“Your honour, speaking for the defence, I would like to state the obvious: The free market economy is perfectly capable of finding its own levels, and indeed must be allowed to do so, otherwise western civilisation as we know it would collapse. Surely anyone with even an ounce of intelligence will know that something is worth whatever anyone - ‘the market’ - is willing to pay for it. So it really is rather foolish to complain when a cup of coffee costs £3, for example.”

“M’lud, if I may, we’re not talking here about a cup of coffee costing £3. We’re talking about a tiny house in central London costing £2.1 million (about $3.5 million).”

“But your honour, it’s academic whether we’re talking about a cup of coffee or a pleasant mews property in the world’s greatest capital city. The principle holds true for both.”

“Does my learned friend not realise what could be done with that sum of money? Does it not shock him, and any right and fair-minded individual, that a small pile of bricks, wood, glass, steel, paint and a few white goods should cost this much? Why, with that kind of money you could pay for:

• 420,000 mosquito nets to protect people from malaria
• 25 million oral polio vaccine doses
• Wells for 350 villages in Africa
• Livestock for several thousand families in the 3rd world

Surely my learned friend doesn’t need me to continue?”

“What a naive way of looking at things! Can I suggest that my friend needs to sit down and stop rocking the boat?”

“It may be naive m’lud, but is it not time we started saying no to such madness? Can such inequity be right?”

[silence in court]