Well, that didn’t last long. On Friday 29 November, I went along to the 13th National Forum of the Civil Justice Council (CJC) in London. The courts minister, Heidi Alexander, gave a detailed speech setting out her objectives for the next four years. An hour later, she was moved to Transport.
On the positive side, she swooned over the Master of the Rolls, whom she had met a fortnight earlier. She admitted to having ordered her private secretary to ‘bring me more Sir Geoffreys’, such was her admiration for him. Readers of this column will know that I too hold him in the highest regard, along with Sir Colin Birss, deputy head of civil justice, and Dame Sue Carr. Our Lady Chief Justice is revered by judges at every level.
Colin Passmore, whose new bible on privilege has just been published, was giddy about her when I recently bumped into him. She had given up 90
