Our friends at the Good Law Project

The trope of “why did everyone focus on HIS story over others?” came to mind when I saw the Mushroom Murderer was back in the news seeking leave to appeal. Why did that story gain so much traction? Why that murder over all the other murders that happen worldwide daily, even in Australia where it happened? Because it was completely bonkers. It was so outrageous. The claims were so fantastical.

The general public and news cycle has always been grabbed by stories that are so unique, and more outlandish, as far back as Jack the Ripper, and hoaxes like the fairy photographs.

Arday’s story was the same. So outrageous. So outlandish. So fantastical.

It's quite something to see the Good Law Project attack Lanre Bakare, a black journalist who did an excellent job of exposing Arday's lies. Why is Maugham so confident about supporting Arday, when two months ago he didn't even know the guy?

The hostility directed by supposed liberal progressives towards non-white people who fail to hold the "correct" opinions is quite striking, and occasionally a little scary.

JKR weighed in

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/08/18/rowling-cambridge-could-have-spared-arday-public-shaming/

I couldn't get the article to archive but I managed to read it by opening the link then immediately putting my tablet in airplane mode quickly enough to stop the paywall.

While I agree with what she says I almost wish she'd sat this one out. This will just fuel the folx who hate her, particularly the comparison between herself and the 'sainted' Arday. They should listen to her, JA's story doesn't need more lies, but they won't. They'll flip her words and further entrench themselves.

I work in university admin and have been trying to get my head round Arday's meteoric rise to Cambridge. An annoying complication is the number of UK universities now following the tedious American system whereby all academics are "Professor", with divisions of Assistant, Associate, and Full. The word has become diluted now it applies to everyone.

Obviously it is hard to untangle fact from claim, but it looks as though the timeline is:

2015 PhD
2018 Senior Lecturer (Roehampton)
2022 Professor (Glasgow)- not clear if this is Reader in old money
2023 Professor (Cambridge)- Full Professor in new money? Chair?

I don't have a frame of reference for such rapid promotion (I work in a top-rated STEM dept in a top-rated university). It just wouldn't be possible here, with the metrics used for each step of academic progression (huge amounts of paperwork and admin involved at each stage).

Clearly this kind of fast-tracking is a gamble that institutions make, but with individuals paying the price. I'd like to think there are quiet conversations going on about not letting it happen again, but presumably it's much easier to shout "racism!".

The hostility directed by supposed liberal progressives towards non-white people who fail to hold the "correct" opinions is quite striking, and occasionally a little scary.

Forced teaming.

Tomiwa Owolade got called all sorts by the likes of Kehinde Andrews when he had wrongthink. It's this notion that if you are an ethnic minority you are automatically left wing too, and if not you are some sort of traitor.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/jun/26/this-is-not-america-by-tomiwa-owolade-review-why-black-lives-in-britain-matter

You missed out his post at Durham

2015 PhD
2018 Senior Lecturer (Roehampton)
202? Associate Professor (Durham)
2022 Professor (Glasgow)- not clear if this is Reader in old money
2023 Professor (Cambridge)- Full Professor in new money? Chair?

He was supposed to have started off work as a PE teacher so presumably there must be an undergraduate degree too.

I feel like one of the reasons why this story captured the popular imagination is the gulf between reality, and the stories, claims, and defences of Arday, drove it into utter absurdity. The BBC is still treating the plagiarism claims as unproven, despite the fact that a basic side-by-side comparison of Arday's work with the original source material it was stolen from prove the plagiarism beyond doubt. We are expected to believe that Arday was running marathons with a broken leg, or was passing GCSEs without the ability to read and write, or was in the television series Seven Up, despite the fact that it started before he was born.

Normal people can see this is absurd. People like Maugham spit with petulant fury at the thought that other people might be allowed to have an opinion, and that it must be racist. And this massive gulf has fuelled, and continues to fuel this story, even after Arday's death.

Re the marathons - surely you'd have them on Strava, no? The phrase "Strava - or it didn't happen" has never been more apt!

This is spot on. Why don't people understand this? Or is it that they do understand it, but are pretending not to?

I also wanted to come back to my earlier comment about Maugham not knowing Arday two months ago. The original Substack post by Jason Cofnas that kicked all this off appeared on 21 July, the Telegraph article three days later. So actually even a month ago Maugham didn't know Arday. But he seems to have made an instant decision to offer him unwavering support.

Alex Massie is always worth reading:
https://www.thetimes.com/article/591c5eb1-5e7b-468b-927d-955e05d764d1?shareToken=9a7d58f969745671b3f920a3cef364f2&ver=article

By his own admission Maugham hadn't even heard of Arday until 25th July. This is from his moan about the Guardian doing decent journalism.

I was approached by a Black member of the academic community on 25 July who wanted Good Law Project to host an open letter in support of Professor Arday. Prior to the approach I had not heard of Professor Arday. I imagine the academic thought of me because, some weeks previously, Good Law Project had hosted a letter for Misan Harriman, the Chair of the Board of Trustees of the South Bank, who was also facing racialised attacks in the right wing media.

https://goodlawproject.org/the-guardian-and-professor-jason-arday/

I just read this. He really does have main character syndrome doesn’t he? I read that when he gave his speech at the vigil he said something like “it’s a day for white people to listen and not to speak”. Much as I don’t agree with the sentiment, he presumably does so why on earth doesn’t he take his own advice? I’m glad he’s gone for the Guardian though. Will they feel the need to apologise like Bastani?

From Maugham's post, he hadn't even heard of Arday until 25 July. He then pulled the letter of support together on the GLP website and emailed various people at the Guardian, confident that they'd back off because he'd asked them to. He then fucked off on holiday to the family chateau (natch) and when people started withdrawing their names from the letter and Arday resigned he also did a little post trying to distance himself. Everything from then on has just been guilty deflection and emotive mudslinging.
Hopefully he's crossed a line now and his & the GPL's motives & MO will come under a lot more scrutiny going forward. They're even getting pushback about this on Bluesky and Insta, which would have been unheard of a few months ago.

Imagine having the likes of Maugham and Kehinde Andrews in your ear when you are vulnerable. I do feel sorry for the guy. He clearly didn’t have the support he genuinely needed.

All of these are what would formerly be considered decent institutions with proper standards. It's like they were in some kind of race to promote fastest and furthest.

It's not in an individual's long term interest to be constantly changing institution like this, we ask candidates how their research plans align with the department's strategic aims, and what kind of group they envisage leading in 10/15 years time.

I feel it's the same type of people who believe that JK Rowling is transphobic because somebody in their group said so and that Jason Arday was a victim of racism because somebody in their group said so and they stop thinking.

I despair.

Maugham is always opening his gob to speak for people who don't share his demographics.

I'm genuinely shocked that no friend, family or colleague took him to one side and had a quiet word about evidencing the tall tales in light of the book publication, especially after the recent Salt Path farce.

Today's Private Eye 👀

I've filled out the timeline a little more

2005-2008 St Mary's University BEd in Education Studies & Physical Education
200? St Mary’s MA in Education and Pedagogy
2014 Lecturer (Leeds Beckett University)
201? MA (Liverpool John Moore's University)
2015 PhD (Liverpool John Moore's University)
2018 Senior Lecturer (Roehampton)
2019 Senior Teaching Fellow (Warwick)
202? Associate Professor (Durham)
2022 Professor (Glasgow)- not clear if this is Reader in old money
2023 Professor (Cambridge)- Full Professor in new money? Chair?

In his autobiography Arday also claimed he began a job in 2017 as head of the sports department at "a university in London", but his position was cut for financial reasons on his second day.

The esteemed organ is right in every particular. Did anyone purporting to be acting on JA's behalf actually ask JA if he wanted his situation to be the latest cause célèbre?

The Simon and Schuster/Shyster UK website says "He is currently the Professorial Chair of Education (Sociology of Education) at the University of Cambridge".

Although, obviously, not to be relied on.

The landing page of their website highlights nine books, headed, "Everyone's Talking About…"

Guess which one isn't on there.

Good article by Graeme Wood at The Atlantic:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/08/jason-arday-death-lies-delusion/688311/?gift=IF52v5CT6qBFCBBilJCILaf1BAiV8H5Izy1Fu3mZ2u8&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

This.

Those who placed Arday in that situation were cruel and heartless. They may as well have taken a skin-and-bones Make-A-Wish kid, told him that he could fly, and shot him out of a cannon. The journalists were not the ones who stuffed Arday into the cannon and lit the fuse. They were gravity.

Fascinating timeline. I don't quite get how he went from doing a series of degrees (Bachelor's, Master's and PhD) at three unremarkable universities to becoming a full professor at one of the world's most prestigious universities.

Leaving out all the accusations of plagiarism and fabrication of data, isn't this, on its own, a weird trajectory? How did he become a lecturer at Leeds Beckett without apparently having a PhD? How did he then rise so quickly to senior lecturer at Roehampton? And how did he make the very fast leap to Warwick, then Durham, then Glasgow, then Cambridge? Normally you'd spend years in those posts, but he seems to have spent a year in each before moving on and getting a promotion each time.

I have friends who are academics. They all have PhDs, some from prestigious universities. Most didn't make full professor until they were in their 50s. Some never made professor at all. All of them have an extensive publication record, including books, monographs and scholarly papers in prestigious publications.

It absolutely makes no sense at all.