A couple of comments of my own on this @Telegraph story by @HenryBodkin.
https://twitter.com/JolyonMaugham/status/1477203339624464388
This is poor stuff. Judicial reviews don’t get anywhere (they don’t get permission) if the only basis for them is disagreement with government policy. GLP cases have had success because they have identified cases where government has breached the law. 
It is important to make that point because sloppy reporting of that kind feeds into a narrative that judicial review is just politics by other means.
It isn’t: it’s a different kind of accountability (and one necessary to underpin politics) - ensuring that government sticks to the rules that our politics produces.
Again, sloppy. We are talking about law made by politicians (procurement rules) and basic common law principles (eg rule against apparent bias): not “civil service red tape”. Ministers may put it that way: but journalists should not swallow that.
If government bodies back out of projects that have an arguable (even if controversial) policy rationale and a solid legal basis because they fear judicial review, that is due to bad decision-making, not aggressive lawyers or interfering judges.
Of course, government decisions will get challenged and public law has grey areas where plausible arguments can be run against you and there is a risk of losing.
But if decision-makers are comfortable with their decision and happy to see it exposed to the light, fear of judicial review is a very poor reason for not going ahead.
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