Why so much fuss over Stella Braverman?

[lastminutepanicking]

I’m just wondering who on earth cares? Can’t understand why this is such big news.

The title came with the job.

Haha she's not a KC. They gave her that and she had to mark it hons.

Unlike most Attorney General who are awarded silk, she had to be given this to save embarrassment. She didn't earn it and wouldn't qualify for it by her own legal skills

Geoffrey Cox, Lucy Fraser, Dominic Grieve are all proper silks.

Usually legal positions in government are done by lawyers at a senior level. Suella Braverman is a notable exception, along with Dominic Raab. Neither of them excelled as lawyers and became MPs quickly.

@TheHandmaiden ah, those pesky facts! One of the Suelka fangirls will soon be along to call you a liar. Or perhaps say it doesn't matter because we don't need experts.

She didn't get KC through the normal routes, any Attorney General is automatically appointed as KC on taking office. All she had to do essentially was persuade Johnson into appointing her, and as most of the more competent lawyers in his administration had walked or been booted he didn't have a lot of choice.

When she was at the Bar she was not respected. I know a solicitor who still shudders at the memory of the time she dealt with one of their cases because the barrister initially instructed was unavailable; they didn't go into detail, but said that after that experience Braverman went onto the firm's list of barristers who must never be instructed under any circumstances.

On one of the few occasions when she represented the government in court she failed lamentably. Joshua Rosenberg's comment on it is very accurate (the first part of the quote in italics is from the judgment):

"In this case, however, the argument advanced by the attorney is that the sentence of Long, and therefore the sentences on Bowers and Cole, were unduly lenient because the judge erred in failing to depart from the relevant guideline.

That is, to say the least, an unusual submission. It involves the proposition that in the circumstances of this case, a sentence within the guideline offence range was not within the range properly open to the judge, who was instead required to pass a sentence outside that range. We think it regrettable that, in advancing that submission, the structure and ambit of the guideline were not addressed. Nor was any sufficient explanation given why it is contended that the judge was not merely entitled to depart from the guideline but positively required to do so.

Don’t be deceived by the understated language. As many lawyers pointed out on Twitter this morning, this is as scathing as it gets. “Unusual submission” is code for “monumentally bad point”. This was “coruscating”, others added, “damning”, a “judicial kicking” and “hugely embarrassing”.

And she has continued to demonstrate a basic lack of understanding of fundamental principles of law and the constitution ever since.

For a lawyer she has such a lack of integrity when it comes to rules.

So did Grayling. Bloody hell. When you consider that Oxford churned out Cameron, Johnson and Rees-Mogg, it makes you wonder why anyone bothers with trying to get into Oxbridge.

Braverman tried to take on Joanna Cherry and got her Miller cases mixed up.

Joshua Rozenberg Tweeted "Moral: know your cases before taking on another QC.”

Was every other country putting infected people into care homes and failing to supply those homes with adequate PPE? Would you care to provide a source for that?

@CabernetSauvignon - somebody has to get the third class degrees in these places!

You don't think it at all possible that these problems might have been contributed to by known issues such as lack of staff, poor pay and conditions meaning staff retention is very poor, lack of staff training and supervision, out of date and inefficient IT, inefficient and impractical internal systems? Who do you think might ultimately be responsible for all of that?

Cabernet I know a lawyer who worked for the home office. They got a transfer within month of a Braverman getting home sec job.

They were fed up of a Braverman requesting they make legal decisions based on the outcome she wants and not - the law.

@Hippyhippybake, if you were a civil servant, you'd know what civil servants do. But you're not. And you haven't got a clue.

@itsgettingweird @CabernetSauvignon - yes I've heard similar stories about her, and her expertise.

Unusual submission is legal speak for "you idiot".

Interesting nugget I discovered. For a time, the information about Braverman on her Chambers website claimed that she had contributed to another barrister's book on the law of gambling for local authorities. It later emerged that her sole contribution was doing some photocopying for the book on one occasion. The claim disappeared from the website shortly after The Big Issue. reported on this, and it was pointed out that it's pretty serious for a practising barrier to include information they know to be false on a chambers profile and it was referred to the Bar Standards Board. I don't know whether they've investigated it yet, but they are also investigating her following a number of other referrals based on her public activities and pronouncements.

Rwanda eh? Well, I'm shocked. Surely this can't be true?😂

Interesting, given that she was torn apart by the Court of Appeal for trying exactly the same sort of thing on them in the case I referenced above. She seems to be incapable of understanding fundamental legal principles, and equally incapable of learning.

I assume she's hoping to cadge a job from one of her mad right wing supporters when she inevitably loses her seat in Parliament - I can't see any reputable barristers' chambers wanting to take her on.

She's an incompetent, ignorant, embarrassing grifter. And for some reason she inspires her supporters to adopt the same attributes.🤦‍♀️

Please, please PM Sunak, get rid of SB. She is contagious and detrimental to the UK.🙏

I love how the Boris supporters always reference cake, but somehow never reference repeated attendance at unlawful gatherings, lying to Parliament, and appointing a known sexual molester to a position of power and sending junior ministers out to lie about it. It's this willingness to close their eyes to blatant corruption which leads to disgraceful performances like Braverman's in Parliament yesterday, when she repeatedly refused to answer questions about why her SpAD lied about her conviction and why she tried to involve civil servants in her personal troubles.

@DePfeffoff the way a particular poster goes on and on about the cake you'd think she made it, iced it and fed it to her beloved Boris

I stand corrected about her being a KC - how odd that AG automatically becomes a KC.

Well done Sue Ellen. Cardiff police have just admitted that a police van was chasing the teenagers whose deaths sparked the 'inexplicable' riots last night. What an example you set for us all to follow. Lie, lie, lie until forced to admit it. Look away now please, no institutional failings here, of any kind. We're working for the British people and giving them what they want.

You're absolutely right. Sue Ellen and the rest of the lying scumbags in government have set the tone. And what a horrible discordant tone it is.

The relationship between police and some local people in Ely is fraught at the best of times. This is not going to help.

Sadly he's been referred to the cops again for his lockdown-related activities. Something tells me that those, too, will go well beyond eating cake.

Its bloody awful. I am a respectable, law-abiding old girl, living in a quiet little city, never had anything to do with the police, never had cause to, luckily. So I have no personal reason to automatically disbelieve them. But I do. And when I saw the news reports this morning, stating no police involvement, I wondered how long it would be before they admitted it. Dreadful state of affairs not helped by a government adopting lying as the automatic response to anything negative. My condolences to anyone affected by this.