Braverman makes SRA an offer it can't refuse

You know that feeling when someone blows you out - and then you see on social media that they had a better offer?

Obiter had that feeling as we realised the Solicitors Regulation Authority had cancelled an engagement with us today to meet with home secretary Suella Braverman and lord chancellor Alex Chalk.

The meeting was to discuss the government’s ‘professional enablers taskforce’ – an initiative to root out wrongdoing which was subject to a well-publicised ‘official relaunch’ today. The SRA’s willingness to sit round the table with the government was a key feature of the message.

Yet this was clearly a bit of a rushed job, given that as recently as yesteday morning the SRA was still planning to hold its monthly media briefing. We were then told the briefing had to be moved due to a clash of diaries, with Braverman and Chalk’s publicity stunt clearly taking precedence.

We can only infer from the sudden cancellation that the SRA is willing to drop everything when the call comes in from Whitehall. Of course in some jurisdictions, an independent professional regulator would tell a government making such a request to take a running jump. But perhaps the SRA has a longer game in mind.