Judith Lomax

Member of The Free Speech Union
Northerner

[Judith Lomax @JudithLomax1]

I thought the grown-ups were back in charge.

[Anna Ridgway @annaroseridgway]

Can we ban the government from using fake discounts too?

If something is advertised as “free”, it has to actually be free!

Instead, most “free” things should be labeled as “taxpayer funded”!

[The Free Speech Union @SpeechUnion]

It’s only Monday, yet it’s already been a busy week for us at the Free Speech Union.

We received seven new requests for help on Sunday alone, so our brilliant case team — which has grown to 10 people — has got straight to work.

On average, the Free Speech Union receives between 45 and 50 requests for help every week. Since being founded in February 2020, the Free Speech Union has fought over 6,000 cases.

Whether it’s an employer investigating someone for something they said at work, or — increasingly — the police turning up at your door over something you posted online, the Free Speech Union is here to help.

Join the Free Speech Union — we are your best defence.

Hear from our Director of Case Management, @BenBarryJones 👇

[Sharron Davies HoL MBE @sharrond62]

Insurance companies of businesses, service providers, sports centres or sporting organisations will require that the people or companies they insurance, especially with public liability insurance, WILL be abiding by Uk law. It is very clear now what the law is re sex based rights

[Steven Barrett @SBarrettBar]

To be fair, all Sociology is nonsense.

[Nick Wallis @nickwallis]

I used not to trust institutions and people because I thought it pretty obvious both would always act in their own interest unless rigorously policed. What I had not understood is that many of those who thought themselves to be morally good were both stupid and corrupt.

[James Melville 🚜 @JamesMelville]

Discarded wind turbine blades in Sweetwater, Texas.

Not exactly environmentally sustainable.

[Sarah Phillimore @SVPhillimore]

Well done Allison! You are getting there! But please do not diminish the serious criminal offence of stalking by claiming that people objecting to what you choose to put in the public domain is an example of that. Block and the problem will be gone.

If it isn’t, then I accept you may have a problem and I hope you get that help and protection you need. But comment on social media is very rarely stalking or harassment and you are expected to develop a thick skin.

See High Court in Hayden v Dickenson where defendant given a great deal of sympathy for responding to the provocation of Hayden’s associate.

[Allison Pearson @AllisonPearson]

Since Jason Arday, I’ve been thinking about getting into Cambridge, and what it meant.

The culmination of years of headbanging hard work. Being a “swot” at school because I handed in homework instead of being popular. Yes, in a comprehensive the choice was that stark.

Carrying Tesco’s bags full of books home from the library on the bus for weeks. Piling the books high to create a rampart around my single bed.
Telling myself, “If you read all those books you’ll be good enough to get in.”

Some of the books I read - all of Graham Greene - were not considered “literature”. Not of the first rank, dear. I didn’t know.

As much Shakespeare as I could pack in - the big 4 Tragedies, all of the comedies. All of Austen, Forster (even Maurice FFS), lots of Dickens, Anna Karenina (devastating, wonderful).

I stopped going to school because I needed to read more, much much more. To be good enough to get in.

The Head of Sixth Form summoned me and said, “If you carry on like this you’ll fail your A levels.”

Ha! She hadn’t got a clue. I was working so far beyond A levels. Besides, I had to finish all the books in the rampart. Time was running out.

So hard, the entrance papers. Translating Proust into English. How?

Then, a passage of George Eliot I recognised - thank you God! Then pretending that I’d read Oliver Twist when I’d only seen the film. I called it Oliver! in my essay. With an exclamation mark - how crass. But the dons didn’t know the musical, maybe. I don’t know.

The only lie I told to get into Cambridge. Oliver! “All we ever get is groo-ell!” A really small, forgivable lie, I think, because the work of becoming good enough was so immense, so lonely.

But the surge of pride when I made it. Good enough to get into that unattainable place.

And now, we know that same Cambridge let in someone with two GCSEs - PE and textiles. A man who lied and lied and lied.

They didn’t just let Jason Arday in, they made him a Professor, one of those scholars kids like me revered. We were in awe - imagine being taught by those great minds.

Christ, Cambridge. What a betrayal of all of us who strove so hard to be good enough to deserve you. Who put you on a pedestal, who really truly thought reading hundreds of books was the price of admission, a price you willingly paid.

So much for the brightest and the best. It’s so disgusting on every level, waving in someone utterly unworthy, barely literate for crying out loud. A man at the mercy of the English language, not its master and commander.

A know-nothing Professor, a vacuous, fashionable fraudster hired to give lectures to kids like me.

So Cambridge could look “diverse” and, in so doing, renounced its ancient power which made so many like me strive to be good enough.

[Jonatan Pallesen @jonatanpallesen]

Cambridge initially stated that "Professor Arday has been the victim of a vile campaign to undermine his credibility, which must stop."

If people had followed what Cambridge said, then Arday would still be in his position as a fraudulent professor at Cambridge.

Sonita Alleyne, the Master of Arday's college at Cambridge, signed a statement that she stands in unwavering solidarity with Jason Arday, and that the criticisms of him and his academic record "should concern everyone who believes in academic freedom, fairness and due process."

Again and again, the leadership at Cambridge has stood by Jason Arday. This is so objectionable that it almost amounts to a sort of scam on students paying tuition to receive their education there.

[Nick Dixon @NickDixon]

I got As, including the third-highest grade in the country on my History A-level syllabus. No one at my shit state school suggested Oxbridge, or offered any guidance.

Then DEI came along to crush any remaining hope that school might have missed.

The good news is I’ve let it go.

[Victoria Smith @glosswitch]

Reasons why men should be allowed to take women's stuff:
1 it's really important so men will die if they can't have it
2 it's really trivial so any woman who cares is just being petty and mean

[mandy rhodes @holyroodmandy]

Imagine writing a memoir - i.e. a book about your self - and then going on a round of self promoting book tours where you accuse people of being obsessed by you 🤷‍♀️

[Freddie Sayers @freddiesayers]

The genuinely positive thing to come out of the Jason Arday story is a shift of incentives.

Most people in a bureaucracy or any big organisation are not deeply ideological, they just want to do well.

If the incentive structure is: hire people based on tokenism and box ticking and the higher ups will be pleased. The media will applaud. You will do well. Obviously that is what happens.

Hopefully, since Arday, institutions making a hire for the wrong reasons have a new counter-incentive: eek, we’d better avoid “A Jason Arday situation”. Better verify the claims. Better be convinced they’re up to the job. Otherwise I might find myself at the centre of a scandal.

That’s how this stuff changes. So this past fortnight was good for universities and for all of us.

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

Then the lawsuits will keep coming. Should any female patient or member of staff require funding to fight this assault on their legal rights, apply to https://t.co/iyohnrgVZN

[The Free Speech Union @SpeechUnion]

The story of Prof Jason Arday is truly baffling.

While one might be forgiven for focusing on the extent of the alleged distortions and exaggerated claims surrounding his academic and charitable record, there is something more troubling about this story.

In an apparent attempt to silence a journalist scrutinising his claims, the Cambridge professor reported him to the police.

Jack Grove of Times Higher Education put a number of legitimate questions to Arday while investigating potential plagiarism in his PhD thesis. In response, Arday reported Grove to the Metropolitan Police, accusing him of harassment.

Writing in The Times about his experience, Grove says he missed a call from an unknown number. When he called back, to his astonishment, it was the Met. An officer informed him that a complaint had been made concerning his contact with Arday, but that the investigation had now been closed.

Grove writes: “The officer explained that I should not contact him again because it was affecting his mental health. I hadn’t emailed Arday in four months — my last direct email had been in September, offering a formal right of reply to allegations that he had plagiarised his PhD.”

A free press, academic freedom and free speech are all central tenets of a free society. Whatever the underlying dispute, involving the police over a journalist putting legitimate questions to a public figure should concern anyone who values those freedoms.

The Metropolitan Police and the University of Cambridge both have serious questions to answer.

Read more from Jack Grove in The Times 👇

[Sonia Sodha @soniasodha]

Right-wing domination of this debate is not something that was done to the left, it’s something the left was utterly complicit in by sweeping everything under the carpet and being happy to tarnish left-wing gender critical feminists as bigots. Own it.

[Sonia Sodha @soniasodha]

A lot of chin-stroking over on BlueSky about why there's so much interest in the Arday story. It's because it beautifully and hilariously exposes the intellectual dishonesty of your worldview guys, of course you don't get it! 🤪

[UnHerd @unherd]

“I get the feeling this is a fantasist. That is my impression”

UnHerd’s @freddiesayers and @kathleen_stock1, former professor at Sussex University, discuss how the British establishment fell for Jason Arday.

[Andrew Hammel @AndrewHammel1]

Arday is bringing out the pent-up rage of thousands of non-minority scholars who've toiled for decades in relative obscurity and produced valuable, original work -- all the while watching colleagues whom everyone knew to be mediocre being promoted to positions for which the non-minority was objectively more qualified.

And being unable to say anything about it publicly without potentially wrecking their careers. The sheer magnitude of the Arday fiasco is breaking open the debate.