YOU can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time, as the famous saying goes.
Unless those people are giving you a job interview at , when apparently you can get away with saying pretty much anything you like.
Jason Arday was appointed the youngest black professor at one of the world’s most prestigious universities Credit: Graeme Robertson..
After an investigation was announced, Arday resigned from Cambridge University’s Jesus College Credit: Alamy Stock Photo
That appears to be what happened in 2023 when Jason Arday was appointed, at the age of 37, the youngest black professor at one of the world’s leading and hailed as one of the best academics in his field.
This week, just three years later, he has resigned his post, claiming he could no longer “endure” the “unrelenting level of public scrutiny and personal attacks” which he has faced in recent weeks.
If you haven’t been following this extraordinary story, then you’ve been missing out because this outlandish tale about a modern-day Walter Mitty has all the makings of a hit series.
Arday’s life story is incredible in every sense of that word. He certainly gives former Chancellor a run for her money when it comes to the claims on his CV.
Diagnosed with and dyslexia, he says he was a mute until the age of 11 and illiterate until 18, and yet went on to university, culminating in a PhD, sitting his final oral exam just three weeks after having surgery for a brain tumour.
He apparently raised £5.5million for from running 30 marathons in 35 days — even completing the last nine marathons with a leg fracture.
He also ran 600 miles in six days on a treadmill, putting him into elite international athlete standards of sporting prowess. And he volunteered in South America and Africa for WaterAid.
Unfortunately, no evidence of any of these sporting achievements or charitable deeds has ever been produced, and his claim to have starred in the BBC’s famous Seven Up documentary series must have involved time travel as filming started 20 years before he was even born.
Rather more seriously for his career, that his 2015 PhD thesis contained stretches of plagiarised content, and no less than FOUR of the universities, at home and abroad, where he claimed to have held honorary academic positions have said they have never heard of him.
Nevertheless, a letter of “solidarity” signed by 15,000 of the great and the good, including MPs and academics, has defended him against “demonisation” and “baseless allegations”, accusing his critics of simply being “right wing” and “racist”.
Yet just hours after Cambridge finally into these apparently untrue allegations, Arday threw in the towel and resigned from the university’s Jesus College.
This all makes for a great summer “silly season” story.
Arday claims he sat his final oral exam just three weeks after having surgery for a brain tumour Credit: X
He also says he ran 600 miles in six days on a treadmill, although there is no evidence for any of his claims Credit: Shutterstock
Except of course it’s not silly at all. After all, the whole scandal — and it IS a scandal — tells us a lot more about the terrible state of our universities than it does about Arday.
A once highly esteemed university, in a desperate bid not to appear “too male, pale and stale”, thrust aside basic academic standards and intellectual rigour at the altar of the three woke gods of diversity, equity and inclusion.
Cambridge University was so excited by the prospect of their new DEI hire, they fell hook, line and sinker for Arday’s outlandish life story and forgot to check his CV.
Who cares?! He ticked all the right boxes: an ethnic minority candidate with a neuro-divergent . Too bad he wasn’t also lesbian or trans, but I guess you can’t have everything.
Arday may be out of a job, but his appointment has turned Cambridge into an international laughing stock, along with the , which feted the young professor at every opportunity.
Even more worryingly, an academic and a journalist faced police probes into claims of harassment of Arday for making legitimate inquiries about his academic qualifications.
This strange tale also raises serious questions about just how much so-called “progressive” ideology has infected the academic world, and left many wondering how many more academics have outrageously inflated their CVs to further their careers.
It might not matter much if a sociology professor isn’t up to the job, but what about those teaching or engineering, where facts actually MATTER?
But what is most damaging of all are the accusations of racism against those who simply asked questions.
Arday’s defenders insist he has been harassed out of his job simply because he is black.
In truth, it looks far more likely that he only got his job in the first place because of the colour of his skin.
That, sadly, says a lot more about the terrible state of our woke universities than it does about a young man whose life story turned out to be little more than a fairy tale.
HOLIDAY’S OVER FOR BURNHAM
Prime Minister Andy Burnham is currently enjoying a holiday abroad with his family Credit: Crown Copyright
AFTER just two weeks in the job, is currently e
He must be worn out, poor dear, after he claims he “pushed to the very limits of what is possible” to stop
While Burnham, like Keir Starmer before him, has been left to pick up the pieces of a failing criminal justice system suffering from chronic underfunding for decades, the new PM has, just like his predecessor, approved the release of thousands of dangerous criminals out on to our streets.
He has banned rapists and serious child sexual offenders from early release, but many criminals guilty of manslaughter and members of child grooming gangs will likely be able to leave prison in October, just halfway through their jail terms.
Those guilty men include two of the killers of PC Andrew Harper, dragged to his death behind a car as the teenagers fled the scene of a quad bike theft in 2019.
We are told that setting free thousands of criminals early is the only way to prevent the collapse of the entire prison system.
But that isn’t true: there are plenty of alternatives.
We could instead deport the 10,000 foreign criminals currently languishing in our cells.
Or we could urgently refurbish old mothballed prisons, or move low-risk prisoners to secure former barracks.
If we can build Nightingale hospitals during Covid, why not Nightingale prisons for low-risk offenders?
Or why not free non-violent women prisoners, convert an entire isolated prison wing and move men into their cells?
There are endless choices that Burnham could have made to keep these people behind bars.
Yet he has chosen to free those criminals on to our streets.
The PM may still be enjoying his holiday, but his political honeymoon is well and truly over.
Eze Chidiebere Paul
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