Having read the letter from Dan O'Callaghan on the article by shadow justice secretary Sadiq Khan MP, I cannot help feeling it is somewhat misguided. The Law Society and solicitors generally need all the support they can get, politically and otherwise, in respect of legal aid cuts. It matters not where that comes from.

Furthermore, it is not my recollection that ‘cuts’ in any substantive form were made by the last government. A pay freeze maybe, but nothing along the lines of the current demolition of legal aid as we know it.

I have the misfortune to live and practise in an area where there is a totally unsympathetic Conservative MP. He has made it clear that he does not support state funding of legal costs through the legal aid scheme.

Quite frankly, it was patently obvious that the current government would engage in a major cut to legal aid from before it was elected, given its ideological zeal for a ‘small state’. Perhaps Mr O’Callaghan’s sentiments spring from guilt at having voted for it.

Jonathan Roberts, Powis & Co, Clacton on Sea, Essex