Curious interview with BBC World At One. A judge has just found Govt's conduct unlawful and characterised by the appearance of favouritism to friends: a striking thing. But the interviewer gave me little space to explain the implications and argued Govt's case against me.
It's progress of a sort, I suppose. They never even had me on when I was winning all the Brexit cases. But I continue to think the BBC reveals itself in these interviews: as a defender of power rather than as interested in the accountability of power.
We'll clip the interview and add it to this thread so you can listen for yourself. But the BBC's attack-minded positioning felt to me as though, by exposing the Government as a law breaker, it was me who had done something wrong.
Not for me to say whether that positioning ('holding to account those who hold power to account') is in the BBC's institutional interests. I mean, I think that the absence of clear throated defence of the BBC from progressives in the face of Murdoch-style attacks tells a story.
But it's, y'know, not really journalism. It's the buttressing of not the scrutiny of power.
I expect this thread will mean, umm, a delay before my next BBC appearance. And that's a problem because the BBC utterly dominates news consumption.
But, y'know, I've made my peace with that. For @GoodLawProject to succeed by biting its tongue as the nation slides into sleazy autocracy, well, that's not for me. I'd rather sit outside, thank you, and do my job alongside @openDemocracy, @DoubleDownNews, @guardian and others.
Assume you are an ambitious civil servant. Someone who is a clearly a friend of Hancock's writes to him offering to sell PPE. He passes the email on to you. Do you (a) treat them like everyone else? Or (b) take your cue from their relationship and him passing you their offer?
This 👆🏼 is what Matt Hancock says he was doing. So it's not an academic question.
What is Matt Hancock's friend going to do if they feel they ought to have won a PPE contract and didn't? If they kick off will that be good for your career? If they threaten you will you take that seriously? Will you be damn sure to treat them with kid gloves?
What's the end point for a country ruled by a Government that has become indifferent to breaches of the rule of law?
We don't think the Government has consent from the people for its law-breaking. You and I comply with the law - or face the consequences - and so should the Government.
This is no trivial matter. This is not some technicality. This is the High Court agreeing that a Cabinet Minister looks to be channelling public money - your money - to his associates. Outrageous that the Government should pretend there is nothing to see here.
BREAKIING: The High Court has ruled Michael Gove broke the law in awarding a contract to his associates at Public First. The Court ruled a reasonable observer would think there was a real risk Public First won the contract because of favouritism.
The decision vindicates what @GoodLawProject has been saying now for a year: that the Government's pandemic procurement favoured friends of the Conservative Party. Full blog here: glplive.org/judgment
We have now two concluded judicial reviews of pandemic procurement. Each established that a Cabinet Minister - respectively, Matt Hancock and Michael Gove - acted unlawfully. We have a slate of approximately a dozen further judicial reviews to come.
Just imagine an ongoing national debate about the 'reasonable limits of black existence' conducted exclusively by white people. That's what trans people face - and it is *abysmal*.
Spoken about, over, through but never to and never heard.
Yes, I argued cases for would be tax avoiders - and I have written about that here: waitingfortax.com/2015/05/01/tax…. But the hypocrisy is all the Mail's.
Yes, I killed a fox to save my chickens. But, again, the hypocrisy is all the Mail's (magzter.com/stories/Fashio…).
In practice, the way Government is briefing makes this look like a very specific legislative attack on @GoodLawProject and the work we do.
We at @GoodLawProject have *repeatedly* been commended in judgments by High Court judges for the ethical and responsible way in which we have conducted ourselves. We also have an extraordinary record of success in exposing a Government that is contemptuous of the law.