This is, of course, the book. Few readers will be unaware of the controversy surrounding its publication. It is rare enough that a book published by one of our leading firms of law publishers should be withdrawn for amendments under threat of a libel action. It must be unique that a distinguished Judge should have to issue a public apology to the members of the jury who claimed to have been defamed in his book.

Whether or not, as some have claimed, the furore over this book precipitated Lord Denning’s retirement, it certainly brought forward the official announcement of it. To many it will seem a tragedy that the twilight of a remarkable judicial career should be tinged with acrimony, all because of a careless passage in a book. But many who actually read the book may share the reviewer’s feelings that the real tragedy in this case is that a book so devoid of intellectual originality should have been published at all.

Lord Denning’s publishers quote in their blurb the author’s own objective. “I decided to look into the future and set down some things—in the hope that they may perhaps be done by those who come after”. Anyone who buys the book to find a reasoned case for reforms of the law will be so sadly disappointed by it that his thoughts will probably turn to the Trade Descriptions Act.

The book opens with a section on reformers of the past and ends with a reprint of the famous 1980 Dimbleby Lecture on the Abuse of Power. In between are sections on the jury, legal aid, personal injuries, defamation, privacy and a Bill of Rights. In each there are proposals about reforms which range from the sensible (reform of damages for pain, suffering and loss of amenities; the automatic reimbursement of the costs of successful unassisted parties from the Legal Aid Fund) to the quixotic (“the abolition of all technicalities” in libel actions) and the absurd (the selection of persons eligible for jury service in the same way as magistrates are now selected). But very little of the book is taken up with discussion of the reforms proposed (or opposed: Lord Denning is now (again) against a Bill of Rights, and against a statutory reform of the law of breach of confidence).