Tweet

Jo Maugham

23 Sep, 8 tweets, 3 min read

Some extraordinary stories emerging about what's happening in schools.

More than 100,000 with Covid. theguardian.com/world/2021/sep…

Warnings of more from Chris Whitty. theguardian.com/society/2021/s…

But only three weeks ago Public Health England, who we are supposed to be able to trust, was insisting "schools are not the drivers and not the hubs of infection". bbc.com/news/uk-584187…

@SchoolsWeek

A week ago I wrote for @SchoolsWeek about the need for Government, local authorities and schools to recognise the particular problem this created for the hundreds of thousands of families who had particular medically vulnerabilities to Covid. schoolsweek.co.uk/schools-mustnt…

And our lawyers wrote to Gavin Williamson threatening legal action if he continued to ignore those families - who presently face an ugly choice between risking their lives or risking prosecution. goodlawproject.org/update/unlawfu…

Lawyers for Nadhim Zahawi, Williamson's replacement, have asked for more time to respond to our letter. Meanwhile some families continue to be bullied and end up 'deregistering' their children - which is great for the school's attendance stats but terrible for the children.

@GoodLawProject

We at @GoodLawProject are working with a team of lawyers, led by Fiona Scolding QC, to identify test cases to bring against schools and local authorities and expect to make some announcements imminently. And we are preparing to issue judicial review proceedings against Zahawi.

However, we are hugely underfunded for this workstream. If you are able to contribute we would be grateful. crowdjustice.com/case/keep-chil…

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More from @JolyonMaugham

Jo Maugham

@JolyonMaugham

19 Sep

The Sunday Times is right to point to the relationship between your place in society's screwed up pecking order and the amount of abuse you attract online. THREAD

1. But the thing about pecking orders is that everyone sits in a power relationship to everyone else. So it can be true both that the group 'women' gets more abuse than 'men' and that other groups get more abuse than women.

That you are not at the top of the pecking order doesn't mean you are at the bottom. If you don't like pecking orders - if they don't sit with your ideas about equality - then make sure you always peck up - never peck down.

Read 15 tweets

Jo Maugham

@JolyonMaugham

18 Sep

Iinteresting story about the judge ("J") who is widely believed to have written the appalling Bell decision. J used to be a hero to many around me for heroically despatching Paul Conrathe (who acted for Ms Bell) in a case he brought attacking abortion rights.

I spoke to someone I trust who had watched the hearing. They said that they had been shocked at J's treatment of Conrathe's client in that case. They didn't think the conduct of the case had been remotely fair - and that J had been bullying.

Anyway. It was a reminder to me, and perhaps to you, to care more about the independence of the law and of judges generally. It's never right - even when convenient to you - for judges to bring their personal politics into the courtroom.

Read 4 tweets

Jo Maugham

@JolyonMaugham

17 Sep

So the (truly awful) Bell decision has been overturned on appeal. Some headline points. THREAD.

The most damaging part of the decision of the Divisional Court was the centering in a place of notional authority (the Court) of marginal opinions about how to help gender dysphoric kids. The CA is critical of the Court below for making findings based on that evidence.

@GoodLawProject

This is the second intervention (both successful) of @GoodLawProject in the space - the interveners were @BrookCharity, @Genderintell and @TheEndoSociety - and the Court of Appeal also endorsed the first. (Outlined here goodlawproject.org/news/tavistock…).

Read 7 tweets

Jo Maugham

@JolyonMaugham

16 Sep

The decision of the Court of Appeal in Keira Bell's case will be released tomorrow at 2pm.

@graceelavery

You can read my interview with @graceelavery about the Bell decision here. grace.substack.com/p/the-division…

@RubyJLL

I also gave this interview to the marvellous @RubyJLL of @VICE. vice.com/en/article/qjp…

Read 4 tweets

Jo Maugham

@JolyonMaugham

9 Sep

You'll have read a lot of clever people over the last few days telling you that raising NICs is "progressive".

Here's why that's misleading - or wrong. THREAD.

Look at the features of NICs.

It's not chargeable (or now chargeable at a lower rate) on the types of income that rich people tend to have and poor people don't - like dividends or rents or income. /1

And it is charged at a flat rate (unlike income tax) with a 'step down' - ie it's charged at a lower rate - on earnings above c £50k pa.

Those are its relevant features. So how can it be claimed to be "progressive"? /2

Read 6 tweets

Jo Maugham

@JolyonMaugham

7 Sep

So. Tax on earnings will go up 2.5% (whether the cash is handed over by employers or employees it is still a tax on earnings) and tax on dividends by 1.25% and tax on rents or interest income by 0%. The measures favour those who don't have to work for a living.

The tax taken from regular working people will be allocated in large part to protecting the inheritances of the children of wealthier families through the cap on the amount of your care costs you have to pay: almost the exact opposite of what we should be doing.

We're introducing a new tax which will drive up payroll costs for businesses and administration costs for Government. Our tax code is already almost as long as Encyclopaedia Britannica: there is no good reason to make things worse - but he is.

Read 6 tweets

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