Your voice counts

Is there anything more exciting than the countdown to election day? ‘Almost anything’, I hear you collectively cry in response.

Nevertheless, over the coming four weeks, the great British public will have to navigate a deluge of spin, hubris, hyperbole, mistruths, half-truths, and, dare I say it, outright lies from those wanting to govern the nation for the next five years.

We know our readers are intelligent individuals, fully capable of cutting through the electioneering to get to the heart of the big issues that affect them. We also know that you will be voting for many different reasons and not just because you are lawyers who care about the rule of law. Kevin Poulter has more to say on this here.

From an editorial standpoint, SJ will not be declaring support for one party over another. The SJ team is under no delusions of grandeur, and does not consider itself to be a mini-media mogul intent on becoming ‘king maker’ to subvert the result for its own vested interests. Instead, SJ will provide full and unbiased coverage of the election on those issues relevant to the legal profession.

Some of you have correctly noted a stronger editorial stance on several important justice issues, such as reform of legal aid and judicial review, but that will not colour our upcoming coverage. For example, here I consider Labour’s workplace manifesto and pledge to scrap the coalition’s reforms on judicial review. Look out for more of this in the weeks to come.

In addition, SJ has already given several practitioners the chance to explain how they will be voting on 7 May. Supporting Labour, Jonathan Black admitted that not all publicly funded legal aid lawyers were ‘lefties’, and neither were those in commercial firms naturally ‘right-wingers’, but nevertheless lawyers from across different practice areas were deeply offended by the government’s creeping denial of access to justice.

By contrast, Andrew Kidd argued that ‘fair-minded lawyers’ should vote for a Conservative government, repeating the Lord Chancellor’s mantra that the UK can no longer support the world’s most expensive legal aid system and that a repeal of the Human Rights Act was in the best interests of the British public.

Meanwhile, Graham Colley highlighted the remarkable number of successes the Liberal Democrats had achieved in introducing socially just measures as the junior partner in a coalition many expected would not last a full term. This was despite hostility from their Tory colleagues over certain justice issues. He also explained how the Lib Dems would continue to work towards their vision of a ‘stronger economy, fairer society, with opportunity for all’.

If the last five years have taught us anything, it is that the two-party system in British politics – a decades-old choice between the Tories and Labour – is broken. Smaller parties, once the butt of many a joke, now have an important role to play in our electoral system. If you are a lawyer who has chosen to back the Greens, Plaid Cymru, the SNP, or UKIP and want to tell your colleagues why, then contact us and we will give you a voice.

Finally, make sure you read our regular columnist Richard Barr, who gives us a glimpse into the 2020 general election and wonders whether Chris Grayling has really been all that bad for the legal profession.

John van der Luit-Drummond is deputy editor for Solicitors Journal