The Government's 'reforms' to the legal aid system have turned their focus to the criminal law, and have been met with a little more fight than the civil system has so far shown. In the North of the country the moves have been met with an unprecedented strike by barristers, more than 400 of whom, it is claimed, stayed away from court on 22 April.

The focus of Monday's action appeared to be Manchester (are barristers the new Peterloo Martyrs?), where over 100 solicitors joined their colleagues for part of a meeting. One Manchester solicitor told the Law Society Gazette that four prison vans had left the Crown Court in convoy at lunchtime.

The action was in response to a number of changes, seen by lawyers as restricting access to justice in addition as capping their fees. One such is the allocation of counsel by the court system, described by Robin Murray as Stalinist. He quotes Winston Churchill, who wrote: "The mood and temper of the public in regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of the civilisation of any country."

Murray goes on: "The process of arrest and prosecution are demeaning enough without this added humiliation of denial of choice. In contrast, unlike the majority of the community, the political and wealthy elite will of course retain the economic ability to purchase their choice of legal representation. It is a socially divisive and shameful proposal."

• Another perverse result of the recent rush for cost savings was the refusal of the legal aid authority to pay for more than one third of the cost of an expert witness report in a family case, a decision upheld in the High Court. The County Court had already established that the parents in the case were unable to fund the other two-thirds, so the result is yet another Kafkaesque situation where there is no way out of an impasse.

• Students of press spin will have relished the reporting of the test results for horsemeat in EU meat products. The tests were carried out by experts throughout the EU and discovered that 5% of samples contained horsemeat. It was that 5% figure that prompted most of the revolving: Deutsche Welle took the scandalised line with EU tests identify horsemeat in almost five percent of beef products, while The Guardian ran with the more positive Horsemeat tests show less than 5% of EU beef products has equine DNA. The fact they mention DNA and not actual meat is an eloquent comment on the processed meat industry.

Among the agencies, Reuters couldn't resist France tops EU DNA tests for horsemeat in beef. A rather smug ABC News proclaimed European Horse Meat Scandal Not Likely to Happen in US. That line was followed by The IrishTimes, which ran with Irish tests find no trace of horse meat in beef products.

• I myself ate a burger the other day: a rare occurrence. A splendid addition to the range at my local Co-op is a venison burger. That, of course, is something we may be seeing more of, if conservation experts are to be believed.

Reminds me of the old joke about the chap who was describing his meal out the previous day. He'd had venison. "Was it dear?" his friend asked. I suppose these days he'd have to wait for the test results.

Chris Stokes