So plans unveiled by minis-ters this summer for reforms to produce 'simple, speedy, sum-mary justice' were a renewed attempt to tackle a cumber-some and costly system.

Yet ministers' argue that introducing lawyers will just substitute one complex costly system for another, detracting from the whole point of a speedy, no-frills justice system.

As a very high-end, costly system about 70 were sold to high-end post houses from about 2000 to 2005.

Economists argue that this has created a complex and costly system of state benefit which could be simplified and reduced in expenses.

Lacking its natural frontier and having lost its costly system of border fortification, the new state was militarily indefensible.