It’s almost Crimbo time, which means Jolyon “I am a KC” Maugham KC will soon be recording the End of Year video message in which he gushes about how successful he and his (Not Very) Good Law Project have been over the past 12 months.

Last year’s 35-second message, delivered via an email on 21 December to the some 300,000 people on the GLP’s mailing list – and my mocking response on X/Twitter that evening – were quickly followed by Jolyon’s annual meltdown, during which he falsely accused the tech company Palantir of hiring public relations agency Topham Guerin to “pay influencers to attack the GLP on social media over the Christmas period”, before going on to unjustly threaten legal academic Michael Foran with libel action after Dr Foran criticised the GLP’s approach to crowdfunded litigation.

Just after 6:30am on 22 December, Jolyon posted on X/Twitter:

I know this sounds dramatic, but we hold copies of a ‘confidential’ plan run by the Tory attack agency Topham Guerin to pay influencers to attack the Good Law Project over the Christmas period … Lots of questions arise including how many of the bad faith attacks on our work are secretly paid for by Topham Guerin or other Tory attack agencies.

And a few hours later, quite possibly after imbibing some champagne, he added:

I know it’s very fashionable amongst certain, usually very privileged, commentators to sneer at Good Law Project. Those people – Richard Dunstan, Barbara Rich and so on – sneer at us because, however they think of themselves, secretly they like things as they are. And they sneer at you too – they think you are misled in supporting us, that you don’t understand what we do, only they do.

Unsurprisingly, over the next few days, on X/Twitter both Barbara Rich and I were repeatedly accosted by GLP supporters demanding to know how much Topham Guerin had paid us for our criticism of Jolyon and the GLP’s approach to crowdfunded litigation. Which is no doubt what Jolyon was hoping would happen. Or perhaps he genuinely believes I am a paid Tory troll.

Anyway, what can we expect the increasingly unhinged Jolyon to gush about this year?

Well, Jolyon’s 2024 didn’t get off to a great start, as in January the Court of Appeal refused the GLP permission to appeal the High Court’s July 2023 dismissal of their Surrey Hills case. The GLP blew £57,039 of crowdfunded donations to achieve this “hugely disappointing” WIN.

Then, in February, the GLP quietly abandoned the ‘court case’ of Maugham v Conservative Party. A few weeks earlier, Jolyon had been SO excited about this ‘court case’ that he forgot to mention, when begging for financial support on social media, that it hadn’t actually reached court. And it never did reach court. Because Jolyon folded. So, another £32,573 down the toilet. BIG WIN!

In March, the GLP abandoned the appeal against imprisonment for contempt of court in their Climate Change Protesters case. The GLP then pocketed whatever was left of the stonking £70,354 they had crowdfunded for the appeal since April 2023 (the crowdfunder was never updated to inform the 3,005 donors of the abandonment of the appeal). MASSIVE WIN!

In April, the GLP quietly abandoned threatened legal action against the Charity Commission in respect of its handling of a 2022 complaint against the Global Warming Policy Foundation by MPs Clive Lewis, Caroline Lucas & Leyla Moran. Another £12,321 of crowdfunded donations wasted. WIN!

In May, the High Court refused the GLP permission to apply for judicial review in their Voter ID case, for which they had crowdfunded a stonking £60,139 since April 2023. The High Court also ordered the GLP to pay the Government’s legal costs. DOUBLE WIN!

Early in June, the GLP launched a new crowdfunder in support of a legal challenge to the outgoing Tory government’s emergency ban on the private prescription of puberty blockers to ‘trans kids’. This was to become, by some distance, the most successful of the ten crowdfunders launched by the GLP in 2024, grifting a stonking £60,329 from 1,770 midwits in just five weeks. KER-CHING!

However, in July, evidently to Jolyon’s surprise, new health secretary Wes Streeting robustly defended – and the High Court later dismissed – the GLP’s legal challenge to the puberty blockers ban, prompting Jolyon to embark on a 10-day, multiple post rant against Wes Streeting, before taking a nine-week “fortnight” off social media. WIN-WIN-WIN!

In August, while Jolyon was still off social media, it emerged that the Board of the Good Law Project were busily recruiting an Interim Managing Director to “re-conceptualise how the [GLP] works” and “develop a refreshed legal and political strategy”. CAREER WIN! (It’s unclear how long this process of re-conceptualisation will last, but it’s already taken some unexpected turns.)

There was further bad career news for Jolyon early in September, when new chancellor Rachel Reeves launched an ‘open competition’ for a part-time, fixed-term Covid Corruption Commissioner. Back in May, Jolyon had confidently counselled Conservative MPs they could “quit Parliament, and flee the mess they’ve made” but they would “still be subject to the investigations of Labour’s Covid Corruption Commissioner”, and many of Jolyon’s fans – perhaps even Jolyon himself – had expected Reeves to gift the job to Jolyon immediately after the General Election. Sadly, the post does not come with the ‘special powers’ and ‘hit squad of investigators’ that Reeves originally promised, and Jolyon now “struggles to believe it will deliver anything – so depressing”.

The same day, the GLP sent an email to supporters, announcing they will no longer be bringing legal challenges on transgender-related issues, as “it’s getting harder and harder to win rights for the trans community through the courts, and it doesn’t seem right to keep asking the community and its allies to carry on contributing to the enormous costs of this increasingly difficult litigation.” RESULT!

Then, just a few days later, the GLP announced the closure of their in-house law firm, Good Law Practice, created just two years ago. When launching the Good Law Practice, in May 2022, Jolyon had proudly told the Law Society Gazette:

We want to foster legal structures that help people respond to the world around them. The engagement that follows is, we believe, how we make a better world and fulfil the desire we all share to leave a better world than we found. Delivering on this is my mission.

However, the GLP now say that “the changed political and legal climates mean that, going forward, not backward, we will be doing less judicial review (i.e. suing public bodies)”. So the services of the Good Law Project and its employees are no longer required. HUGE MISSION WIN!

In October, Jolyon was legally bested by several of his least favourite “transphobic hate groups” – including the brilliant Sex Matters and LGB Alliance – when the GLP’s application on behalf of trans activists Victoria McCloud and Stephen Whittle to intervene in the appeal brought by For Women Scotland on the question of “What is a woman?” – an application for which they’d crowdfunded £31,874 from 849 midwits with interesting pronouns – was dismissed by the Supreme Court. VICTORIOUS VICTORY!

In November, having lost some 25,000 followers on X/Twitter since his meltdown in July, Jolyon informed his congregation that “there is a place where the sky is blue and you will find me there”. And indeed you can find him there.

What you won’t find on Bluesky, or on X/Twitter, is Jolyon’s post of 7 November – after Donald Trump won the US presidential election – in which he said: “As I learn about the death by suicide of another trans person I will never forgive Wes Streeting, and Labour, for being on the side of Donald Trump.” Because, a few hours later, Jolyon deleted it.

Finally, earlier this month, Jolyon and the GLP announced they are “tackling the loss of trust in politics and politicians” by bringing a legal challenge against politician and justice secretary Shabana Mahmood, because she cannot be trusted to fix delays in the justice system. Or something. (At the time of writing, there is no crowdfunder for this legal challenge – but watch this space!) [Update, 19 December: And … there will be no crowdfunder, as today the GLP announced they are “not proceeding” with this threatened legal challenge after all. WIN!]

Overall, between 1 January and 3 July 2024, the GLP launched nine new crowdfunders; these raised a total of £225,082, but achieved … nothing. Zilch. Nada. Rien. And, over that six-month period, the GLP also received more than £35,000 in donations to crowdfunders launched in 2023 or 2022, all of which had been closed by the time of the General Election.

In contrast, since the start of the Starmer era on 4 July, the GLP have launched just one new crowdfunder, in support of a vaguely specified legal challenge aimed at forcing Nigel Farage’s Reform party to improve its compliance with the famously dull General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This fearless fight against Faragist fascism has so far raised £37,369 from 2,011 midwits.

While there’s still six weeks to go until the end of the GLP’s reporting year 2024/25, this represents a significant drop in income from crowdfunders, compared to previous years:

All in all, Jolyon’s video message this Christmas might be more End of Days than End of Year. Indeed, I wouldn’t be totally surprised if, at some point next year, Jolyon follows his July 2024 advice to fellow parents of ‘trans kids’ and emigrates back to New Zealand from the England where – he told us just yesterday – “trans people have to depend on the kindness of strangers” and “the judiciary (as a monolith) sits inside a transphobic hegemony”. A shitshow indeed.