Were the jury to blame for the stunning collapse of the Jubilee line corruption trial this week, which wasted five years of everyone's time and plunged the justice system into yet another crisis?

This is what some people in the government want you to think. Ministers passed a law in the 2003 Criminal Justice Act to scrap juries in serious frauds. They were then forced to accept, after protests in the Lords, that another vote will be needed to bring this into effect. The abandonment of the trial may increase the numbers who would now vote to scrap such juries.