Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, will on Thursday October 2, challenge Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney General, to honour his position as the country’s senior law officer.

She will ask him if the Prime Minister consulted him on his speech (Mr Blair’s) to the Labour Party conference on Tuesday in which he attacked lawyers acting on behalf of asylum seekers and the Judges who hear their difficult cases.

Chakrabarti, herself a barrister, will urge the Attorney to restrain the PM from making intemperate and untruthful attacks which undermine respect for the independent judiciary and the rule of law.

“The Prime Minister used highly emotive, lawyer and judge-bashing language, to make a cheap political point. He is a barrister, his wife is a QC and he knows full well that there is no such thing as a ‘gravy train of legal aid.’ Indeed the UK’s leading firm of specialist solicitors dealing in this area has recently closed because it could not exist on legal aid income.”

Shami Chakrabarti and the Lord Goldsmith are both speaking at the Administrative Law Bar Association’s annual birthday party for the Human Rights Act, at Unitarian Hall, in Essex Street. The meeting is free and will start at 5.45 pm.