Justice secretary Ken Clarke will not be on the Christmas card list of many legal aid lawyers this year following some remarks in an interview with the International Bar Association.

He told the IBA’s head of content, James Lewis, that legal aid lawyers opposing the government’s legal aid cuts are ‘disingenuous and advancing behind a line of women and children’. His comment, implying that lawyers were concerned more about their pay than the cuts’ impact on their clients, prompted outrage. A law centre in Clarke’s Rushcliffe constituency has responded with a challenge to the justice secretary, inviting him to spend a day with the staff - and donate to charity the difference between his daily pay from the annual £134,000 cabinet minister’s salary and that of a law centre worker on less than £30,000.

Obiter called the Ministry of Justice to see if Clarke is inclined to swap the secretary of state grade of Whitehall trappings for a law centre desk in Nottinghamshire, but so far has not received a response.