It’s tortuously difficult to write about the Bar and the simmering issues of access and diversity without breaking into twisted metaphors.
So how are we to characterise the publication this week of Lord Neuberger’s much-anticipated report on widening access to the Bar? Canute trying to hold back the sea? Shifting deckchairs on the Titanic? Forcing that square peg into a round hole, perhaps? On balance, I would go for the ‘sticking-plaster on a gaping wound’ analogy, as in a sensible course of action entirely inadequate to the severe underlying problem.
