Christmas is just two weeks away, and with it comes an inauspicious anniversary. It will be three years since the Boxing Day massacre, when the kimono-wearing, baseball-bat wielding KC Jolyon Maugham brutally beat a fox to death, incurring much mockery and the opprobrium of the RSPCA for his boastful tweets about the slaying. Maugham – a self-made man who worships his creator – subsequently apologised but the damage was done to both the opportunistic omnivore and the lawyer’s own reputation.
Perhaps then that looming milestone is why the Babe Ruth of the bar has been in such a huffy, hysterical mood this weekend. First, he opted to attack the Charity Commission for daring to investigate Mermaids after safeguarding allegations were raised, labelling the non-ministerial government department a ‘joke’ and a ‘pretend charity regulator.’ Er, pretty sure it’s a real one, Jolyon.
Maugham’s Good Law Project has some history here, having previously supported Mermaids in litigating against one of the commission’s decisions. He’s also previously claimed that the commission subjects ‘charities whose work the government doesn’t like’ to ‘regulatory harassment’ and that it ‘attack[s] those whose truths it finds inconvenient.’ So much for all that handwringing about post-truth politics.
Then Maugham opted to turn his guns (or bat) on another target: lambasting Policy Exchange and Michael Gove for daring to correct the New York Times‘ misreporting of the Trojan Horse scandal.
According to Maugham:
‘Our economy rests on sustaining the perception of the UK as high functioning despite the reality – a sleazy, autocratic mess where human rights and the rule of law are in peril’ which is ‘why it is so damaging when the NYT goes on the attack.’
Notably of course Maugham didn’t engage with Gove’s actual comments nor the NYT‘s noticeably skewed reporting of Britain in recent years.
Still, maybe Maugham can take all that anger out on a hapless fox in a fortnight’s time.
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