Harry Potter and the grumpy old man who picked a fight with fairylights

Move over, Richard Littlejohn. Stop hogging the lane, Clarkson. There’s a new grumpy old man in town: Jolyon Maugham. For years, the fox-bashing tax lawyer who founded the Good Law Project has preached the gender gospel to prove he’s down with the kids. But GLP’s latest campaign, against Oxford Street’s Harry Potter-themed Christmas lights, is so petty and reactionary even Victor Meldrew might think it mean-spirited.

Earlier this month, the GLP launched ‘Pull the Plug on Transphobia’. The Harry Potter display, it claims, ‘will not make trans people feel Christmassy, welcome or safe’ because of its association with author JK Rowling, who has championed the gender-critical cause. The campaign page asks: ‘Why is [London Mayor Sadiq Khan] allowing one of the most famous anti-trans people in the world to take over Oxford Street?’ Supporters are urged to deluge the mayoral office with emails.

To promote the campaign, one of Maugham’s acolytes, undoubtedly a Poppy or Lily, filmed herself phoning the Greater London Authority’s Public Liaison Unit to demand answers. An admirably patient staffer replies: ‘Right, okay, we have received correspondence about that.’ She explains that the London mayor has no direct responsibility for the display and that Westminster Council owns the land. The lights are organised by the New West End Company.

The young caller appears to regard this as a transphobic conspiracy. She explains to her viewers that GLP has already sent over 10,000 emails to the mayor’s office complaining about the display. While this will do no more than fill up spam folders, it will have increased the GLP’s database. Those who join the campaign are asked to share their names, email addresses and postcodes, and are invited to sign up for updates on GLP’s wider work.

The GLP bears Maugham’s unmistakable imprint: his personal preoccupations become public campaigns, and those he quarrels with are recast as threats to the public good. But getting worked up over Christmas lights inspired by a bestselling author, simply because you disagree with her entirely mainstream views on women’s rights, is petty in the extreme. It is in the same league of madness as the couple who guard the parking space outside their house despite not owning a car. Or the religious loons who fret over Halloween decorations and children trick-or-treating. It’s the permanently outraged looking for a trigger.

There is a logic to this, however. Maugham has cast himself as the martyr of gender, championing middle-aged transvestites and mentally ill children bundled together under the catch-all label ‘trans’. And now he needs transphobic demons to cast out. Rowling, a self-made woman of immense success, has repeatedly and expertly filleted him online. Meanwhile, the Labour Party, represented in this instance by Khan, has been described by GLP as leading a government ‘which is working for a world in which one cannot be trans and flourish’.

For his part, Khan has remained uncharacteristically dignified. He has not personally answered GLP’s demands; his office has simply pointed out that the mayor does not organise the display. Khan has flown the trans flag from City Hall and called himself a ‘visible and vocal ally’ of trans Londoners. Yet he has not endorsed Maugham’s campaign. Perhaps even the self-appointed Gender Jesus has overplayed his hand this time.

Being on the wrong side of even the Labour Party may be precisely the point, however. Maugham is a white, middle-aged tax lawyer, establishment to the core. To play David bringing down Goliath (as per the title of his autobiography), he needs enemies who are more powerful than him. Then he can ask his fellow trans allies to fund him in this battle on behalf of the ‘underdog’.

If anything, Maugham’s latest campaign simply proves that the Good Law Project is an engine for ginning up pointless grievances, rather than righting grievous wrongs. After all, can you think of anything more tragic than a grumpy old man picking a fight with fairy lights?