A FORMER government minister is working for less than £10 an hour — and has launched a stinging attack on the Government for failing lawyers and defendants.
“It really is absolutely appalling,” MP-turned-criminal barrister Anna Soubry tells us. “I’m lucky… I honestly do not know how I would manage if I had a mortgage, [if] I was a single mother with two children… the Government is reneging on its recent review
into fees.”Soubry returned to the bar after she lost her seat in 2019. She explained she is undertaking work representing defendants because she enjoys it and not for the money. Huge backlogs, exacerbated by Covid, mean that the case she is working on today, which will go to trial in the summer, relates to events that stretch back to 2016.
Long travel times, hours preparing cases and low fees combined to push Soubry’s hourly rate beneath the £10 mark. Soubry is far from the
only lawyer in such a position. She also recounted a story of a lawyer from London who came up to where she practises in Nottingham. He told her: “On the first day
I think I only lost £50.” Is that how a job should work?
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SOPRANO Danielle de Niese was in Mayfair for the screening of operatic movie La Voix Humaine last night. Interviewed by Simon Callow on stage she explained: “While I was filming, I stayed with friends but was told I was not allowed to speak to them because I needed to rest my voice. It was very difficult”. Also out last night were Olaf Henderson, Andreas Kronthaler and Dame Vivienne Westwood at a United Collours of Bennetton event.
Sandra mothers new film through
SANDRA BULLOCK is certain about the reason why her new movie The Lost City was “the only film that didn’t get shut down by Paramount” during the height of Covid. It’s because she and producer Liza Chasin are mothers. “We saw everything as mama-bears,” Bullock told us at last night’s red carpet for the film. “We are two A-type, very controlling moms and we made sure everyone got home the way they arrived.” Chasin added that it’s “always better with women in charge”.
Elton: Young Ones warnings are OK
BEN ELTON says he is relaxed about Britbox putting warnings about racism and homophobia on his show The Young Ones. “Some people like to make a big hoo-ha with cancel culture, but it’s perfectly reasonable if what is deemed acceptable language has changed,” he told us at last night’s launch for the Making of Black Britain at the St Pancras Renaissance. Elton wasn’t the only positive guest. Businessman Levi Roots said it was “unreal” that a film of his life was being made. “I thought nobody would ever be interested.”
Fruity fillip for would-be writers
SANDI TOKSVIG had words of encouragment for hopeful authors at last night’s Primadonna prize, an award for unsigned writers. Host Toksvig reminded the audience at Conway Hall of Amanda McKittrick Ros, who succeeded despite being truly terrible. Mark Twain described a book of hers as “one of the greatest unintentionally humorous novels of all time”. But Toksvig liked her last novel, in which all the characters “are named after fruits and the odd legume. There’s Lord Raspberry, Cherry Raspberry, Sir Peter Plum, Christopher Carrot, Madame Pear and, my favourite, Lily Lentil”. Finger on the pulse.
SW1A
A MYSTERIOUS black puppy has appeared in Downing Street, but the owner of the cute pooch is shrouded in secrecy. A No 10 security detail was spotted with the puppy on a lead in nearby St James’s park, but Carrie Johnson’s spokeswoman has put paid to rumours it was a birthday gift from Bojo. The mystery deepens.
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PITY the mentees at Laura Kuenssberg’s leaving do – we hear she used her speech to task them with getting stories from the gathered cabinet ministers and BBC execs. No rest for the wicked.
