I've been practising commercial litigation for some 15 years now, in various roles, as a solicitor with a British firm, a partner with an American-based "International Firm", more recently as a self-employed barrister at a specialist set of chambers in London.

I think the very top end of the market will continue to thrive, on the old "nobody gets fired for buying from IBM" basis. The number of specialist, botique firms, without the overheads of the large corporate firms, will continue to proliferate. The mid-tier generalist firms will however continue to be squeezed, unable to compete with smaller firms on price; without the "brand" advantage of the magic circle and large US firms.

What does seem to be broken, accross the board, is the old collegiate, "associate-to-partner-in-5-7-years" model. Very few partners are being made up; existing partners guard their territories carefully. The unintended by-product of this is mass migration of  associates to in-house roles and the expansion of in-house legal departments, with a corresponding shortfall in work being outsourced to external counsel, putting further pressure on the external legal model.

Quite.

Fortunately, I'm not about to retire. (Here is a really scary stat: as of yesterday, to buy an inflation-linked retirement income of only £25,000 in the UK, (i.e. US$38,000), now takes a pension fund of £763,900. Less than four years ago, in December 2009, a man aged 65 had to have saved £590,200 to achieve this: Office of National Statistics: Pension Trends Report 23rd April 2013 - thank you so much  Quantitative Easing for the £173,700 decline.)

From my perspective for those of us with time in hand, in an environment of low interest rates but increasing inflation, it makes sense to (i) switch to an interest-only mortgage tied to the base rate and forget principal repayment, (ii) invest in a mix of UK defensive utility stocks whose pricing model is tied to inflation and UK-based consumer durable/drug/tobacco exporters whose principal sources of income are abroad and gold/silver miners, (iii) buy small quantities of physical gold/silver (just in case), and (iv) get hold of a few acres in the countryside. Dig vegetable beds. Plant fruit trees.

Many thanks for these kind remarks.

The support from our cousins accross the sea has, as ever, been a source of immense comfort - although I hope that today we showed that a prophet(ess?) can indeed also be honoured by her own country, and in her own house. London will be returning the compliment this weekend when the London Marathon turns out en masse, in black arm ribbons but in defiance, following a minute's silence in honour of those killed or maimed by the atrocity in Boston.

There was one further thing which struck me today: the magnificence of our shared language. The rolling cadences of the King James Bible and the lilting exhortations of the Book of Common Prayer's Order for the Burial of the Dead. In death, as in life, Margaret Thatcher seems to have mobilised the English language and sent it into battle against a meaner, duller, blander age.

James took some photographs to document the Ricochet (London Branch) presence at the event which he's promised to post later.

It was. After a full week of BBC-led propaganda, endlessly droning on about how "divisive" she was, and giving airtime to every chippy, left-wing agitator to "dispute" her legacy, it was very encouraging to see the silent majority out in force.

As James correctly said: "We shouldn't be that surprised. She did win three general elections in a row."

Can't do Saturday I'm afraid, (much as I would enjoy meeting Mrs James of Scotland I'm sure). Will definitely be lining the streets on Wednesday though.

Shall we pencil in, say, the Old Bank of England at 194 Fleet Street (the cortege will be passing down Fleet Street I understand) and liase re. timing etc later?

http://oldbankofengland.co.uk/

It has been many years since Mrs Thatcher (somehow the prefix "Baroness", though richly deserved, seems inappropriate for someone who made a meritocracy her lodestar) played a role in public life, so I am surprised at the depth of my own sadness on her passing.

Perhaps it is the sense that her betrayal by the pro-European pygmies in her own party in 1990 left so much undone: she had not even begun to tackle the welfare state or the car-crash that is the state education system in Britain. Perhaps it is the certainty that there is no-one on the right in politics in the UK today of a similar calibre, with the drive and vision to carry on her legacy.

Either way, when her cortege passes on the way to St Paul's next week, I'll be one of those standing to attention with a tear in my eye. 

It was a superb lecture, thank you professor Rahe - as a Brit, I have always thought that the sundering of the American connection through the folly and stupidity of Lord North, George III etc to be the great missed opportunity in British history (although, in fairness, a divorce was probably inevitable at some point, if not in 1776).

It's interesting to speculate how British and American history would have been different had there been no revolution in the 18th century though. I suppose there would still have been some form of Southern succession over slavery - although perhaps much earlier, around the time of the passing of the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833. I wonder how things would have turned out if the principal driver behind the independence movement had not been taxation, but the preservation of slavery? Perhaps Canada would be a lot bigger than it is today (which I imagine for many on Ricochet would be a fate too ghastly to contemplate...)

To give him his due, he's a more nuanced character than a mere left-wing fellow-traveller, or Zanu PF apologist. He was, for one of the founder members of the Rhodesian Army's tracker unit - forerunners to the famous Selous Scouts. (And I bet he does regret his previous support for Mugabe given the environmental-, as well as political disaster visited upon that country...)

Interesting chap. Played a leading role opposing Ian Smith's government in Rhodesia in the 70's, and was (initially at least) a supporter of Robert Mugabe when he came to power Zimbabwe.

(That didn't work out too well...)

The sensible way forward is an electoral pact between the Tories and UKIP, but I suspect there are too many vested interests in both parties to make this a reality.

James, I am very much in sympathy with UKIP, and as disenchanted as any sentient conservative with Cameron's Tories, but I don't see anything to celebrate in a result which split the centre-right vote down the middle, thereby giving the seat to the left-wing liberal democrats. It would be a disaster for the UK if this (as seems likely to be the case) is replicated nationally in a general election.

My objection is not with dramatic licence, or the focus on the CIA at the expense of others who helped, but with Affleck's deliberate falsification. By all means leave out the British role if it makes the narrative more focussed, but why say we refused to help, in a film which most viewers will now use as the prism for their view of a historical event, unless it was a deliberate attempt to distort the record?

Not to mention that it was British embassy staff who first rescued the 6 American diplomats, hid them and then passed them on to the Canadians prior to their extraction. Quite the opposite of Mr Affleck's claim in "Argo" that the "British turned them away". A betrayal and a travesty.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2284479/Oscar-winning-Argo-joins-long-list-films-bash-Britain-bending-truth-suit-Hollywood.html

Does this mean he's now ex-Benedict?

No offence intended. In the modern British idiom, (at least the version current in my admittedly reactionary social circle: motto - "retreat into the future") the word "chap", in its plural form, embraces both genders...

And yet, curiously, "no one person was to blame". So, nobody will be disciplined. No doctor or nurse will be struck off. The bureacrats in charge have long since been promoted to higher positions.

The socialist bureacracy failed to take care of its patients, but it's a past master at taking care of its own...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21363513