Having recently dipped a toe into the wonderful world of Twitter, Obiter was greatly amused last month by a stream purportedly authored by justice minister Jonathan Djanogly, in which he apparently reported that his ‘liberation’ of legal aid was going ‘swimmingly’.

Sadly, it transpired that the posts had been written by a witty imposter and were not in fact penned by the esteemed minister.

But a little bird tells Obiter that the subject arose last week at a leaving bash for the Law Society’s immediate past president Linda Lee.

Djanogly is understood to have mused with fellow dinner guests over the provenance of the account, admitting that he has ‘no idea’ who writes it.

On hand to give helpful advice, a leading member of the bar with a large pair of size nines suggested the minister hire a private investigator to find out who is behind the mischief.

The barrister had clearly forgotten the recent fuss when it emerged that Djanogly had deployed a similar resource to check up on members of his constituency party in Huntingdon. Oops.