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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Our friends at the Good Law Project

980 replies

Gymnopedie · 04/08/2026 13:52

I know this doesn't belong here but given the bollocks from the GLP about issues that do I thought people might be interested.

It's about Professor Jason Arday, a Cambridge academic. The story started when there was a claim that large chunks of his PhD thesis had been taken from another (sometimes not even changing typo errors) published a few years earlier. His justification is that he's autistic and his way of coping is 'mimicry'.

Sine then his many claims about his charity work, fundraising and physical exploits have come under increasing scrutiny - much from the Guardian - and are unravelling fast. He's having to backtrack and 'explain' a lot. He's claimed to have been on a TV programme that he never was and it was chronologically impossible for him to be on it. He has claimed a lot of nasty harassment but has no evidence of it, no photos, no messages, and didn't report any of it to the police. (Well he claims he did once, but the police have no record of it and the story doesn't stack up.)

What does the GLP have to do with it? They're organising an open letter in his support, claiming that there is nothing to see here except that he's a victim of vile racism.

Support for a left wing cause that bears no relationship to the facts? Where have I heard that before?

Charity casts doubts on volunteering record of Cambridge professor (The Telegraph via MSN)

Playbooks, plagiarism and a pig’s head: new claims surrounding a star Cambridge professor | University of Cambridge | The Guardian

Glasgow University denies Jason Arday visiting prof claim | The Herald

OP posts:
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SidewaysOtter · 27/08/2026 22:47

SqueakyDinosaur · 27/08/2026 16:01

This has just made me laugh like a drain: https://x.com/thesundaysport/status/2092903383074062468

If only the Eye had thought of that as a defence! Think of the savings on legal bills for all the times they've been hauled in front of a beak.

SidewaysOtter · 27/08/2026 22:48

(As an aside, the Sunday Sport is well worth a follow on X, they're very funny)

moto748e · 27/08/2026 23:40

CassOle · 27/08/2026 20:25

Archive for when the token expires: https://archive.ph/rKBpN

One thing I always thought about Gove was that when he was in the Cabinet, he was obviously not a fool (although a little odd), whereas he was often surrounded by idiots. You don't have to agree with everything he says to get that.

ItsCoolForCats · 28/08/2026 14:37

This properly made me lol 🤣

Our friends at the Good Law Project
ItsCoolForCats · 28/08/2026 14:40

And the reply, which amazingly, doesn't appear to be satire 🤣

No wonder he has such a big head. They seem to love him over on Instagram as well. It astounds me that anyone who has come within a mile radius of this man cannot see how unbearably pompous and self-serving he is. He is absolutely insufferable. And does anybody bother to look at the GLP's track record before throwing money at them?

Our friends at the Good Law Project
ItsCoolForCats · 28/08/2026 14:42

The door to the national conscience 🤣🤣

SidewaysOtter · 28/08/2026 15:03

More of a catflap to unparalleled batshittery.

BernardBlacksMolluscs · 28/08/2026 15:15

Truly Jolyon is The loft hatch to the National Belfrey, the trapdoor to the national midden.

oldtiredcyclist · 28/08/2026 15:22

ItsCoolForCats · 28/08/2026 14:37

This properly made me lol 🤣

Has India Willoughby "misgendered" Mr Alan Bates (played by Toby Jones in the drama)? How very dare he!

moto748e · 28/08/2026 15:45

Damn that Robin Hood earworm, though!

Thehorticulturalhussie · 28/08/2026 18:58

oldtiredcyclist · 28/08/2026 15:22

Has India Willoughby "misgendered" Mr Alan Bates (played by Toby Jones in the drama)? How very dare he!

He has. Mrs Bates indeed. Regrettable under the circumstances really.

AlexaAdventuress · 28/08/2026 19:19

I work in the higher education sector and my colleagues are frantically circulating Jolyon's efforts via email and Whatsapp and are keen that I should sign them. The concerns about Jason Arday were apparently entirely fabricated by Nathan Cofnas at the behest of the evil Peter Theil, and Jolyon is all that stands between us and a descent into right wing extremism. These, by the way, are grown men and women with doctorates. This doesn't seem to me to be quite what the problem involves, so I'm just keeping quiet.

pontefractals · 28/08/2026 19:22

AlexaAdventuress · 28/08/2026 19:19

I work in the higher education sector and my colleagues are frantically circulating Jolyon's efforts via email and Whatsapp and are keen that I should sign them. The concerns about Jason Arday were apparently entirely fabricated by Nathan Cofnas at the behest of the evil Peter Theil, and Jolyon is all that stands between us and a descent into right wing extremism. These, by the way, are grown men and women with doctorates. This doesn't seem to me to be quite what the problem involves, so I'm just keeping quiet.

Are they studiously ignoring the fact the Guardian was also less than convinced? Or is the Graun now bigoted MSM, too?

AlexaAdventuress · 28/08/2026 19:47

pontefractals · 28/08/2026 19:22

Are they studiously ignoring the fact the Guardian was also less than convinced? Or is the Graun now bigoted MSM, too?

Yes, and Jack Grove, Martyn Hammersley and Dave Harris seem to have disappeared. This link contains the lyrics for the politically correct, apparently -
The Peter Thiel-Linked Race Science Network that Penetrated Cambridge University and Targeted Jason Arday – Byline Times

The Peter Thiel-Linked Race Science Network that Penetrated Cambridge University and Targeted Jason Arday

The media's coverage of the academic's life was fuelled by the campaign of an established far-right network

https://bylinetimes.com/2026/08/18/the-peter-thiel-linked-race-science-network-that-penetrated-cambridge-university-and-targeted-jason-arday/

moto748e · 28/08/2026 20:04

That's one of those links that when clicked on, causes your brain to melt and leak out of your ears, isn't it? I'm not chancing it.

Lalgarh · 28/08/2026 22:52

Alan Bates is a belligerent sod and alienated a lot of people but he's single issue and rightly so (I know someone who manages a post office and the Horizon system is screwed up again)

That Atlantic article points out JM was also distancing himself from Arday in the week before he died as more revelations that were at best over egged came crashing down. He's a serial do gooder, or at least portrays himself as such.

Do the independent still do their Good List? They started it in the 2000s when they were all Nick Clegg, and all the irrevocably Good People on there are now persona non grata. They would almost certainly have him on there

moto748e · 28/08/2026 23:27

Do the independent still do their Good List?

I'd never heard of that, Googled it, the Happy List, but it seems to stop in 2022. All full of amazing and inspirational people, from the first few I read.

Lalgarh · Yesterday 00:02

The first one from 2008 has a few In it that the independent wouldn't dare put on there now like jkr

<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090422160042/www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/the-ios-happy-list-2008--the-100-816335.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://web.archive.org/web/20090422160042/www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/the-ios-happy-list-2008--the-100-816335.html

Ah Clive Stafford smith. He's certainly a compatriot of JM. Described there as a human rights lawyer but unlike JM who so far has stuck to the trans community he made his name representing jihadist.i can see why JM prefers this safer ground

nicepotoftea · Yesterday 09:31

AlexaAdventuress · 28/08/2026 19:19

I work in the higher education sector and my colleagues are frantically circulating Jolyon's efforts via email and Whatsapp and are keen that I should sign them. The concerns about Jason Arday were apparently entirely fabricated by Nathan Cofnas at the behest of the evil Peter Theil, and Jolyon is all that stands between us and a descent into right wing extremism. These, by the way, are grown men and women with doctorates. This doesn't seem to me to be quite what the problem involves, so I'm just keeping quiet.

Baffling - which of his efforts do they think will succeed?

The call to limit the number of stories that can be published on a particular subject?

His desire to fund what can only be a subs drive for the Times/Telegraph/Mail/Spectator?

Iamnotalemming · Yesterday 11:04

I enjoyed this description of JM by Giles Coren in the Times today.

Our friends at the Good Law Project
AlexaAdventuress · Yesterday 11:14

nicepotoftea · Yesterday 09:31

Baffling - which of his efforts do they think will succeed?

The call to limit the number of stories that can be published on a particular subject?

His desire to fund what can only be a subs drive for the Times/Telegraph/Mail/Spectator?

Well, we take the mickey out of him on here, but judging by my limited sample of colleagues, Jolyon and his schemes have really hit the spot with the professional and managerial classes and have inspired an almost visceral devotion. Those screenshots upthread are clearly not isolated cases. I've not engaged with them on the details of what policies they want to see implemented and how to do so, because then the gulf between us - as with the trans issue - would become obvious in a way that might make working relationships difficult. I'm not too keen on the idea of the government regulating what I can read or view. Neither am I keen on a committee of the great and the good (perhaps chaired by Jolyon himself) making those choices for me. So it's difficult to throw myself wholeheartedly behind these causes.

Lalgarh · Yesterday 12:09

Jolyon and his schemes have really hit the spot with the professional and managerial classes and have inspired an almost visceral devotion.

Musa Al Gharbi is a sociologist in the US that got the same cancellation treatment from fox news in the early 10s who wrote about Arday. He's not got the easy answers that the current left wing want though

https://www.chronicle.com/article/jason-arday-and-me

He's defined a specific term to describe what I guess might be termed the lanyard class of professionals as described. Symbolic capitalists.

https://archive.is/CUu74

In effect their socio-economic wealth depends on their moral stance as a symbol of politesse and etiquette, if I'm reading this right.

There was an item on young women flicking to hard left parties earlier this year and I chuckled when one of whom described her background as "working class in the Marxist sense" which is a way for middle class offspring of lecturers to get down with the proletariat

AlexaAdventuress · Yesterday 12:22

A very good find, @Lalgarh Pretty much sums it up.

The only people I meet these days who describe themselves as 'working class' are university lecturers!

Maybe Jolyon's a would-be symbolic capitalist. He seems to have achieved an apotheosis in some sections of society at any rate.

SidewaysOtter · Yesterday 13:10

AlexaAdventuress · 28/08/2026 19:19

I work in the higher education sector and my colleagues are frantically circulating Jolyon's efforts via email and Whatsapp and are keen that I should sign them. The concerns about Jason Arday were apparently entirely fabricated by Nathan Cofnas at the behest of the evil Peter Theil, and Jolyon is all that stands between us and a descent into right wing extremism. These, by the way, are grown men and women with doctorates. This doesn't seem to me to be quite what the problem involves, so I'm just keeping quiet.

That doesn't surprise me. I'm in the same sector and overheard two colleagues talking about the Amnesty gig and how much they wanted to go in order to support them.

I'd rather spend the evening standing on Lego, personally, but it takes all sorts I suppose...