Another week of joy flies by as we head towards the wet warm season that is traditionally regarded as Summer. Some signs of the current recession have been apparent as Camerons join virtually everyone else in having to make some redundancies and Halliwells becomes the first to release figures showing retreating revenues. At least someone in the UK got lucky on the job front this week but guess what, they’re not a lawyer. Ben Southall, 34, a charity fundraiser from Hampshire got the enviable task of living as caretaker on the tropical Hamilton Island, on Queensland’s Great Barrier Reef. Poor chap.

Whilst the SRA has been criticised recently for its inability to assist struggling trainees etc, it has just increased the minimum salary payable to trainees from £18,420 to £18,590 for London and for trainees outside of London from £16,500 to £16,650. This represents an increase of just 0.9 per cent. However, the recommended salary for trainees in the capital however has been set at £19,040 and at around £16,940 for outside London. Great.

Exciting as this is, it is unlikley to affect a large number of trainees-in-waiting as the number of firms choosing to defer their intakes continues to mount up. Allen & Overy has become the latest to jump on this particular bandwagon. Deferrals are voluntary and the firm is offering £4,500 for those who defer for six months and £9,000 for those deferring for 12 months. A&O also plans to reduce its annual trainee intake by approximately 12%. Sigh.

As the saying goes when all around you are losing their heads, its good if you can keep yours (sort of) – now we have the cool-headed Patsy running immigration policy perhaps its time to get Edina in to sort out the economy…