Jo Maugham

[GoodbyePorpoiseSpit]

I follow Jo on Twitter and feel that the GoodLaw project is a needed and good thing when it comes to holding ministers/gov spending to account. He seems to take refuge in the rule of law and facts .... so, so WHY after the recent ruling on puberty blockers is he tweeting and retweeting Trans folk who are sharing (in emotive and extra detail) their experience post ruling. What his deal?? What’s his skin in the game? Looked through some old tweets and he really seems to have come down hard against women’s rights.
Ca anyone explain his deal here?

So parents should have the say - some parents believe FGM is a good thing and following JM’s reasoning the state should not interfere.

Some parents also believe there's nothing wrong with giving their kids a good beating to ''toughen them up'' or to stop them misbehaving. They know best, right? Why should the courts stick their beaks in?

Jolly is talking shite.

Here’s an archive link for Jolly’s ‘Father knows best’ type tweet, just in case it disappears:

archive.md/7AGWS

It appears to have disappeared. Interesting. Can't take the heat, Mr Maugham?

Wasn't there a changover from Parental Rights to Parental Responsibilities a few years ago?

The tweet is still there.

@yourhairiswinterfire

Some parents also believe there's nothing wrong with giving their kids a good beating to ''toughen them up'' or to stop them misbehaving. They know best, right? Why should the courts stick their beaks in?

Jolly is talking shite.

It’s complete rubbish. Only the most right wing extremists believe that children are the property of their parents. Anyone who knows even the basics of family law knows that any rights parents have are subordinate to the best interests of the child, which are safeguarded by the court. There are some things parents can consent to on their child’s behalf, like having a brace put on their teeth. Having experimental life-altering gender reassignment treatment when the child themselves doesn’t have the capacity to consent is not one of them. Jolyon’s outrage that judges are deciding on these matters is absolutely laughable to anyone who has experience in these areas because it’s what they do all the time. They hear evidence from experts and then make a decision. Clearly cases like Alfie Evans, Charlie Gard, the conjoined twins and many others passed Jolyon by, despite their high profile. They too involved judges making decisions on medical treatment based on children’s best interests.

Hundreds of children are taken into care because their parents' idea of their best interests is actually abusive.

Precisely. I don’t understand how he’s too thick to understand how wrong it is to give free rein to parents to consent on their child’s behalf and also to fail to grasp that the court has an overriding duty to safeguard welfare that extends to making decisions about medical treatment that may conflict with the parents’ view. I mean in the conjoined twins case, the parents objected to separation but the court ruled it should go ahead. There are cases where Jehovah’s Witnesses have wanted to stop their kids having blood transfusion and the court has said no. In the Charlie Gard case, the courts ruled that Charlie should receive only palliative care, despite his parents’ wishes to take him abroad. The idea that the Bell case is the first time judges have ruled on medical matters and overridden parental wishes is ridiculous. He thinks he’s making these really clever points but is just coming across as an uninformed arse.

@WiltingAtTreadmills

The tweet is still there.

Sorry, my mistake. I confused his personal Twitter with his work one.

@PotholeParadies

So, remind me again who it was who was going to destroy girls' rights to access contraception without their parents' permission?

Given he was going on earlier about how the case undermines the concept of Gillick Competence, has anyone pointed out to him yet where that comes from?

Interesting response here from an advisor to the government.

@teawamutu

Interesting response here from an advisor to the government.

That there is some polite speak for “I am absolutely astounded and appalled by the level of stupidity displayed by this individual”

I love it!

It’s worth repeating that in the past Maugham has said that areas of law like family and crime are not “prestigious”. He then got into a twitter fight (of course) with women , arguing there is no negative value judgment in calling an area of law less prestigious. So he probably looks down on areas like family and reckons he’s smart enough to just discuss it from first principles. Unfortunately he’s showing his ignorance.

@WeeBisom

It’s worth repeating that in the past Maugham has said that areas of law like family and crime are not “prestigious”. He then got into a twitter fight (of course) with women , arguing there is no negative value judgment in calling an area of law less prestigious. So he probably looks down on areas like family and reckons he’s smart enough to just discuss it from first principles. Unfortunately he’s showing his ignorance.

'Staggering ignorance" according to a government advisor.

@WeeBisom

It’s worth repeating that in the past Maugham has said that areas of law like family and crime are not “prestigious”. He then got into a twitter fight (of course) with women , arguing there is no negative value judgment in calling an area of law less prestigious. So he probably looks down on areas like family and reckons he’s smart enough to just discuss it from first principles. Unfortunately he’s showing his ignorance.

I'm a complete layperson when it comes to the law, I have no knowledge beyond reading newspapers, even I knew straight away that the position was illogical and against Gillick competence. I know lawyers have niches but I'd expect them to have at least some consistency with what they were talking about the prior week!

Marina Wheeler is Boris Johnson's ex-wife as well. Not on good terms with him, but it's just possible that she or one of their children might get him to look at this issue.

Maugham is priviledged enough not to understand nor even think about how parents don't always act in the best interests of their kids. That says a huge amount about his life and his narrow view of the world especially when he works in law.

'Staggering ignorance" according to a government advisor.

And, interestingly, someone who used to be a Labour MP.

Is the GLP basically a one-man band?

I would have thought that finding another UK lawyer unaware of child abuse, Jehovah's Witnesses and blood transfusions, Charlie Gard, the sad case of the conjoined twins, and so on would be quite difficult?

In A-level law, we covered why medical staff might make appeals to a court for a child against the wishes of the parents.

It's possible he is aware but is rabble rousing for money (via the crowdfunder)

Could be. I was inclined to think the position he's taking is sincere, because I don't think you'd knowingly deepsix your reputation like that.

Even in the case of Charlie Gard, people were rejecting the idea that a court could order palliative care. It was a preservation of life position.

They weren't rejecting the role of courts in intervening against child abuse, etc. In my opinion, only those very ideologically invested and focused on the trans debate only and people who don't believe in children's rights , would see that tweet without going "WTF?" and they're donating to the crowdfunder already.

You don't really need to be up on Gillick competence to see the issues with his tweet. Just a subscription to Take a Break might make his tweet seem equally irresponsible!

I think Maugham is foreseeing the end of the road for his Brexit campaigning and was thrilled to find another cause. Over Brexit he ended up as Marmite with loads of people hating his interventions while loads viewed him as a legal superhero. But for his purposes he only needs the right-thinking on his side.

Maybe he's applying a similar template now: because he's loved by a load of trans activists that must mean he's on the right side of history. Perhaps the reasoning goes that if he thinks he's right, then he must be, after all, that worked perfectly for Brexit. The deluded bit comes from him doing this without weighing up the arguments on each side, and not stopping and having a look at some of the people cheering him on.

because he's loved by a load of trans activists that must mean he's on the right side of history.

It works for Owen Jones.

I expect he assumes that the demographic who loved him for Brexit will be the same people as will love him for this, because he’s fallen in to that classic lefty trap of “all right thinking people ought to believe this”, which is a trap I’ve come to see I’ve fallen into myself in the past. He believes that those who oppose him are knuckle dragging homophobes and EDL types who’ve never been over the village bridge.

He hasn’t read the room.