Cuts to legal aid 2012. How unkind am I to laugh?

[longwayoff]

Nigel Evans, Tory MP, happily voted through the hefty cuts to legal aid in 2012. Hurrah, away with the scroungers. Oh dear though. Mr Evans was later accused, falsely, of criminal acts and Mr Evans had to spend his life savings on his defence. Guess what? He didn't like that and now thinks the cuts were too harsh. AIBU to wish it had cost him his house as well, so he could experience a bit more austerity?

kikipost

He would have got most of the money back because if you are found not guilty you got “reasonable” costs back. (Presumably you can’t hire the countries top, most expensive barrister and still get the money back.)

Now you don’t. Because he voted for that.

quizqueen, if you were accused of and charged with something you didn't do, you would be incredibly silly to think you would only need a barrister if you were guilty. Criminal cases don't get to court unless trained lawyers think there is at least a 50% chance of a conviction, so assuming that simply turning up and saying you weren't guilty would be enough would be extremely dangerous.

Frankly, your belief that no-one gets themselves into the situation of needing lawyers unless they personally are at fault simply shows that you are unbelievably naive. For your own sake, I hope you and yours never find yourself in a situation where you are unjustly accused, or unfairly dismissed from employment, or injured by significant clinical negligence, or in need of the right support for a disabled child. However, if or when that situation does come about you might just realise that people can get into legal difficulties and need expert help no matter how hard they try to avoid it.

Oh indeed, I'd have to sell my home to raise that, Koneko.

But there are often discussions on MN about male privilege, or white privilege, or able privilege, in which some people claim these things don't exist.

For some people, it's not until they lose the privilege that they understand they had it in the first place.

And I should say, I consider myself bloody lucky to have a home to sell. To me that's an immense privilege, not something I take for granted.

Imagine the naivety of just standing in court and saying 'no, I didn't do it'. Against people who have years of legal training to understand how the system works.

I can't work out if quizqueen is endearingly innocent or goady in the extreme.

And I think the average worker in the UK could live off dust and water, in a cardboard box, and still wouldn't be able to save enough money to cover the legal fees if they found themselves caught up in a serious criminal case.

Onlyjoined, thank you for your comments. I intentionally omitted any mention of what Mr Evans had been falsely accused of for the reasons that you proclaim. You have now shared that. It's extremely unfair to further taint his name in this manner. You owe him an apology. Random, you have misunderstood my post but I expect you are right and I'm not very nice, however, for the purpose of clarity, I am a lot nicer than many Tory MPs and certainly more compassionate than most of them. Happy new year.

He’s the MP for my area and he is an arsehole

YANBU, OP. It's rare these fuckers have to live with the consequences of their actions. I just wish more tories had to live with consequences of austerity, an austerity that apparently we didn't need.

@Onlyjoinedforthisthread. if I were you I would think twice before accusing other people of being idiots. Because when you post something that makes it blatantly clear that you haven't even bothered to read the OP properly, let alone the thread, it kind of makes you look like the idiot, doesn't it?

Yanbu at all. This is why the arguments that you are have been so shit.