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Here is today's Mancunian Way:
by BETH ABBIT - Tues Aug 23, 2022
Hello,
The summer of strikes is continuing at pace. A third day of industrial action is underway at the Port of Felixstowe and Royal Mail workers are due to strike over pay later this week.
From September 5, barristers in England and Wales will start an indefinite strike after voting to step up their current bi-weekly walkouts over Government-set fees for legal aid work.
The action will grind the wheels of justice to a complete halt. And Justice Secretary Dominic Rabb has accused striking barristers of ‘holding justice to ransom’. But they say taking a stand is necessary.
We’ll be discussing that story, as well as the potential smoke free zones and the ‘most hated person in Manchester’, in today’s newsletter.
Why are barristers striking?
When barristers were balloted on whether to escalate ongoing industrial action to an all-out strike, the Justice Secretary was on holiday. It’s not the first time Dominic Raab has been on his jollies during a major development. The former Foreign Secretary was enjoying a break in Crete when the Taliban took Afghanistan’s capital Kabul a year ago.
He has not met the Criminal Bar Association (CBA) since members embarked on industrial action in April, though junior ministers have met with the group regularly. Nevertheless, Mr Raab today penned a piece for the Daily Mail accusing striking barristers of ‘holding justice to ransom’.
“We are increasing your pay. Now your actions are only harming victims, increasing the court backlog, and hampering our efforts to make our streets safer. The criminal justice system deserves better,” he wrote.
As Manchester Evening News court reporter, Andrew Bardsley writes, the strike will mean courts in Manchester, including Crown Square and Minshull Street, will grind to a halt. Throughout the summer, cases have been adjourned, those accused of crimes have been left unrepresented and the action will mean the backlog of cases will grow.
But barristers say the 15 percent increase in legal aid fees offered by the Government - and applying only to new cases - is not enough. They maintain an increase of 25 percent is necessary.
“Senior barristers say strike action is a last resort, but that it is necessary to preserve the profession and make it attractive to people from all backgrounds, not just those who can afford it, and to dissuade young talented lawyers from seeking better paid work elsewhere,” Andrew writes.
The median income for junior barristers is said to be £12,200. It's not hard to see why talented young people may be put off taking on a stressful and complex job for less than minimum wage.
Friday will be the last working day for barristers before they walk out again on Tuesday August 30, this time indefinitely. According to MoJ figures, more than 6,000 court hearings have been disrupted as a result of the dispute over conditions and Government-set fees for legal aid advocacy work.
Blogger and author The Secret Barrister today tweeted that it is in fact the Justice Secretary himself ‘holding justice to ransom’. “Stripping the criminal justice system of funding, forcing criminal barristers out of the profession they love with unsustainable pay and conditions, and deliberately increasing delays for those affected by crime,” they tweeted.
TV judge Robert Rinder said that without access to legal aid ‘our justice is meaningless’. Speaking on Good Morning Britain, he said issues over legal aid can push new lawyers - who can have up to £100,000 worth of student debt while on minimum wage salaries - into private practice. “The reality is they do not want to strike, they don’t go into it to be rich; they go into it because they love this country and they believe in justice under the rule of law,” he said.
In a post on The Secret Barrister’s blog, London-based barrister Joanna Hardy-Susskind has written about her path to her dream job and the struggles to get there. She says nothing could have prepared her for the ‘terrified 14 year old girl in custody who asked me for a tampon, the shamed 55 year old who had lost his job and stolen, the addicted 21 year old with the sobbing mother, the father concealing a wobbly lip for a son who had not done his best’.
She explains that finances have ‘never kept pace' with what is required of legally-aided barristers. “There is a high price to be paid for seeing photos of corpses, for hearing the stories of abused children and for sitting in a windowless cell looking evil in the eye.”
But having watched colleagues leave the profession and the backlog of cases grow she says she is ‘increasingly numb to the cruelty of telling broken human beings that the worst thing that ever happened to them will not be resolved for years’.
“I edit police interviews for free. I prepare pre-recorded cross-examinations for free.,” she writes. “I write sentencing notes for free. I teach new barristers for free. I offer suicide-prevention advice for free. The government issues statements saying everything is fine and I read them over and over trying to work out how they did not realise that justice costs something.”
Weather, etc.
- Wednesday: Light rain changing to cloudy by nighttime. 20C.
- Roads closed: A57 Eccles New Road westbound for roadworks from Stott Lane to Gilda Brook Road until September 12.
- Trams: No service on Metrolink between Eccles and MediaCityUK due to engineering works until October 21.
- Trains: Cancellations across the network on Avanti West Coast.
- Today's Manc trivia question: Smoking could soon be banned in parts of the city centre - but when did it become illegal to light up indoors?
Answer at the bottom of the newsletter
The ‘most hated person in Manchester’
Rapper Aitch said he felt like the ‘most hated person in Manchester’ after a mural of Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis was painted over to promote his latest album.
Akse’s black-and-white painting, on Port Street in the Northern Quarter, was covered with an ad, causing outrage as it was part of a mental health campaign.
"No way on earth would I want to disrespect a local hero like Ian," Moston lad Aitch said, before Amazon apologised for commissioning the advert.
Speaking to BBC Breakfast, the rapper said he was left ‘fuming’ by the stunt. “I was fuming for Ian, and his people and what that mural stands for, and then I was fuming for myself, because I was having such a good week. I was like, ‘the album is coming out in a couple of days, I can't wait, everything's going so well’, and then next minute, I was the most hated person in Manchester for about 40 minutes.”
'Ghastly'
More Manchester Airport woes. Peter Jackson - whose daughter and wife travelled from the hub to Toronto - has described it as a 'ghastly place to travel from'. They were subjected to delays that led to them missing connecting flights and had a long wait for luggage on their return.
Peter, who also received a £25 car parking fine during a separate visit, described Terminal One as 'dirty, with miserable staff' to reporter Louisa Gregson. The airport say buildings are regularly cleaned, colleagues work exceptionally hard and bosses are 'proud of their dedication'.
Smoke free zones
Where should smoking be banned in Manchester city centre? City leaders have launched a consultation ahead of plans to create a smoke-free space by the end of this year, as Joseph Timan reports.
Piccadilly Gardens, St Peter's Square and the area around Manchester Town Hall are all being considered as potential smoke-free outdoor public spaces. Banning smoking around the Etihad Stadium has also been suggested.
People smoking in selected city centre outdoor spaces will be asked to stub out cigarettes or leave the smoke-free zone as part of the new pilot. There are no plans to bring in by-laws or fines for people caught smoking, with an 'education-first' approach, offering smokers support to quit. Plans will be finalised this autumn.
Manchester headlines
An absolute talent: Tributes have been paid to the cousin of world boxing champion Tyson Fury after he was stabbed during a disturbance at Goose Green, in Altrincham. Rico Burton, 31, who was also a boxer, has been described as ‘an absolute talent’ with a ‘great sense of humour’. Two men have been arrested on suspicion of his murder.
Monstrosity: Furious residents have hit out after an enormous 6G mast was installed near their homes in Cheadle. They have branded the 15m structure a ‘monstrosity’ and are raising concerns about the levels of radiation it might emit on Lymm Walk. Its appearance has also come as a surprise to Stockport Council which has written to the firm responsible - IX Wireless - demanding answers to its ‘precise’ purpose as well as further ‘plans and details’.
Bargains galore
Jess Molyneux has been leafing through images from the Manchester Archives and Local History Library to give us a glimpse of what Cheetham Shopping Parade was once like. This picture of a stock clearance at Value Stores is among them.
Worth a read
Coffee House in Withington, offers one of the cheapest breakfasts in Manchester. But owner Peter Doherty fears his business won’t survive the winter due to rising bills.
“I put the prices up by like 50p, but I hadn’t put my prices up before that for eight years. Now you can’t even make money. It’s costing me. The way things are going, I probably won’t be here this time next year or at Christmas," he says.
Reporter Hana Kelly has been speaking to Peter and his neighbours on Copson Street about how the cost of living crisis is affecting trade.
That's all for today
Thanks for joining me, the next edition of the Mancunian Way will be with you around the same time tomorrow. If you have any stories you would like us to feature or look into, please email: beth.abbit@menmedia.co.uk
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The answer to today’s trivia question, when did it become illegal to light up indoors, is July 2007.
