By now many of you will be as inured to the howls of outrage from the profession over legal aid cuts as you are to the cuts themselves. Both are becoming an almost weekly, even daily, occurrence, it saddens one to report.It is apparent though, that however apocalyptic and doom-laden the profession’s language, it seems to be having little or no effect – the government just isn't listening.

Is it time lawyers responded more combatively? One suggested to us that maybe they should take a leaf out of the book of the BA cabin crew, who have planned a 12-day strike over pay, or the refuse collectors of Leeds, who went on strike for 11 weeks until their proposed pay cuts were renegotiated. If lawyers downed tools and refused to represent anyone, surely there would be more pressing things to think about than suing them over breach of competition laws. The government would have to act, and act swiftly.

Professions hardly ever resort to withdrawing their labour, of course. It would hurt clients, and anyway it's just not the done thing.

In any case, apologists for the government’s tin ear on this subject might argue that perhaps things aren’t as bad as they’re sometimes painted. A survey of criminal legal aid firms carried out by the National Audit Office showed that, while one in six said they made no profit on criminal legal aid last year, the average profit was a pretty respectable 18.4%. It found that 37% made a 20% profit, and 29% made a profit of between 10-19%. Tesco’s margin is about 9%, for comparison. Time for action, or more sober reflection?