Bugle 235 – The long arm of the lorry

This is a podcast from thebuglepodcast.com.

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, Buglers, and welcome to issue 235 of the world's leading and only audio newspaper for a visual world.

A single shaft of hope in a universe of unremitting darkness.

That's a lovely review we got this week from Potato Processing International magazine.

For the week beginning Monday, the 20th of May 1013.

This week we'll be discussing what type of dung makes the most comfortable bed, living into double figures, the pros and cons, and how to make plague fun.

Oh shit, I've got the wrong millennium.

Sorry.

Monday the 20th of May 2013 with me Andy Zoltzman here in London and in the city that never sleeps which might explain why it's so irritable a lot of the time and has so many coffee shops.

New York is the Zelezny of Zingers, hurling his javelin of joviality right up the middle of Satire Stadium.

It's John, the melting aubergine, Oliver.

Hello, Andy.

Hello, Buglers.

And Andy, I speak to you from a country that is just coming down from a very intense bout of Prince Harry fever.

And look.

I know that Harry has been a controversial figure in the past, what with the naked pictures and the Nazi pictures.

And let's not gloss over that last one because let's remember that he did actually dress like a Nazi that one time.

But on this trip, to be fair to the lad Andy, he was Prince Charming personified, helping wounded warriors, hitting baseballs charmingly well, and touring a landmine exhibition to the screams of girls outside.

That's how attractive he's become, Andy.

He now has the capacity to make women horny at a landmine exhibit.

Journalists here breathlessly ran around after him, disgracing their profession, frantically asking questions to anyone he met along the lines of, Oh, what does he smell like?

What?

How's his handshake?

I bet it's firm at first, but with a hint of tenderness and intimacy.

Would you say shaking hands with him was like shaking hands with a shaved bear, you know, strong but soft, like it could kill you, but it won't.

Instead, it's going to use its strength to protect you.

Would you say that?

And if so, can you please say it on the record, please?

One of the final events he took part in before he left the Americas, Andy, was a polo match in greenwich to benefit lesotho aids orphans that's got to be the first time polo match in greenwich and lesotho aids orphans have ever been used in the same sentence and i frankly can't wait for his next visit andy when he takes part in dan tuckets dressage for ringworm

were you were you playing in that polo match john i wasn't andy but you know mentally i was there hitting every ball if they call it a ball what do they call it a rock i don't know a peasant what do they call it

did begin as hitting peasants heads around i think didn't it with uh yeah that's right with a pike yeah did you so you didn't hang out with the prince uh i didn't you know i waited i left my phone on you know real

waiting for the call but it didn't come real royalty and showbiz royalty um that's right well uh i sounds like i've had a bit more of a celebrity packed week than you this week john because uh well what a week i've had i was uh visited by the ghost of margaret thatcher really yeah i mean i think she just wanted someone to talk to and uh she actually said that she wasn't that into haunting people.

She said I did enough of that in my lifetime.

Laughed the right-wing apparition.

Are you not tempted to snatch some more milk off people's porches?

Leave it out, mush, I'm not a fking poltergeist, barked the former Education Minister.

So, I said, struggling for small talk with the eerie figure before me.

Uh

what's it like being dead?

Sorry, she said, casually picking some non-existent dirt from under her now non-existent fingernails.

Not a lot to do, and the food is shit, she whinged.

So, uh I responded, what have you been up to since the uh big uh big funeral?

Oh, mostly catching up on some Zs, she gossiped, alarmingly conversationally.

Never slept much when I was alive.

Bon Jovi has always been a big influence on Margaret Thatcher, she said ghostily, revelling in the freedom of death to refer to herself in the third person, like the heavyweight boxer she'd always dreamed of being.

My political outlook might have been shaped by the likes of Salma Hayek and Kinky Friedman, but my sleeping patterns were all jovy.

And your and your attitude to the welfare state?

I asked.

What, living on a prayer?

Yep, to be honest, JBJ did filter into the odd policy here and there.

Bad medicine was basically the blueprint for the NHS from 1984 onwards.

But it only came out in 1988, I said.

Yeah, he sat on it for a bit.

He wanted to see how the 87 election panned out before going global with it.

There was an awkward pause.

The ghost of Margaret Thatcher looked at me searchingly.

What do you want?

I asked.

Why are you here?

Is it because you see me as a failure?

Everything about my education says I should have been a lifelong acolyte of yours, and yet there I was a couple of weeks ago making some half-assed gag about how you meant to say a unicorn, not society, in your classic there's no such thing as gag.

Is that why you've come to haunt my knights, O fearful dead former Prime Minister?

No, she said, belching quietly to herself.

Old habits die hard.

Then why?

I begged.

Is it because you're haunting Britain, household by household, trying to scare people out of thinking that the legacy you left behind was one of division, selfishness, and a harsh individualism that has spawned a nation drawn into itself and aware of the price of everything but the value of nothing?

No, she said, but now you're mentioning that is a good idea for filling up my now extremely empty diary for the next couple of decades.

Why then?

I pleaded with the Wraith-like Tory.

Why?

Because I saw your piece on the snooker and I think you're a

Andy.

Well I don't know what that was but I enjoyed it very much.

So this is Bugle 235, not only the squad numbers of Henry VIII's wives who died.

Two and five picked up career-ending neck injuries, three popped their own clogs, one and five were benched, and six played on after the boss left the club.

But 235 is also, ironically, the answers to the questions in episode 235 of the popular 1950s quiz show Mickey Mango's Half Hour Half Wits.

And the questions were: what is the name of the thing in his mouth that President Eisenhower uses for chewing food?

What is the English word for reef?

And where would I live if I was a bee?

And the answer's tooth, reef, hive.

235.

But the contestant actually went with CIA, Roof, and Mexico.

So there there you go.

And this is

the week beginning Monday.

That's what I've been.

I've had a busy few weeks.

I think it's just all come spilling out now.

It's 79 years and two months on Monday since Bernie, little Bertie Einstein publishes Theory of Relativity.

And it's 98 years and two months since he gave the first draft to the publishers, which began, Eight bananas is a lot of bananas if you're eating them all at once yourself.

But eight bananas is not a lot of bananas if you're going to try and run a banana import-export business.

The publisher said, it's never going to sell, but physics is what the punters want these days.

Really complicated physics.

Einstein said, You said you just wanted me to write what I want to write and you'd find a way of marketing it.

Welcome to the industry, schmuck face.

Now grow your hair out, get some funny glasses, and get physics all.

Can you bang my secretary on the way out, please?

They can't be asked to do it today.

So Einstein locked himself in the laboratory for a year and boom, changed the face of science.

Funny old world.

Also,

138 years since the signing of the metre convention in Paris, which brought in the international system of units.

Stuff like the metre, the centimetre, the millimetre, later the kilogram, and some of the all-time great measurements.

And these replace the various units that have previously been used around the world by different cultures and different countries.

Measurements of length, such as the mile, the inch, the fingernail, the nut grot, the scoop, the grizzly shoe and the penis.

Weight measurements such as the hundred weight, the pound, the ounce, the rat, the dead rat, the decomposed rat, the rat skeleton, the healthy stool and the whap.

And time measurements such as the tears, the tit, the jiffy, the yawn, the grandmother, the wobble, the punch, the slow lingering death and the erection.

And that last one is why women's clothes actually became so much less revealing

during the 19th century from the cleavage heaving corsetry of the 18th century to the neck-clinging Queen Victoria-style prudity of the late 19th century.

It was all down to this time measurement, the erection.

It was so their men folk would get extra time off work after the old Industrial Revolution kicked in, prompting the development of a factory-based workforce and unions to represent them.

Now, union pressure led to factory bosses eventually conceding that all workers were entitled to a bit more time off work, so they gave them a two-erection break a day, which in the notoriously fleshy 1700s would have been 10 minutes max, but in comes 19th-century fashion, and that two stiffy break suddenly stretches out to a whole afternoon until Florence Nightingale brings in the nurse's uniform.

Oh, yeah,

Andy, what?

We haven't even technically started the bugle yet.

Oh, yeah.

You've already buried both of us under an avalanche of bullshit.

I haven't even got to the section in the bin, but yet.

Oh, my God.

This week's section in the bin

is a free compliment from the bugle for you to use at any point in the week when you feel you need a bit of a lift.

Do choose from, you look so much better than normal.

That new perfume of yours really brings out your eyes.

Your rash is looking so much better.

Yeah, no, I do really think so.

It's just much more symmetrical now it's on your whole face.

And you're so much nicer than that dickhead husband and or wife of yours delete as appropriate.

That's free compliments.

On us in the pin.

Top story this week, Pakistan election update.

And this has been a dramatic few weeks for Pakistan.

Their recent election marked the country's first successful transition from one civilian government to another in its 66-year history.

To put it mildly, Pakistan has had real trouble in the past with passing the relay baton of government effectively without either dropping it or having it shot out of their hands.

Historically, democratically elected Pakistani governments have tended to end in some form of military coup and or government collapse, essentially for decades now.

Politics in Pakistan has been a series of military regimes with a sprinkling of occasional democratically elected governments giving that delicate, barely perceptible fragrance of democracy.

Even when there were governments, they were largely run by one of two parties.

Not that that makes them particularly different to the United States or Britain, the Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party and the Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League.

So even when there were democratically elected governments, they tended to be from parties run by family dynasties, which means even their democracy had more than a faint whiff of monarchy about it.

Though, again, as a side note, America is in no position to criticize them, giving the regularities of the name Bush, Clinton and Kennedys over the years coming up during presidential elections.

But in the past, essentially, as a Pakistani voter, your choice has essentially been military dictatorship, which is not a choice at all, or opting between two very profitable family businesses.

It's basically like going to a restaurant and having the waiter say, let me run you through the menu.

Would you like the shit pie or the T-bone shit, or would you like me to just punch you in the face and throw you out the back of the kitchen instead?

I'll give you a minute to decide.

Which is very different from our choice that we get.

Of course.

It's like going into a restaurant and being given a menu and having the complete freedom to choose between a rat's testicle, a bucket of sick, and a chicken nugget, which is basically the former dipped in the latter.

What made this election special was that on its surface it promised to be different.

There was a new electoral roll after the list of those eligible to vote was completely overhauled in Pakistan.

Since the last election, 37 million bogus names were removed.

Names like Fatima P faky name, Zahira Don't Let Me Vote, Hassan Bogusman, Naveed Do Not Exist and Farouk Peter Beardsley.

I can say how they didn't pick some of those up.

At least Andy.

I mean it was right there.

The point is 36 million names in place

were then added.

37 actual authentic names, meaning there are now 85 million verified voters in Pakistan.

Also, there was hope that technology might be helping electoral accountability as Pakistanis use their mobile phones to film electoral abuses.

In a recent by-election, apparently, one politician was filmed slapping the election officials counting the vote.

And the footage went viral, being played across news channels and prompting calls for the politician to be banned from holding office.

Although, let's be fair, Andy, let's not rush in judgment here.

We don't have any context.

For that video, perhaps the politician was slapping the official counting the vote because he thought they looked sleepy and was saying to them, wake up!

Wake up!

It's very important that you count this vote accurately, regardless of how the result may affect me.

Wake the f up!

I do not want to accidentally gain an unfair advantage through your mistakes.

That is why I'm beating you now.

That is why.

That is why you're being beaten.

Do you understand me?

Wake up!

We don't know.

That's all I'm gonna say.

We don't know.

We don't know, but it was the highest turnout since Pakistan's first election in 1970, around about 60%, which is quite impressive.

Wow.

And that's roughly what,

I guess, not too far away from what Britain and America get.

And we have the added advantage of not having the Taliban threatening to kill us for walking to a polling station.

Well, that is a fair point, actually.

I think the US managed 61.8%

turnout at their last election, but they were not, as you mentioned, being shot at on the way to the polls.

So it takes, you know, people risk their lives to cast their votes.

Whereas, I mean, we'll have to make sacrifices for democracy.

In Britain, you know, some people just

can't find a way to make sacrifices, such as walking five minutes out of their way to cast a vote.

But I guess we all have to suffer for our freedoms.

And there's added risks as well.

You know, if some drone operator in Texas spills his coffee on his keyboard and accidentally presses the kaboom button whilst cleaning it off, that's an added factor that might dissuade you from going to the polling station.

That's true.

That's true.

The official pre-election monitoring actually came in for some significant criticism despite the hope that things would change with the Election Commission of Pakistan seemed to sleep on its job of oversight heavier than a security guard after snacking on an entire turkey with codeine stuffing and washing it down with a warm glass of Nyquil.

In the run-up to the election, instead of dealing with issues of corruption, loan defaults and fraud, the Election Commission seemed to employ a bizarre line of questioning such as asking candidates to recite verses from the Quran and questioning other aspects of their faith.

And that does seem, Andy, like a slightly less important line of questioning regarding

the problems that Pakistan is facing at the moment, questioning their religious beliefs, rather than questions like,

where did you get all that money that is almost cartoonishly bulging out of your pockets?

Apparently they suddenly began to enforce a couple of basically forgotten articles in the Pakistani constitution, Articles 62 and 63, which require that only pious and law-abiding Muslims can hold office.

So all of a sudden, authorities were forcing candidates to prove their Islamic credentials to the point of even having them answer Islamic history trivia questions on television.

And that is less democracy, Andy, and more some kind of bizarre Islamic game show of electoral jeopardy.

I'll take the Prophet Muhammad category, please, Alex.

Okay, and what would you like to gamble on this question?

Well, I'd like to gamble my future electability in its entirety, please.

Okay, lights down, please.

I am a cave in the mountain mountain Jabal al-Nur, where Muhammad received his first revelation.

What H

am I?

What?

H?

Am I?

Oh.

Oh.

Oh, oh, God.

I know this, Alex.

I know that's why I'm not annoyed with myself.

I know this.

It's there.

It's right.

It's in my mouth.

I just need to get it out of my mouth into your ears.

Oh, shit.

I'd like to announce my withdrawal from the race, please, Alex.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

Oh, it's so much easier at home.

Although, to be completely fair to the Commission, Andy, there were some other non-religious based questions that actually proved quite effective.

Some to just ascertain general intelligence after it emerged that a ridiculously large number of college degrees held by Pakistani politicians in the last parliament were completely faked.

On one Pakistani news channel

what's wrong with Annie's when it's faked to this extent?

On one Pakistani news channel, there was even a clip of a candidate who claimed to hold an MBA being asked just to spell the word economics, something he failed to do completely.

That is a spectacular way to crash out of a race.

Just spell the name of the degree that you claim to have.

That's all.

Just spell the name of the subject.

Just spell it.

Just spell the subject that is printed on the degree that you definitely have and no more questions asked.

Okay.

E

K shit!

Well, I just, you know,

it's much more important with economics to concentrate on the big picture rather than, you know, just your passing ephemera, like how you spell economics.

That's true.

I suppose in a way, Pakistan, all they're developing is gotcha journalism of the worst kind now.

One of the main figures in the election campaign was Imran Khan, who leads his Movement for Justice party.

One of the greatest cricketers in the history of humanity's greatest creation, cricket.

And if you Americans can't accept that, then

that is your loss and your fault.

But he ended up the election campaign in hospital with a fractured skull and vertebra, which you might not think is that unusual in the violent world of Pakistan politics where assassinations are commonplace and corruption is ludicrously rife.

But he fractured his skull and vertebra falling off a tiny platform being lifted up by a forklift truck to get him on stage.

15 feet up with absolutely no railings and four people balanced on it like clowns.

That's right.

That's right.

Not the most obvious way to get on stage, even if you were probably the finest fast bowler in the world during a big chunk of the 1980s.

That did not help him at that moment.

Gravity very much took over.

Yeah, the video is absolutely horrifying.

He sent up in the middle of a frantic crowd on,

like you say, a hydraulic lift onto which a ludicrous number of people are balancing, all of whom then fall.

He was apparently doing up to seven of these mass rallies a day until the inevitable incident.

And then he continued to release videos from his hospital bed saying, and I quote, God will not take me from this world until a new Pakistan is built.

Going on to say, oh, f, my back hurts.

Oh, I mean it really hurts did you see that fall what was I thinking seriously my back is killing me if you don't know Imran Khan he was

if you know if you if you're not aware of him he's about as handsome as you can possibly be without just instantly turning into a marble statue or becoming a walking men's fragrance billboard and

he was

he was the most exciting of the choices, really.

He headed up the Pakistan Movement for Justice Party.

He was very popular with young people and first-time voters.

And he was going up against the more established candidates.

First, there was President Zadari's Pakistan People's Party, the PPP.

It did very well in the last election in 2008 after its leader, Benazir Bhutto, was assassinated.

This led to many political strategists around the world looking into the possibility of these sympathy-based elections, running a candidate solely in the hope that they'll be assassinated and being handed the election in sympathy.

Perhaps that's what the Republicans were trying with Mitt Romney.

Andy, we don't know.

Or what McCain was trying to do with Palin.

Run someone who a large amount of people might want to murder and then serve the wave of sympathy that followed.

The other

main rival was the opposition party, Pakistan Muslim League of ex-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who was favourite to win.

And unfortunately, in the run-up to the election,

As you mentioned, on the election day itself,

Pakistan was plagued with violence.

More than 100 people were killed in the run-up.

24 people were killed on the actual election day as al-Qaeda and Taliban militants targeted leaders and workers from all parties, seen as being not Islamic enough, which, in their view, basically includes any politician who hasn't literally run a campaign commercial of them beating their wife for wearing perfume.

But like I say, despite everything,

Pakistan managed a decent turnout, although the PPP, the MQM and the ANP all claimed that they were unable to campaign normally as a result and argued that the failure of law enforcement agencies to ensure security as

a case of pre-election vote rigging.

But look, Andy,

all of this is just background that we've gone through.

Now, the key question here is not what happened in Pakistan.

It's not, you know, what's the best way forward for Pakistan in the future.

It's not...

what's happened in Pakistan in the past to lead it to this point.

It's not how do they cope with militants.

Clearly, the most important question is, what does America want the result of this election to be, Andy?

And to know that, we need to reduce this vastly complicated situation into who are the goodies and who are the baddies.

Anything more detailed than that, Andy, just isn't going to fly.

So, independent observers argued before the election that a strong government led by Nawaz Sharif could be a major concern.

for NATO forces fighting Taliban militants in Afghanistan.

Sharif is close to right-wing religious forces in Pakistan who oppose US policy and he has an uneasy relationship with the Pakistani military which unseated him in a coup back in 1999.

So that's the concern Andy that Nawaz Sharif would win.

Who won?

Drum roll.

Nawaz Sharif won Andy!

Sharif, he is now the most successful politician in Pakistan's short and explosive history.

This is a politician who can take a punch, Andy.

He's come back from multiple corruption allegations, imprisonment, exile and a military coup.

That is some tenacious election hearing from the young Sharif.

A big political chin on him.

He was removed from power back in 99 to the relief of much of the country, which viewed him as corrupt, incompetent and power-hungry.

But now he's changed, Andy.

He's changed.

He's different this time.

Like an abused wife, Pakistan is taking aback as her friends stand around thinking, what do you see in him?

And then stand by to pick pick up the pieces yet again.

It was a disastrous election for the ruling PPP who took an absolute welking at the polls where they were battered like a suicidal squid in a tempura restaurant.

And now what are the challenges facing Nawaz Sharif as he retakes power for his third stint as Prime Minister?

A columnist in the prominent Dawn newspaper said that what Nawaz Sharif has to address is the faltering economy, a near-complete breakdown of the infrastructure characterized by power outages and fuel shortages, unemployment and terrorist violence.

So there's a nice little intro for starting a new job, something to be getting on with, something to pass on to your secretary for filing.

My favourite quote from the election, Andy, came from a Pakistan voter interviewed by BBC Pakistan's producer.

This was a PPP supporter in Islamabad who said, Every party in Pakistan is bad, but the People's Party is a little bit good.

It's worked hard for Pakistan.

And that is, but I mean, that is some realism in someone Andy.

That is not reaching too high.

Everyone's bad but they are a little bit good.

They're a cherry on the top of this shit Sunday.

I think that might be the Liberal Democrats campaign slogan in the next general election here.

UK legal aid reform news now and well for a start even that title is slightly misleading Andy because legal aid in Britain is currently undergoing the kind of reform that a cow cow gets when it is reformed into a low-grade beef burger or

the kind of reform that a Spanish donkey experiences when it's thrown from a clock tower.

This is going to seem quite inside baseball this story, but the

wider implications to this are worth sticking with because they are f ⁇ ing amazing.

The government in Britain is currently introducing price competitive tendering, which is a nauseating term for an even more nauseating process.

It basically cuts the balls from legal aid and replaces them with two child slinkies, which, sure, yes, they're technically a replacement, Andy, but they're not going to do any of the vital things that balls actually do.

And this, like I say, this story is a little bit complicated, but it's worth sticking with, because when you finally get to the bottom of this, you realise that you are standing in an absolute whirlpool of shit.

Yeah, so price competitive tendering, I think, is political speak for flogging shit off and hoping things don't go more tits up than an acquisitive ornithologist in a hot air balloon.

And

what's happened is, as we mentioned last week, there's a prominent haulage firm,

a lorry firm in this country called Eddie Stobart, and a subsidiary of Eddie Stobart, Stobart Lawyers, has emerged as a leading contender in the bidding for this new generation of criminal legal aid contracts that would

basically deprive defendants of the right to choose their own solicitor.

Stobart Solicitors is the name, which is the very name conjures up glorious images of lorry drivers doubling up as criminal lawyers, turning up at court with a copy of the Sunday newspaper under their arm, saying to their client, mate, your picture's in the paper, you're clearly guilty.

But it's not quite like that.

Stobart's

the solicitors bit probably not that closely linked to the Hawlidge firm, you hope, although you just never know these days, in these days of privatisation of public services.

And part of these proposals is to remove the right of defendants funded by legal aid to select their own solicitor.

So best of that with that, Crims.

Sorry, defendants, that is one of the problems with the whole issue.

It's such a grey area.

Maybe the government is just trying to clear it up by lumping them all together under the no smoke without fire clause of the Magna Carta.

Paul Harris, the president of the London Criminal Court Solicitors Association, warned that the quality of legal representation would inevitably decline.

How is anyone facing serious criminal allegations going to feel being represented by a haulage company?

He asked.

Well, they're probably thinking it might be quite handy for an escape bid, I would imagine.

And also, you know, they'll save money.

They'll be able to drive all the illegal immigrants straight to the courtroom and just scrape them off the bottom of the lorry.

The thing is, that is a key question.

How is anyone facing serious criminal allegations going to feel being represented by a haulage company?

They're going to feel, Andy, like an object with no value outside of a transaction.

And that's exactly how they're supposed to feel under these plans.

Under these plans, you are not a citizen with rights anymore.

You're basically legal freight.

Just be moved around with a pound sign next to your face.

The Labour Party's justice spokesman, Sadiq Khan, told the Law Society Gazette, no one wants a second-rate system where you're forced to accept whatever representation you're given, regardless of quality.

And that is clearly an outright lie, John.

Some people clearly do want that, and those people include the government of this country.

Now, we received this email from bugler Alastair King, who's a solicitor in Leighton Buzzard, the English town not far from Bedford, where you grew up when you were still English, John.

And which gets its silly name, I think, from the third baseman in the 1955 World Series winning Brooklyn Dodgers team.

Leighton Buzzard, of course, went on to have a successful career with other baseball franchises, including the Nashville Weirdos, the Tulsa Convulsors, the New York Forks, the El Paso Passovers, the short-lived Jewish baseball franchise, the Charlotte Bronte Sauruses, and that was never going to work out, having a franchise owned and run by someone obsessed by both paleontology and 19th century literature.

And also concluded his career with these Sacramento fascists.

Sorry, where was I?

Oh, yeah, Alistair King's email from this

solicitor, British solicitor, who

wrote to us on this subject.

I'm a solicitor, he says, who provides such services, so I cannot, as such, claim to be neutral or lacking in any self-interest.

In fact, I always go so far as to say that the thought of losing my job and the same happening to over two-thirds of my colleagues excites a fair amount of self-interest.

So, obviously, as he said himself, there's only one side of the the issue.

So I've asked the government to send a minister from the Ministry of Justice onto the Bugle this week to explain their reforms from their side of the fence.

Unfortunately, I asked them that while I was sitting alone in my shed, so they didn't hear or respond.

So instead, I've guessed how the government would respond to Alistair's comments.

So he writes, the scheme proposed by the government is called Price Competitive Tendering.

Now, to me,

As a government minister, this sounds promising, John.

Price competitive tendering sounds like a recipe for some quality cost savings.

It's so complicated to judge tenders on things like quality and long-term sustainability and overall benefit for society.

Judging it on price just simplifies everything down beautifully.

This is the 21st century, Alistair.

We're in tough economic times and we have to take tough economic decisions.

And we have to ask, what do the disabled actually do?

How much GDP do they give to this nation?

Was Shakespeare disabled?

Was Churchill disabled?

Was Isaac Newton disabled?

Sure, his hair might have smelt of apples, but other than that, he was fine.

And if they have to travel further, it might encourage them to be a bit less disabled in future.

There are various other points on

this.

But basically he concludes, we are at real risk of destroying a legal system that, although not perfect, is the envy of the world and the model for many.

And

it is a bit of a concern, John, for a country which promotes its love of freedom and democracy and human rights so trumpetously that this is basically been lined up against the wall and shot at point blank range.

A few additional points were suggested to me by this hot chick who used to be a criminal barrister who I sleep with very occasionally.

Don't tell the wife.

Oh no actually she is my wife.

She said it's a staggering conflict of interest but basically become unworkably expensive to allow your client to pursue a trial so clients will be pressurized to plead guilty in order to save money.

It's almost incomprehensibly idiotic, this scheme.

And the problem is that everyone hates lawyers basically so it's kind of an easy target for government cuts and lawyers are all lumped together, the ones who represent the poor and destitute in their hours of greatest need and darkness.

Lumped together are the ones who represent multi-billion pound corporations with a severe allergy to tax.

All bloody lawyers making a killing.

It's all pretty depressing, John.

Makes you think, what the f ⁇ is this country all about?

The measures have been introduced by MP Chris Grayling.

And you can't say the words Chris Grayling, Andy, without saying the words.

Not because the letters are the same, just because it's an innate human response to the concept of the man.

And

these measures were contained in a document quietly released on the day of Margaret Thatcher's death and do not require a vote in Parliament, which is such a shady way of putting them in, Andy, that if he had any integrity grayling, he'd have done it wearing a cape and twirling a handlebar moustache.

Basically, the British government is looking for a way to reduce the £2 billion that is spent on legal aid, ideally by a couple of hundred million pounds.

And to do this, the plan is to introduce factory justice of the flimsiest kind.

Essentially, as you mentioned, any defendant who cannot afford to pay for lawyers will no longer be able to choose a legal aid provider, they will be forcibly assigned one.

And these legal experts will then be paid a single flat fee for the case, regardless of how well they perform in it, how long the case takes, or whether or not the client pleads guilty.

Which seems at first, second, and 99th glance to offer a clear financial incentive to the lawyer to have their client plead guilty.

These new factory firms, Andy will apply for new legal aid contracts and and qualifying bids must be at least 17.5% beneath the current rate.

So from there in general contracts will go to those who offer to do the work for the lowest price which I'm sure the lowest price has always offered the highest surface at service Andy.

We know that.

They're not just going to be cutting corners on this.

They're going to be psychotically attacking corners with a f ⁇ ing chainsaw.

And

in order to guarantee winning firms receive a sufficient number of cases per year, the Ministry of Justice in Britain is proposing to remove the right of defendants to select their own solicitor.

In other words, even if you think the lawyer that you've been assigned is terrible, you can't fire them, you're just stuck with them.

And if that isn't bad enough, which it comfortably is, Adley, it's bad enough by a long shot, then firms apparently aren't going to know whether they've won these contracts until June of next year, giving them a massive three months in which to recruit staff and prepare to start work in September 2014.

You do not want to have committed a crime by September 2014, Andy.

Or even worse, be accused of committing a crime that you did not commit.

Bad timing on your part, that would be.

And as you say, Andy, lawyers are not the most sympathetic characters, which is how you know that these suggestions are truly horrifying.

Because if a story is making you feel bad for lawyers, that story must be pretty astonishingly f ⁇ ing bleak.

Michael Turner, QC, the chair of the Criminal Bar Association, said that the criminal bar will become the preserve of rich white males.

Corporate firms will move in and barristers will eventually work in-house.

The independent-minded judiciary will disappear as a corporate ethos takes over.

To which the government's response was, Oh, well, this all seems to be going exactly according to plan.

And how much is this going to save the government, John, all these

cutbacks to our great legal tradition?

£220 million a year, which will pay for the upkeep of our Trident nuclear bang Bank programme for one month.

So that's worth every single penny.

Well, as you mentioned, the firms involved are even more worrying.

It does seem like this Haulage firm, this f ⁇ ing Haulage firm,

is likely to win a significant bid.

A haulage firm.

You're literally going to be treated like a crate that needs to be moved.

What more confidence can you have in your lawyer than knowing that they come from a haulage firm?

A haulage firm, Andy.

It's a haulage firm.

It's a successful haulage firm, John.

I'm sure there's transferable skills.

They've been putting things in boxes and putting them in the back of a lorry and

putting defendants in boxes and putting them in the back of a prison.

If you look at it that way, it isn't.

If you look at it a different way, it definitely is.

This haulage firm of complaints, they've been getting emails from angry lawyers telling them to truck off.

And I wonder if

those were followed up by other messages essentially saying, seriously, go truck yourselves, you trucking, shameless bunch of money-grabbing mother truckers.

This guy, this guy, as you mentioned, Trevor Howarth,

the spokesman for the new Stobart lawyers firm, he tried to reassure people who are concerned that a Haulich firm is taking over.

the legal services of some of the most vulnerable citizens in the UK, saying, we can deliver the service at a cost that's palatable to the taxpayer.

Our business model was developed with this in mind.

We at Stobart Haulage are well known for taking out the waste and the waste here is the duplication of solicitors going to the courtroom.

At the moment there are 1600 legal aid firms.

In future there will be 400.

At Stobart we wouldn't use 10 trucks to deliver one product.

Okay, stop describing everything in terms of trucking.

That's making me more nervous about this, not less.

He said, he said, I don't think the lack of choice is damaging.

People are not entitled to access justice with an open check.

No one is stopping them paying for their own choice of solicitor.

And I guess he's right in a way, Andy.

It's already providing an incentive to people this.

If you're going to be a criminal, work hard enough to be the best criminal you can be and make enough money to afford proper representation for the future.

And if you're not going to be a criminal, Andy, you need to work even harder to make money to find a way to make enough money in the future to get a decent lawyer in case you're ever mistaken for a criminal.

It's entirely possible, Andy.

Because law-abiding people now might be forced to turn to a life of crime just in case they're ever mistaken for a criminal in the future.

A spokesman for the Minister of Justice tried desperately to reassure Panix people saying quality assured lawyers will still be available.

Quality standards will be assessed as part of the tender process and we will ensure that they are maintained by the lawyers who win contracts.

We will continue to uphold everyone's right to a fair trial but with £1 billion a year spent on criminal legal aid we have to look again at how to deliver better value for every penny of taxpayers money spent and that sounds

that sounds reasonable Andy but I'll tell you where the spokesman lost me there Andy.

It was at the we will continue to uphold everyone's right to a fair trial but but

only acceptable thing to come after saying we will continue to uphold everyone's right to a fair trial is a full stop Andy or if spoken aloud the dropping of a microphone and the walking off a stage.

The moment the word but comes out of anyone's mouth after spewing a sentence like that they should instantly be put into handcuffs.

May I remind that spokesman Andy of the words to no man shall we deny justice.

That's not from inside a Chinese fortune cookie.

That's not written on a toilet wall.

That's from the magna f ⁇ ing Carter.

And by throwing the word butt in at the end of a sentence about justice, you are basically winding the Magna Carta around a toilet roll, plating in a public restroom, and just letting nature take its diabolical course.

Your emails now, and this one comes in from Christy Joy.

Dear John, Andy, and Chris, in order of those most likely to be on my boobs.

That's the, you know, it's the kind of email we don't have enough of on this show.

Again, Andy, just be careful what you wish for.

I brackets like the undoubted other millions of other buglers.

Was intrigued by your mention of merch, excitedly in with a slight tinge of disbelief.

I typed in the website.

Though it took me a good five minutes to locate the link on your home page, you really want people to work for it.

Yeah, that might need to be addressed.

I finally achieved the golden nirvana.

In a happy state of glazed amazement, I ogled the goods.

I pictured myself buying the t-shirts.

I pictured myself wearing the t-shirts.

After a long, slightly tearful moment, I realised that when wearing said t-shirts, I would basically have John on one boob and Andy on the other.

Furthermore, giving the position of their faces faces on the t-shirt, they would be in prime nozzling or motorboating territory.

Oh no!

Oh no!

There's a huge design flaw, Andy.

A difference depending on my level of exertion.

I contemplated it further.

How did I feel about this?

I wasn't sure.

I could potentially name my boobs John and Andy individually and together they could be known as the bugle.

Don't do that.

If anyone asked about the t-shirt, explanations would be minimal.

My husband, whose name is Chris, has been known to make forays into that area.

You're sharing too much, Christy.

If he did so while I was wearing the t-shirt, he would essentially be fondling John and Andy in the face with clear sexual intent.

What does that mean?

Would it mean anything?

Do you want Chris to follow Chris to fondle you sexually?

Does Chris want to?

I don't know.

Do you?

Questions have been asked, questions that I feel need answers.

Yours in purint curiosity, Christy from Texas.

Well, that is a side of the merch, we just simply did not consider.

And I thought the legal aid story was confusing.

So I guess I can only advise that

just to minimise any risk of

excessive eroticism from your bugle merch, you wear it on top of at least six layers of other clothing.

We've overrun talking about Pakistan and the law.

So that's it for the emails this week.

This glorious week for British Justice.

Do keep your emails coming in to info at thebuglepodcast.com

and don't forget to check our SoundCloud page, soundcloud.com slash the hyphen bugle.

And I'll try and sort out the link to the merch page on the website so it's a permanent thing.

And don't forget to take out your voluntary subscriptions at thebuglepodcast.com.

Until next week, stay out of trouble, buglers.

You really need to get in practice of that.

And what is going to become the spiritual home of the miscarriage of justice if you are a British bugler until next week from me in London goodbye

bye

Stumbled across a fearsome beast.

Hi buglers, it's producer Chris here.

I just wanted to very quickly tell you about my new podcast, Mildly Informed, which is in podcast feeds and YouTube right now.

Quite simply, it's a show where me and my friend Richie review literally anything.

So please come join us wherever you get your podcasts right now.