This week on the #RoundMyKitchenTable podcast shadow Attorney-General Emily Thornberry joins journalist Alex Aldridge and Bircham Dyson Bell lawyer Kevin Poulter (all three are pictured below by Legal Cheek’s award-winning staff photographer).
Thornberry – formerly a barrister at Michael Mansfield’s Tooks Chambers – is a keen cyclist and, like another cycling lawyer in the news this week, isn’t shy of defending her rights to other road users. Still, she confesses to having jumped the odd red light in her time.
With Aldridge and Poulter on their best behaviour, Thornberry recalls the glory days of the criminal Bar when legal aid was plentiful and pupil barristers were flush with cash, and explains how she used the profession as a platform to get into politics.
As the wine flows, Aldridge desperately attempts to affirm his credentials as a hard-hitting interviewer by demanding of Thornberry: “Chuka Umunna, what’s he like then?”
Sighing as she eyes Aldridge pityingly, the shadow A-G expertly moves the conversation on to her involvement with the left-wing debating group Compass – where she first met shadow business secretary Umunna (formerly a solicitor at Herbert Smith) – before explaining how she juggles her work with being parent to three kids alongside her chancery barrister husband.
