Of Their Convictions

Tom Clark writes:

Those described as “Westminster watchers” are mostly just that—they glance at the braying tribes at PMQs, and keep half an ear out for the odd line of invective that produces a particular jeer. It is much rarer to truly listen to parliamentary speeches. This is understandable. Most of the contributions to what pass for debates these days consist of cripplingly cautious “lines to take” from the dispatch box, palpably synthetic rage from the opposition, or (worst of all) scripted sycophancy from the backbenches. Having edited a book of great speeches, I can confirm that very little of what we hear in the Commons now would make the cut.

Occasionally, however, an MP offers words that stick in the mind. I can, for example, still quote from memory the cricketing metaphor with which Geoffrey Howe precipitated the fall of Thatcher, the Second World War memories put to pacifist purposes by Tony Benn, the more zealous lines with which Tony Blair pressed the case for going into Iraq and the forensic restraint with which Robin Cook insisted the 2003 invasion would be folly.

But this week, most unusually, a single debate produced two remarkable speeches. At issue was the government’s plan to restrict trial by jury. One came from Labour backbencher Charlotte Nichols, who bravely revealed that she had—while an MP—been raped, an experience that triggered PTSD and then “my sectioning for my own safety”. She relayed to her temporarily silenced colleagues the “agony” of the 1,088 days she had to wait to go to court, but then also her resentment that victims facing delays like she did were being “ventriloquised” by ministers in support of a particular solution that she rejected (namely, the cutting back of costly jury trials to try to speed through the courts backlog).

The other notable oration came in the Welsh baritone of the former Tory attorney general, Geoffrey Cox. He wrapped his case for juries in words reminiscent of Rumpole of the Bailey’s courtroom speeches about the golden thread running through 1,000 years of British justice, adding topical twists about the jury as our last best hope of arresting ruinous distrust of institutions. Above all, he grounded his argument in long experience at the bar. Cox rose above partisanship, and the controversies in which he has personally been embroiled, by rattling off the names of senior Labour lawyers—Peter Archer, John Morris, Bob Marshall-Andrews—with whom he had worked on cases. They would, he insisted, “never have countenanced” the “compromise of principle” that today’s Labour ministers proposed.

This a particularly stinging line of criticism for the government bench, given that Keir Starmer was once a particularly eminent Labour lawyer. And the responsible secretary of state who was being forced to sit and listen was David Lammy, another barrister. Lammy, as Cox mercilessly pointed out, built a reputation as a champion of the “oppressed… facing the full phalanx of the state arraigned against them”—people, in other words, who might very well benefit from being tried by a jury of their peers.

Great speeches always rely on a mix of ingredients. The ancient Greeks thought in terms of balancing three things: pathos (emotion), logos (argument) and ethos (character and experience). The historic speeches I mentioned above struck different balances—Robin Cook, for example, was more logos than pathos, whereas Blair’s scary warnings of rerunning Munich tilted the other way. Pathos wouldn’t have been hard to work into the jury debate: desperate victims put in limbo by log-jammed courts, or blameless suspects denied the right to be judged by their peers. Dry-as-dust “logos” could equally have been been deployed in favour of jury trials—or indeed for rationalising their use on efficiency grounds. But what was so remarkable about the speeches of Nichols and Cox was ethos. Both drew on their first-hand experience, claiming a special authority to make a memorable case.

One can imagine how Lammy or Starmer might once have spoken compellingly of innocent clients spared jail only because a jury of ordinary people gave them a fair hearing when the establishment had ceased to listen. But the bureaucratic duty to find efficiencies overwhelms any insight from Starmer and Lammy’s pre-political perspective in the debate over juries. This isn’t unusual. Save in cases of exceptional fortune or political gift, leaders always rise to a point where what they say is more determined by the position they hold than by the person they used to be. That explains why authenticity is the most sought after—and most elusive—quality in politics.

Is there any route back to “ethos” for Starmer? Could he still draw on the standing he enjoyed in his pre-political life to make a persuasive speech? It is difficult, especially when, as Wednesday’s Peter Mandelson document releases underlined anew, he has sometimes got close to characters with little ethos and made decisions that Starmer the upright campaigning lawyer would have disapproved of. It is difficult too because, as I’ve written before, the Starmer administration has seemed almost pathologically bent on winding up precisely the kind of person that Starmer used to be.

Still, with his liberal-baiting aide Morgan McSweeney now departed, there might be an opportunity for the prime minister to draw on the virtues of his earlier self. Back in 2003 he wrote in The Guardian that the Iraq war was likely unlawful. Right now, he is walking a delicate line about another unlawful American war of choice in the Middle East. Events and the temptation of hugging Washington close could draw him towards involvement (and arguably they already are). If Starmer can keep the UK clear of the Iran war then, when this mess is over, we could start hearing him draw more heavily on who he used to be. And if he does, maybe he’ll stand a better chance of persuading more of us to lend him our ears.

Donna-Louise Flowers writes:

I’m a retired detective. Rape. Sexual assault. Child sexual abuse. Violence. That was my world for years — building cases for Crown Court, sitting with victims, watching juries listen.

Twelve ordinary people. Not lawyers. Not a judge working through a full day’s list. People from the community, brought in to hear the worst thing that ever happened to someone and decide what was true. That was the part of the system I trusted.

This government just voted to take that away.

10 March 2026. 304 MPs voted for it. 203 against. And 90 of the government’s own Labour MPs abstained. Ninety. His own side.

The Courts and Tribunals Bill scraps the right to jury trial for burglary, stalking, sexual assault, ABH, drug supply, child cruelty. Crimes that wreck lives.

I Know What a Crown Court Looks Like From the Inside

CID trained. Years as officer in the case on serious crime — rape, sexual offences, child sexual abuse, violence against women and girls. I know what it takes to get a case to Crown Court because I lived it, repeatedly, from the inside out.

I was the one who built the evidence file. Who sat with the victim and explained, as gently as I could, what giving evidence would mean — the cross-examination, the defence barrister picking apart every detail of the worst night of her life in front of a room full of strangers. Who held it together in the corridor outside when she said she wasn’t sure she could do it.

I worked child sexual abuse cases too. I know what an ABE interview costs a child. I know what it takes to get a family through years of waiting to finally sit in that public gallery and watch twelve people hear what was done to their child. Twelve parents, grandparents, ordinary people — actually listening. Bringing the weight of their own lives to bear on what they were hearing.

That is justice being done in public, by the public.

So let me be direct about something the government hopes you won’t notice. Sexual assault — including sexual assault of a child — is an either-way offence. Under this bill, it loses the right to jury trial. A single judge, alone in a swift court, will decide that case.

I’m sorry. No.

That is what they want to take away. And they want to do it to save £31 million. 0.2% of the Ministry of Justice’s total budget.

Let that land. Eight hundred years of the right to be judged by your peers. Gone. For 0.2% of a government budget.

The Man Who Changed His Mind — When It Became Convenient

Five years ago, David Lammy posted on Twitter: “Jury trials are a fundamental part of our democratic settlement. Criminal trials without juries are a bad idea.”

He also said — specifically about the backlog — “You don’t fix the backlog with trials that are widely perceived as unfair.”

That wasn’t a throwaway tweet.

In 2017 Lammy led an independent review into racial bias in the criminal justice system. Eighteen months of work. Thirty-five recommendations. And when it came to juries, it found something that inconveniences him enormously right now.

Juries act as a filter for prejudice.

His review. His conclusion. Quoted back at him by the Shadow Justice Secretary in the House of Commons ten days ago.

Now he stands up in Parliament as Justice Secretary and dismantles the very thing he defended — not because new evidence emerged, not because something changed, but because the backlog got embarrassing and he needed to look like he was doing something.

That’s not reform. That’s a man covering his tracks.

What They’re Actually Taking Away

Not all crimes are equal and the system has always reflected that. The most serious offences — murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery, GBH — go straight to Crown Court. Always a jury. This bill keeps that. Just about.

At the other end, there are summary offences — common assault, drunk and disorderly, minor criminal damage. Always dealt with at Magistrates court. This doesn’t change.

The middle tier is where your rights are being removed. Either-way offences. Hundreds of them. Burglary. Theft. ABH. Stalking. Harassment. Drug supply. Dangerous driving. Fraud. Child cruelty. And I want to name one specifically because I know people will assume the worst offences against children must be protected.

They are not. Sexual assault of a child is an either-way offence. Under this bill it loses the right to jury trial. A single judge, sitting alone, decides that case. 

Right now, if you face an either-way charge and magistrates decide it is within their jurisdiction, you — the defendant — have the right to say: no. I want twelve ordinary people to hear this. That right has existed since the Magistrates Courts Act 1980 and in practice far longer. 

This bill removes that right. Completely. Gone. 

One judge. Alone. In a new swift court — formally a Crown Court Bench Division. No peers. No community voice. And there is an exception even to the protections that do exist: complex fraud, money laundering and terrorism financing can also go judge-alone. The supposedly safe tier is not entirely safe either.

The Numbers They Hope You Won’t Do

The government keeps saying judge-only trials will be 20% faster. They say it constantly.

Here’s what they don’t explain. Most either-way cases never reach a jury anyway. Jury trials account for roughly 3% of all criminal cases across the entire system. The other 97% already happen without juries — in magistrates courts, right now, today, without this bill.

The government’s 20% time saving applies to that 3%. The maximum impact on overall court throughput: a fraction of a percent. They are dismantling 800 years of constitutional rights for a fraction of a percent efficiency gain.

The financial saving? £31 million. That’s 0.2% of the Ministry of Justice budget. And nobody in government has published the costs this change creates — additional judges, new courtrooms, the inevitable flood of appeals. A jury verdict is final. A judge’s written judgment can be picked apart line by line. The Bar Council has warned those appeals alone could cancel out any time saved.

Yes, Some Criminals Game the System. Here’s the Part They’re Not Telling You.

The government is right about one thing. Some defendants do game the system by electing Crown Court trial purely to run down the clock.

But here’s how it actually works — because it’s worse than most people realise. It isn’t that the defendant waits years and then pleads guilty. The mechanism is this: the defendant waits. And while they wait, on bail, living their life — the victim stops coping. The witnesses stop answering calls. Memories fade. People move on, move away, or simply can’t face it anymore. The evidence quietly collapses. The defendant doesn’t need to do anything. They just need to survive long enough.

In 2014, 8% of defendants with either-way offences elected for jury trial. By 2022 that had doubled to 17%. That tracks the growing backlog almost exactly. Ten percent of adult rape cases are dropped entirely after charge — because the victim, ground down by years of waiting, stops supporting the prosecution.

One in ten rape victims who got to charge stage loses her case not because justice was done, but because the system exhausted her into giving up.

I’ve sat with those women. I know exactly what that costs.

But defendants don’t only elect Crown Court to game delays. They also elect because juries — twelve ordinary people — are genuinely more likely to give them a fair hearing than a magistrate working through a full day’s list of cases.

The Real Crisis. The One They Created and Won’t Name.

How does a country with 800 years of the right to be judged by your peers end up with 80,000 cases backlogged and trials listed as far ahead as 2030? If you are a rape survivor in London and you report today, you will be told your trial date is 2029 or 2030. Not guaranteed. Just listed. Before any adjournment.

Not because of juries.

Criminal legal aid spending is down 35% since 2010. Court sitting days were slashed. Perfectly usable courtrooms sat empty — not because cases weren’t waiting, but because there was no money to run them.

Slower courts. A shrinking system. That is a funding failure. Nothing to do with juries.

Removing jury trials does not reopen the courts that were closed. It does not restore the 35% cut to legal aid. It does not hire the barristers who left the profession because they could not make it pay. It kicks the can down the road.

That underfunding created the backlog.

The backlog created a remand crisis.

The remand population — people locked up awaiting trial, not convicted of anything — has risen 84% since 2019. Seventeen thousand seven hundred people. Two thirds unconvicted.

Prisons at 98% capacity. Real people, in cells, waiting. Not convicted. Just waiting.

We nearly reached a point where police couldn’t arrest people. Not because there wasn’t crime. Because there was no room to put anyone.

That is what fifteen years of cuts looks like. And the government’s response is to remove jury trials.

It’s Not Over. Not Even Close.

90 of the government’s own Labour MPs wouldn’t vote for it. Karl Turner — Labour MP, former Shadow Solicitor General — says 67 Labour MPs are prepared to defy the government outright when the bill returns. It still has months of parliamentary scrutiny ahead — committees, votes, amendments — and then the House of Lords, where opposition is already hardening.

This bill can be stopped. But only if people make enough noise.

Find your MP. You can do it in two minutes at writetothem.com. Ask how they voted on 10 March 2026, and why. Ask whether they believe a single judge should decide a sexual assault case. Ask what they intend to do at committee stage.

If they voted for it, they made a choice. If they abstained, they made a choice. Either way, they should know you are paying attention.

Ninety of their colleagues couldn’t bring themselves to support this. Make sure yours knows you’re watching.

And Monidipa Fouzder writes:

A KC who represented victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal in the public inquiry has quit her post on the Legal Services Board to fight justice secretary David Lammy's plans to restrict the right to a jury trial.

Flora Page KC, who practised as a solicitor before moving to the bar, announced yesterday she was resigning as a board member for the oversight regulator with immediate effect 'to speak freely' about the Courts and Tribunals Bill.

The LSB is sponsored by the Ministry of Justice. After watching Lammy and courts minister Sarah Sackman during the bill's second reading on Tuesday, Page said she could not stand by silently 'and let the lord chancellor rip the heart out of the constitutional principle' of the rule of law.

Page felt the bill was being rushed through parliament 'to give its opponents as little time as possible to organise' and there was 'now a short window of opportunity to do everything I can to prevent this power grab'. The rule of law had now become something sold as part of 'UK plc', Page said. 'Rich oligarchs or multinational companies are welcome to come and settle their disputes here for a princely sum, but if ordinary people report a crime, the chances of justice are slim to none'.

The backlog has soared in recent years because of sitting day restrictions, she added. If curtailing jury trials was about reducing the Crown court backlog, the bill would contain a 'sunset clause', she suggested.

Page said victims needed justice, not convictions regardless of justice, and justice needed juries. 'The Right Honourable Keir Starmer KCB KC MP knows this, after his years as director of public prosecutions, and yet he has sanctioned this attack on a power and a freedom which is rightly given to all the people of this country. This act of tyranny is a sign that the government has completely lost its way. I now feel I must say this publicly.'

The public bill committee will begin line-by-line scrutiny of the legislation on 25 March and report by 28 April. It is now welcoming written evidence.

As Sarah Taaffe-Maguire writes:

The government has been called on by an influential committee of MPs to quash convictions obtained with data from the Post Office's Capture software, the predecessor to the faulty Horizon IT programme.

As well as creating "urgent" legislation to have these earlier convictions quashed, a new report from the Business and Trade Committee (BTC) also called on the government to urgently investigate the scale of this miscarriage of justice.

The Capture accounting software had been used by up to 2,500 Post Office branches in the 1990s, just before the infamous Horizon system was introduced in 1999.

Using the incorrectly generated shortfalls from Horizon, hundreds were wrongfully convicted and many more went into debt, lost homes, and became ill as they attempted to plug the imagined financial gaps.

A government-commissioned report in 2024 said it was likely that Capture caused accounting errors. Following this, a state redress scheme for Capture victims who were not convicted opened last year.

Incomplete records mean that the current confirmed number of Capture cases may represent "the tip of another iceberg", the report said.

'Unacceptable failure' to pay

The creator of Horizon, Japanese multinational Fujitsu, also came in for sharp criticism by the committee, as it is said to have contributed nothing to the cost of redress and is still expanding revenue from public sector contracts.

As well as no money being paid, none has been agreed despite Fujitsu saying it has a moral obligation to contribute to redress. The failure to even offer an interim amount is "unacceptable", the committee chair Liam Byrne said.

The total cost of redress payments now stands around £2bn, the report said.

Meanwhile, Fujitsu continues to benefit from "substantial" government contracts, despite its "self-imposed moratorium" on bidding for new public contracts, the report added.

As an entirely state-owned company, taxpayers will be the main funders of redress.