In many lines of work these days, there are the media 'heroes'. Day is one of them. He looked after my oppo 20 years ago, when he was badly shot and dumped by the RAF, and on the basis of that, I subsequently sat down with his fellow director in Manchester when it was me injured. He might come across as an agenda driven malcontent, but at least he was MY agenda driven malcontent! The issue is not so much the likes of him, but the system. The law of averages requires that the more solicitors there are, the more work they have to find for themselves and the more qualified dross slips through the net. I blame New Labour; it, and Cherie Blair, were instrumental in deluging us with so much bad, asinine and counter productive legislation. My father retired as a judge a short while back - as he put it, 'not a moment too soon'.
We NEED people like Martin Day; fearless advocates with a sense of outraged who recognise that Goliath needs the occasional kick in the nuts, simply as a matter of course, to remind him who is the real boss. Whatever his motivation, if it means we sometimes have to put up with some of the more lurid campaigns Leigh Day & Co success allows him to subsidise, then so be it. Because quietly ticking away behind the scenes, more and more people are being subjugated to bad law, bad practice and injustice. Ever increasing, centralised authority and layer upon layer of accountability denying opaqueness means we do need the occasional claymore wielding freak to shake things up. Sometimes, you can't pick your battles.