At a time when access to legal aid is more restrictive since the 1960s and when criminal legal aid access threatens to lead to many miscarriages of justice, it is reassuring to see that the Bar Council is in touch with the common man.

On its website it quotes Aristotle. Not a premier league footballer nor a eurovsion singer but a person who was born in 384 BC.

He taught Alexander the Great , whose forces raped and conquered the entire world. A sort of old fashioned IS. When Alexander had found no new worlds  to conquer, according to Plutarch, ‘he wept”. As one would. As Hitler would have done, or Pol Pot, given a break.

So there, the Bar Council wants you to know about Aristotle. So when your child is taken from you, or sexually abused or worse, don’t worry be Aristotle…

What planet does Gerry McAlinden and his Council inhabit? Of course , being chairman of the Bar Council often leads to the High Court bench, how silly of me….