This picture shows how hard it is for the professions to stage a walkout. Working-class trade unions have had nearly 200 years to rehearse the rites of protest, and still find it hard to get the image right. This week's day of action by British barristers is said to be the first this legal elite has ever taken since the birth of the humanistically trained legal orator in the Renaissance (barristers are recorded in London in 1466).

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