to the people of the world direct.

It was Hirst’s attempt to ‘democratise the sale of his artwork…. a rather peculiar claim given the truly astonishing price tags flying around at the auction last night…. a pickled tiger shark, estimated at £6m, went under the hammer in a feeding frenzy of telephone bidding for £9m. While on the flight over here, drinking a bit of medium paced Rioja and inspired by a cartoon in The Independent, I knocked up an idea in Photoshop for an artwork as a ‘homage’ to the greatest living englishman….  a banker pickled in formaldehyde… I shall call it “Run Banker, Run Monday 15th September 2008″.  The only difficulties I foresee are finding a shed to build it and finding a banker willing to be pickled for posterity.

Legal news is still a bit thin on the ground - although it is only two weeks to go before the start of the legal year and it is all change for the judiciary.  The big question is… will they be parading for their annual walk in public in the robes and full wigs of a bygone era or will they be sporting their new Star Trek style robes sans wigs, so capably modelled by the Lord Chief Justice earlier in the year? We shall see…. I may have to make a phonecall to the Ministry of Justice to see if Jack “The Lad” Chancellor can shed any light on the matter.

This is Charon, reporting from New York.

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Audio podcast: Charon Report 5 - Financial Meltdown?

Audio Podcast: Charon Reports 4 - The Great British Airlift 2008.

Here I am in the cabin of an XL airliner on the Costa del Sol, favourite holiday destination for thousands of British holiday makers. As you can see, the cabin of the aircraft is empty.  It is empty because the aircraft has been grounded - the airline company has gone tits up.

Earlier I spoke to one family from Southend-on-Sea who told me that they had saved up their dole money for six months to come out here and now they can’t get home because the government lost their data and the giro hasn’t arrived in their bank account.  One family I also spoke to, whose children were sitting on the floor crying, told me that “it was a bloody disgrace that Gordon Brown had failed to support the airline company” and that they would be voting BNP at the next election.

The airport terminal looks more like a United Nations refugee camp full to the gunnels with disconsolate and very angry Brits, some of whom have been binge drinking for hours on cheap lager and sangria.  A group of Millwall FC supporters on a sponsored hooliganising weekend told me that they will riot in the streets of Benidorm if the British government doesn’t act immediately to get them back to ‘Blighty’.

Frankly, with a good percentage of these stranded tourists, the country would benefit considerably if the Spanish authorities could be persuaded to intern them, but that, for the present, seems unlikely.  I have just heard through the earpiece that our American friends have five very large aircraft at the airport now under the command of the CIA  and that the US Government is quite happy to fly stranded Brits to a secret destination in Europe for further questioning as the CIA has just discovered that Taleban are a bit thin on the ground in Benidorm. David Milliband, the Foreign Secretary, is considering the implications behind this offer and is expected to make a statement, live on television, shortly.

It seems that this crisis is on a scale not seen since Dunkirk, except this time it will be an armada of aircraft operated by airlines which have not been closed down by the banks instead of small ships.    Fortunately I was not so daft as to actually holiday out here and will be on board one of the CIA aircraft fairly soon in what President Bush is now calling “Operation Brit Bailout Part III” in what is believed to be a reference to the occasions twice, in the last century, when the Yanks had to bail the Brits out during World War I and World War II.

This is Charon, reporting from Benidorm.

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Audio Podcast: Charon Reports 4 - The Great British Airlift 2008.

Audio podcast: Charon Reports 3 - A good week for lawyers?…

At 8.30 this morning I happened to be writing at my desk on the lower deck of the boat. I looked out of the window and saw that The Thames was still where it should have been.  The scientists at CERN had switched the Large Hadron Collider on and, it would seem,  the planet had not been eaten and estate agents still run around in those irritating Minis decorated in horse racing colours.

I speak, as ever, from Chancery Lane in London to ask and answer the question “Has it been a good week for lawyers?” Pleasingly, for otherwise I would have little to report on after an unbroken spell of “Yes” answers… the answer is “NO”.

First we had an announcement, reported in Legal Week, that lawyers have not been invited to give advice to Mayor Boris, and then…  the information that England has quite enough lawyers and that lawyers have missed out on a place on the recommended list of shortage occupations presented to the Home Office yesterday by a Migration Advisory Committee.

Apparently there is, however, a chronic shortage of sheep shearers in Britain and they are on this list - so if there are any sheep shearers out there who want to be lawyers ultimately, or lawyers thinking of re-qualifying as a sheep shearer - there may be opportunities for you.  Get on with your application if you want to come to Britain. Come over, shear a few sheep for a while and wait for the upturn when you’ll be well placed to take advantage of the short term thinking of law firms who work on the principle of sack everyone apart from ‘core partners’ during bad times and then scrabble like buggery to hire suitably qualified people when the good times roll again.

Obviously, this migration issue only applies to overseas non EU lawyers.  For those of you who are EU or UK lawyers - there are, at least, opportunities in sheep shearing.  I don’t think that BPP Law School or The College of Law have any plans to start running sheep shearing courses - but keep Googling just in case.

So… back to Boris.  Boris doesn’t seem to want lawyers to advise him.  Legal Week covered this story and I quote from their report: “Vincent Keavney, a securitisation partner at Baker & McKenzie, commented: “It is disappointing given the importance of the legal industry to the City not to have an active solicitor on the board. The profession is a huge exporter in national terms and for London in particular and I do not think that can be ignored.”

Unfortunately, Mr Kearney… I’ve got bad news…. Boris has ignored it.   In the same vein, with a hint of waspishness to my ear, we have Nayeem Syed, general counsel of entertainment company Eros International, claiming that the traditional advisory role of a lawyer made them ideal candidates for such groups.

“It is very important in these kind of ventures to have a diverse range of opinions,” he said. “Lawyers are known advisers and can bring the ability to be concise and to be able to understand, analyse and give real advice.”

The trouble is, I suspect, and not wishing to be a bearer of bad tidings, but there aren’t that many lawyers who know their arse from their elbow when it comes to wider issues in London…. largely because lawyers seem to spend a disproportionate part of their lives working rather than living life in London so are probably singularly well qualified to be the least qualified people in London to actually give advice of a cultural, literary or imaginative nature on London.  Maybe Boris is saying what should have been said years ago by politicians…. life isn’t all about regulation and drafting rules, regulations, contracts and getting people out of difficulty. People don’t want lawyers hanging around at non-law meetings, their monstrous egos waiting for a moment to drain half an hour from the lives of those present. Live with it… or get out more.

So there we are… just a quick report today from Chancery lane.  I’m off to sort out my work - life balance with a glass of wine.

This is Charon, reporting from a non too vibrant Chancery Lane.

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Audio podcast: Charon Reports 3 - A good week for lawyers?…

Audio podcast: Charon Reports - Credit-crunch bites lawyers

I report from a helicopter, returning to The Boat, after interviewing one of legal education’s eccentrics, Dr Strangelove , Director of Training at Muttley Dastardly LLP.

Earlier, I walked down Fleet Street at the head of a small band of very tired barristers (many of whom had not been paid by the law firms which had instructed them in the previous two months of conflict). The wine at lunchtime from various local watering holes had inflamed them. It was not 1381. There was no Watt Tyler… and these people were not peasants in revolt. They were Barristers who had been joined by associates at City law firms worried about their futures. Angry?… yes…and looking for answers.

I did not intend to get caught up in this melee. I just happened to find myself in Fleet Street after interviewing Dr Strangelove about the CERN plan to discover the secrets of the universe.

They were not all young men and women in Fleet Street this afternoon. Some were silks, newly elevated - the realisation that Silk did not always bring immediate financial reward, troubling them

We walked down past The RCJ - unusually quiet - just a few news crews from Channel Z who were behind the curve and who did not appreciate that the legal year had still to start in earnest.

The lawyers were battered by reports in the press that the legal profession was beginning, in some sectors, despite the astonishing revenues of top City law firms, to feel the pinch. I interviewed some of these members of the profession as we walked past Hammicks and down past the Lloyds Law Courts branch where so many legal overdrafts are kept. Their spirit had gone…they were exhausted… but..I understood. Some of them had even cancelled holidays in Tuscany, others shelving plans to buy property in France. Their dreams had been broken by the government crusade against legal aid fees and on the crucible of Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and the greed and incompetence of bankers who could not resists exposure in sub-prime debt.

I watched as one barrister - he cannot have been more than 45 - collapsed on the pavement. I gave him some Rioja from my water bottle. He told me that he would probably not receive any instructions until the new year..  I did my best for him, but in the end, as in life, I had to move on.

It may well be that the large firms, as Joshua Rozenburg, who appears to be doing pieces for The Evening Standard now,  suggests… will grow bigger, while other, smaller firms, will perish in the dry dust of recession.   Who knows?… time will tell.  The first Monday in October is not far away and soon… our judges will be wearing their new Star Trek inspired robes, the barristers will continue to dress as they did in the Eighteenth Century, complete with horsehair wigs… and the legal year will begin.

This is Charon, reporting from Chancery Lane.

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Audio podcast: Charon Reports - Credit-crunch bites lawyers