Conservative politicians – including at least two of the last three prime ministers - have rightly suffered brickbats from Gazette readers for smearing lawyers doing their jobs as ‘activists’, ‘lefties’ and so on. But a variant of this baleful disease seems to be catching. This week the Labour MP for Stretford and Urmston, one Andrew Western (no, me neither) tweeted thus:

The prospective Tory MP for Altrincham and Sale West is Oliver Carroll, a senior associate at Clifford Chance. Carroll’s heinous offence, rendering him clearly unfit for the Commons, is to have defended News Group Newspapers (prop. Rupert Murdoch) in the said litigation.

A Twitter pile-on predictably ensued. But Western’s tweet was doubly unfortunate. Just a couple of days previously Western’s boss, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer KC MP, was pictured paying conspicuous court to the very same Sun King at Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch’s annual summer party. (Just as Tony Blair did back in the day, long before all the Corbyn unpleasantness.)

As Obiter writes, Western’s tweet is still live, with the hapless MP plaintively contending that the cab-rank principle doesn’t apply because Carroll works for a magic circle firm. Well, yes. But just when Sir Keir’s trying so hard to get back in to the tent (literally), we suspect he is unlikely to appreciate one of his own backbenchers passing water in it.

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