Bringing Down Goliath: How Good Law Can Topple the Powerful

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If adhering to the rules should frustrate a political goal he dislikes, he insists upon it; if adhering to procedure frustrates it, he condemns judges’ inability to look beyond a case in isolation. this book offers a peak into a very nasty can of worms of unchecked power but offers hope that there still libertarians willing to stand up for what is right and just. Maugham’s reference to Goliath is an indirect reference to the people in power that haven’t been held to account, which is the driving force that led him to creating the Good Law Project in 2017.

It’s fascinating to get a ‘behind the scenes’ view of legal challenges to the government, such as the prorogation of Parliament and the dodgy procurement of PPE during covid. So when I use it to describe Jolyon Maugham KC's book, I mean for it to be a challengeable position, which ought to be playing out in the readers mind. The undermining of the rule of law affects us all but in different measure depending upon social and economic standing. Maugham gave an eye-opening portrayal of what he is fighting for when he spoke of the statue atop London’s Old Bailey. While it succeeds in pointing out how common ‘sleaze’ is within the British Government, by the time it gets to the third similar example of these contracts, the point feels tired.In Bringing Down Goliath, Jolyon Maugham shares his inspiration and his purpose, and he reveals the story behind these landmark cases and the hidden fault lines of our judicial system. I was really thrilled to hear about putting the means to hold our local councils to their Climate Emergency Declaration rhetoric into the hands of local activists. It lays bare some of the litigation that gets little meaningful unbiased reporting in the mainstream media; a fact that is troubling. If you are wanting to construct a legal system that is supportive of the environment, there are a whole spectrum of ways in which you might rethink what the law does and how it stands in respect of the environment,” Maugham says. This kind of challenge to a decision from a government or other public body is known as ‘judicial review’ - and it’s the main avenue GLP uses.

Like many convinced of their own righteousness, Maugham arrives at a seemingly hypocritical conclusion by fanatical sincerity. The Houthis have discovered the beauty of greyzone aggression: you can just keep going, and the other side will struggle stop you.Pretty well all of them have championed worthwhile causes unrelated to the EU membership issue that I have mentally bookmarked and thought I should find out more about. He claimed that gender-critical feminists - who believe sex is biological and cannot be changed - had rejected his offers to debate the issue with him. Jolyon Maugham was one of an elite group of prominent establishment professionals whose historical role was I think to legitimise the questionable strategies and overheated language of the Remain cause during the three and a half-year constitutional arm-wrestle which followed the Brexit vote. In Bringing Down Goliath , he articulates reasonable cases against government overreach and corruption.

They helped bring a new confidence and self-awareness to the hitherto amorphous mass of angry, bitter, disaffected centrists who we are all very familiar with - the people you have gone on to define more precisely as low liberals. There is a superb tackling of the way in which Judges are selected and their place in the British constitution.

Maugham wants a judiciary which speaks not with many voices (which, of course, is the definition of diversity) but rather “a single voice”, presumably one which is in perfect concord with him.