Yet another piece of Tory zombie legislation – neither alive nor dead, staggering mindlessly on, dragging its tattered amendments through the Lords, long past knowing why it keeps going – is the legal aid cuts bill. This article turns up a variety of useful information, notably that they want rid and want to force probably useless insurance on you at enormous profit for the insurance business, like so:
Last week the justice minister Jonathan Djanogly admitted the government would promote BTE insurance as a way of funding legal expenses and predicted the cost of such cover would come down.
Labour says annual premiums could be £150, amounting to a tax on justice that would reap big profits for the insurance industry. An internal industry analysis shows insurers stand to gain £1 in profits for every £2 of premium payments.
But there is something missing. Djanogly. Djanogly. An unusual name, hard to forget, isn’t it? Here he is, getting caught not telling anyone that he personally stands to trouser that 50% profit margin referred to in the quote.
All right, he claims he doesn’t have any influence on the family holding company’s investment policy, but then this is irrelevant. They’re already in the insurance business and need only hold still while it rains money. The problem is that he has influence over government policy. (Past coverage: here.)