Share this page!

Jo Maugham Profile picture
Twitter logo
Feb 13 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Hard analytically to distinguish this from the VIP lane - which the High Court ruled illegal.
It will only be unlawful if donors get preferential treatment. Of course, they did get preferential treatment in the illegal PPE VIP lane.
And the reality - as they describe it to me and we have seen in emails - is that civil servants know it will impede their careers if they don't give effect to what they understand to be the wishes of their political masters. So donors do get preferential treatment.
We are also, of course, waiting for the outcome of @GoodLawProject's High Court challenge to the Government's decision to appoint Dido Harding, wife of the notional Anti-Sleaze Tsar John Penrose MP, and Mike Coupe to key public jobs.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
　

Keep Current with Jo Maugham

Jo Maugham Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @JolyonMaugham

Jo Maugham Profile picture
Feb 15
Lots of people are asking what the consequences are of the High Court's holding. It's a good question. THREAD.
Our constitution rests on the foundation that our political class will self-regulate. Peter Hennessy - the constitutional scholar - described this as the 'good chap' theory of the constitution (I've always read the phrase as tongue in cheek although it does sound off these days).
Part of that foundation is that politicians will care - or be caused by those around them to care - when they break the law. This is captured in the Ministerial Code which says that Ministers (including the PM) are expected to adhere to the law.
Read 19 tweets
Jo Maugham Profile picture
Feb 15
BREAKING: Prime Minister Boris Johnson and former Health Minister Matt Hancock broke the law because they didn’t think about disabled and ethnic minority communities in appointing Dido Harding and Mike Coupe.
Full story here. glplive.org/jftb-tw-1502
We are proud to have worked with @RunnymedeTrust.

And we are grateful to our legal team: @alexrook1 of @ris_law and Jason Coppel QC and Hannah Slarks of @11KBW.
Read 5 tweets
Jo Maugham Profile picture
Feb 7
How Government ran up almost £600,000 of costs *after* a one day judicial review was stayed - and how it estimates its total costs for that straight forward one day case to be more than £1.2m. glplive.org/bunzl-tw-0702
This is the worst - but by no means the first - example of awful conduct we've encountered. It's not easy to avoid concluding that they are using the depth of the public purse to restrict access to justice.
We are also seeing an approach to candour and truthfulness that I find pretty shocking. It's no surprise, I guess, that Government lawyers find the political pressure hard to resist. But what's happening is destructive of something incredibly important in our legal culture.
Read 5 tweets
Jo Maugham Profile picture
Feb 4
Randox is every VIP. Civil servants were told by Ministers - explicitly or implicitly - to give them contracts or else. bylinetimes.com/2022/02/03/gov…
VIPs knew it. Baroness Mone was "incandescent with rage" and going to Michael Gove and Matt Hancock.
Civil servants knew it. Here is a civil servant worrying about Andrew Mills kicking off if he doesn't get a contract.
Read 7 tweets
Jo Maugham Profile picture
Feb 1
It is just staggering how wasteful (at best) Government's PPE buying was. On their own figures they spent £13bn on procurement, storage and transportation.
The value of its existing inventory was reduced by £8.7bn.
And the value of its future inventory is reduced by £1.2bn.
Read 4 tweets
Jo Maugham Profile picture
Jan 30
This, from a joint article by Johnson and Sunak, is a simple lie. The National Insurance Contributions rise will in fact fall least on those who can most afford it. It is a tax rise that lets the mega rich off the hook.
Most of us get by on wages. Most of us don't have huge amounts of interest income or dividends or rents or capital gains. It's the mega wealthy who have huge amounts of unearned income. The NICs rise on wages is high and on unearned income it is low or nil.
What I have said is true. Some economists will tell you the NICs rise is "progressive". If by "progressive" they mean it hits the middle class people more than the working class it's true. If by "progressive they mean it hits the top 0.1% harder than everyone else it's false.
Read 6 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Like this author's thread?

Get emails when @JolyonMaugham has new unrolls!

Check out other threads from @JolyonMaugham!

Read all threads by @JolyonMaugham

:(