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Jo Maugham

@JolyonMaugham

Sep 10

'Hungary is for Hungarians,' says Orbán, a man about whom I have few illusions, but I did feel like I understood a little more about why that line resonated when I read, whilst visiting, about how Hungary had been repeatedly overrun by invaders.

And I thought about having grown up in New Zealand, whose Māori population has had to fight, and fights, to preserve its own culture, from a different kind of invasion.

And I remembered, one of the most unexpected, and cherished, experiences of my life, being invited by Cymdeithas yr Iaith to speak in front of The Senedd on the need to protect Welsh culture.

Read 4 tweets

Jo Maugham

@JolyonMaugham

Sep 7

There are, we think, some questions to answer about the relationship between Liz Truss and Andrew Mills, who won Ayanda the astonishingly lucrative £252m VIP contract under which it delivered £150m+ of facemasks the NHS can't use. 🧵

Here's what we have so far.

Andrew Mills was an advisor to the Board of Trade and was appointed in October 2017 when Liam Fox was Secretary of State for International Trade.

https://twitter.com/JolyonMaugham/status/1279322651522207744

He was replaced as Trade Secretary by Liz Truss in the Summer of 2019. And when we started tweeting about Ayanda, on 4 July 2020, Mills' twitter account revealed him to be a big fan of hers.

(Here's what I said at the time.)

https://twitter.com/JolyonMaugham/status/1279322651522207744

Read 10 tweets

Jo Maugham

@JolyonMaugham

Sep 6

Not all the detail is yet available but energy plans look a complete shocker.

(1) She will use the power of the state to ensure energy companies can continue to make vast profits - and put the cost on consumers.

(2) They will do nothing to dampen demand in a highly supply-constrained market. She has no idea how high prices will go and how much this will cost but however high they go, under her plan, consumers or taxpayers will pay them.

(3) Structurally writing a blank cheque feels a bit like Ireland's response to the credit crunch. Superficially attractive at the time, but it crippled Irish public finances.

What's the exit ramp if prices stay high?

Read 6 tweets

Jo Maugham

@JolyonMaugham

Sep 3

Calling it "a baseless smear" doesn't actually make it "baseless" or a "smear". There is no denial of the facts, that Fox received a large donation from a company he helped win a £500m contract. news.sky.com/story/liam-fox…

We're not going to be bullied by threats of litigation from Ministers or ex-Ministers in a relentlessly sleazy Government.

If it doesn't enjoy being described as sleazy there's a simple solution: stop with the sleaze.

In the extremely unlikely event that Liam Fox follows through on his implicit threat to sue us for libel let me say very clearly that we will publish his lawyer's letters.

Read 4 tweets

Jo Maugham

@JolyonMaugham

Sep 3

Perhaps not of first order importance but I wonder whether Lord Pannick was chosen to advise Johnson because he had 'known' and public views on what the process of the Privileges Committee should be?

Here, for example, is what he said in defence of Lord Lester who was investigated over allegations of sexual harassment in the Lords Privileges and Conduct Committee (theguardian.com/politics/2018/…).

And here is what his (and his Junior's) summary records of what he thinks the process should be for Boris Johnson before the House of Commons Privileges Committee (gov.uk/government/pub…).

Read 9 tweets

Jo Maugham

@JolyonMaugham

Sep 2

https://twitter.com/ProfMarkElliott/status/1565686714139541504

Have to say, Prof Elliott is not the only senior public lawyer expressing real concerns about this opinion...

https://twitter.com/ProfMarkElliott/status/1565686714139541504

That having been said, if I wanted leading and junior counsel to advise on an important public law matter, David Pannick and Jason Pobjoy would be on my shortlist. Both exceptional lawyers, highly regarded, and independently minded.

FWIW, I don't put much store in the notion that they have somehow been told to say this in their instructions. Lawyers of this calibre wouldn't put out an opinion on some 'funny' basis without coding that fact into their Opinion. And I don't see any sign of that.

Read 4 tweets

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