PRESTER JOHN… KING ARTHUR… RUMPOLE OF THE BAILEY:

…I am getting ready for a book tour to promote a new Rumpole. Unlike some writers, I enjoy book tours. Writing novels is a lonely business; your feet and legs get cold and you have no direct contact with your audience. …

Rumpole keeps going because all his stories are a comment on the passing scene. At the moment, he is engaged in defending a Pakistani doctor accused of being a terrorist. He takes part in extraordinary trials of prisoners anxious to be freed from Belmarsh. In these alleged judicial proceedings, the prisoner and his lawyer cannot be told the particulars of the charges. When these vital matters are discussed, the accused and his advisers have to leave the court.

Such abandonment of our civil liberties as this, the diminishing right to silence, the partial elimination of jury trials and, in some cases, placing the burden of proof on the defence are all, in Rumpole’s view, a victory for the terrorists who want to change our way of life. It is to be hoped that his latest escapade will irritate everyone at the Home Office and in the new, unnecessary Department for Constitutional Affairs.

more (I forget where I found this, maybe Hit & Run?)