Jolyon has lost again.
The Bar Standards Board late last week slapped down a complaint made by Maugham’s Good Law Project against a barrister over her social media posts. Sarah Phillimore is also launching crowdfunded defamation proceedings against Jolyon himself…
The GLP made a complaint on behalf of a trans person after Phillimore referred to them in posts. The Bar Standards Board has said Phillimore “has the right to manifest her gender critical beliefs,” and that her posts were not “either seriously offensive or otherwise a potential breach of CD5 [core duty 5 – upholding public trust] by being harassing, bullying, victimising or discriminating.” Dismissed on all counts…
“Whilst we note the number of times that this occurred over this period, this was a particularly turbulent time for trans people and for people holding gender critical beliefs, and both [the complainant] and SP frequently use the public arena to express their views… Even if we were wrong on this, we take the view that the comments would be protected by SP’s article 10 rights, such as that it would not be proportionate for the BSB to investigate”.
Jolyon’s GLP is having a tantrum as usual: “We will be asking the BSB to refer its decision not to investigate Phillimore to an Independent Reviewer – the next step in taking the complaint forward – and, should the BSB continue to refuse to investigate, we expect to bring judicial review proceedings against it.” Good luck!
Speaking to Sky News off the back of Rachel Reeves’ Air Passenger Duty hike, Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary said:
“Labour is dependent on those Red Wall seats, and yet every move she makes poisons economic growth and damages the UK’s recovery… it’s the Chancellor who stumbles from policy misstep to policy misstep… I think her policy decisions are incredibly stupid.”