As one has come to expect from a man of Clarke's experience, his speech was laden with the turn of phrase of a former barrister (he practised for the best part of 20 years in this parish) and contained remarkebly little spin. He happily defended the main headline grabbing issue from his keynote speech regarding getting prisoners to work - "churning a sub-class through Winson Green is something we should not resign ourselves to" - and was also pretty unnequivocal about the planned reform of the legal aid system although admitted it would probably remain the most expensive on the planet. And he even managed to bring some levity to proceedings following a couple of laborious questions that threatened to send the attendees heading for the exits.
The biggest chuckle came after admitting he didn't even know where the justice department was based until his appointment as Lord Chancellor as he was expecting to be made Minister of Business - as he almost certainly would have been if the Tories had managed a majority at the general election.