It was once said that the US and Britain were one country divided by a common language. This week’s Big Question unearths fresh evidence that solicitors and barristers are equally divided, in their case by a common profession.

Last week, Legal Week unearthed widespread sympathy within the Bar for the barrister Gordon Pringle who has been suspended from practice for a year for, among other things, calling a solicitor’s clerk a “blackamoor”.