Save legal aid demo- wed 22 may, 10.30, old palace yard (outside parliament).

Call to arms for anyone who has ever had legal aid. Save legal aid demo- wed 22 may, 10.30, old palace yard (outside parliament). Government is trying to take away legal aid for judicial review and hand over criminal defence legal aid to tesco and G4S. Speakers include clive stafford smith and gerry conlan.
For most regions of the uk (as carved up by the government) there will be 4 contracted providers of criminal legal aid advice and representation. They will be awarded contracts of 3 to 5 years, with clients allocated on a no choice basis by some arbitrary criteria yet to be chosen- first initial, day of birth. The contracts will go to the lowest bidder, meaning you will have a lot of poorly paid, low qualified case workers doing most of the work under supervision of a few solicitors. The most likely contractors are tesco, G4S, serco and, i kid you not, eddie stobart. So you could be arrested by tesco security guards and defended by a tesco lawyer, or even better, arrested, transported to court, represented, transported to prison and jailed, all by G4S! Oh and you won't be able to get legal aid to challenge the government's decision to do any of that.