least we have new tools to examine whatever rises from the deepest constitutional strata. Daniel Davison-Vecchione School of Law, University of Surrey Charlie Eastaugh School of Law, University of Surrey Access to Justice: Beyond the Policies and Politics of Austerity, by Ellie Palmer (ed.), Tom Cornford (ed.), Audrey Guinchard (ed.) and Yseult Marique (ed.), (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2016), xix + 311pp., hardback, £40, ISBN: 978-1849467346. It might be thought that it requires a certain level of masochism for a legal aid practitioner to want to read a book which details the recent cuts to the justice system. Nonetheless, there are a growing number of recent publications that can be described as falling into the category of “misery lit for legal aid lawyers”. From Steve Hynes and Jon Robins’ concise but forceful 2009 polemic, The Justice Gap, and 2012 follow-up Austerity Justice, to the more recent publication of Access to Justice and Legal Aid by Asher Flynn, the spotlight is finally being shone on the effect of austerity on access to justice. The latest contribution to this growing sub-genre is Access to Justice: Beyond the Policies and Politics of Austerity. It comprises of a series of papers from both academics and practitioners, which collectively aim to address the central question of whether “the absolutist approach to the dictates of austerity and the promise of new technologies that have driven the Coalition Government’s policy, can be squared with obligations to protect the fundamental right of access to justice, in the unwritten constitution of the United Kingdom” (p.ii). Resolving the tension between the public spending and ensuring that justice remains available to all those who have need of it, is not a new issue: “I have especially in mind those persons who, for no reward, spend a full evening one or more times a week after a busy day, on a hard chair, in an ugly room, in an inaccessible neighbourhood, listening to stories of everyday tragedies and follies and bringing relief to harassed minds by their sympathy and kindness” (Matthew, “Legal Aid and Legal Advice in England and Wales: the Rushcliffe Committee Report” (1946) 7(1) Howard Journal of Criminal Justice 39). It is easy to imagine these words as just another one of the empty commendations so often given to those who do publically funded legal work, usually said by some junior minister or other, before the inevitable reminder of the need for swingeing cuts to the legal aid budget. But these words were spoken in 1945, by the then Director of Public Prosecutions, Theobald Mathew. He was addressing an audience at the Howard League for Penal Reform on 20 July 1945, in the wake of the Rushcliffe Commission’s report, which was to establish the basis for the modern legal aid system (Report of the Committee on Legal Aid and Legal Advice in England and Wales (HMSO, 1945), Cmd.6641). 296 Public Law [2017] P.L., Issue 2 © 2017 Thomson Reuters Professional (UK) Limited and Contributors