Links - 10th August 2026 (1 - Jason Arday)

Colin Wright on X - "🚨BREAKING: Jason Arday, the Cambridge professor exposed for plagiarism and fabricating major aspects of his life story, has resigned. According to leading AI writing detection software Pangram, Arday's resignation letter is "Fully AI Generated" with "High Confidence.""
Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 on X - "LOL, this guy is the funniest. Just absolute TV-show quality parody of modern academia."

Alex Byrne on X - "Who controls the past controls the future. Meticulous reporting by @benryanwriter. Some new nuggets: "In a 2023 podcast, Arday...claimed that in 2017 he was 'awarded' a Member of the Order of the British Empire for his charity work, which he said he turned down due to his critiques of empire."

Benjamin Ryan on X - "According to the available archived pages, Simon & Schuster quietly edited Arday's bio at some point between May 19 and July 24, 2025. The initial version stated: "Arday has been a prolific fundraiser having raised over £5.5 million pounds for 80 national charities over an [sic] 20-year period. His fundraising achievements include running: 30 marathons in 35 days, 300 miles in 3 days and 600 miles in 6 days." The edited version, which stands today, much more narrowly states: "Arday is a prolific fundraiser; he has been part of several fundraising teams that have raised millions of pounds for charity, winning numerous prodigious fundraising awards." Gone are the mentions of the running feats."
Benjamin Ryan on X - "There is evidence to suggest that Simon & Schuster, which is publishing Cambridge professor Jason Arday’s memoir next week, knew as far back as a year ago that there were serious doubts about his truthfulness."

Joseph Massey on X - "“Diversity” will always be a diabolical tool to usher in abject mediocrity—in droves—to demoralize and disenfranchise the truly brilliant and creative. Race communism is wrecking the West."
We learnt from Claudine Gay that if you accuse a black person of plagiarism, you're racist. From Jason Arday, we've learnt that if you accuse a black person of lying, you're also a racist.

Andrew Doyle on X - "Jason Arday may have resigned, but his disturbing behaviour - reporting an academic to the police for raising concerns about his work - reflects an ongoing trend of bullying masquerading as victimhood."

Jonathan Kay on X - "how much of this scandal was caused by the desire of successful white academics to be filmed while they stare deeply into the eyes of magical black people
Don’t forget the obligatory second camera that the university sends with the marketing team, so everybody can see the close up shot of the penitent white lady being touched by an angel"
The retreat of Christianity just means that in the West, people look for new things to sacralise. We are already explicitly told that "trans people are sacred", so.

ledbymorons on X - "What happened at @Cambridge_Uni was not an abberation, it's literally the reason why the country is where it is. A four decade long pipeline of drivel from social science faculties has polluted, the public sector, civic service, charities, NGO's and leftist political parties."

Jason Arday held to higher standard because he’s black, suggests Polanski - "Mr Polanski joined five Labour MPs in signing an open letter in support of Mr Arday. The letter said coverage of the academic’s claims amounted to a “smear campaign” and attacked “persistent attempts” to discredit an “exceptional” figure. He told LBC: “[The university] had already done, I think, two investigations and found there was no problem here or that the allegations were unfounded. And so [the letter] was about essentially saying that people of colour, particularly in society, can sometimes be held by higher standards.” Mr Polanski’s first year as Green Party leader has been overshadowed by controversial remarks... Prof Kehinde Andrews, who was the UK’s first professor of black studies, claimed Mr Arday had been the victim of a smear campaign because he was black. Asked about allegations of plagiarism surrounding Mr Arday, he told the BBC’s Today programme: “The journal articles [have] been investigated, are there to be changed, the journals are happy, there’s no story there. “So the other stuff around ‘did he run a marathon’, I don’t know – I’m not sure why that’s relevant, I’m not sure why that would be newsworthy. It’s all part of a campaign to smear this individual because he’s black and at Cambridge.”"

Jason Arday is living proof that you reap what you sow - "The conduct of the Met, which behaved as though it was part of Arday’s fightback operation, mirrors that of many academics and activists who signed an open letter claiming questions about Arday’s scholarship and biography represented “an attempt to undermine Black people who hold positions of influence”. In reaching immediately for the cudgel of race, rather than evaluating the evidence set forth against Arday, his cheerleaders did a disservice to the truth, to the integrity of academic inquiry, to themselves and, most of all, to the man they believed themselves to be defending. Reducing Arday to his skin colour and suggesting that it played some part in legitimate questioning and healthy scepticism towards his written work and outlandish biographical claims is outrageous on its own. It also discourages self-reflection from the man at the centre of the scandal. For proof, look no further than Arday’s resignation letter: a litany of self-pity and imagined victimhood in which he neglects to address the substance of the allegations against him. Instead, he complains of “an unrelenting level of public scrutiny and personal attack”. There has even been a suggestion online that the letter was generated largely by AI, a boss-level move if true. Arday’s exit from Cambridge will mean he has more time to dedicate to his endlessly exciting life (perhaps a solo mission to Mars or a starring role in the next Fast and Furious movie are coming). For the university, however, questions remain about its recruitment of Arday. What due diligence did it undertake, and what scrutiny is it applying to its academics in general? Serious damage has been done to the reputation of Cambridge and someone should have to account for it. As for Arday, he is living proof that you reap what you sow."

After the Arday saga, Cambridge must return to promoting excellence - "Cambridge accused anyone who asked questions of being part of a “vile smear campaign” against an autistic black man. Shamefully, the Met Police seemed to agree: they investigated a journalist for four months for looking into Prof Arday’s academic record. Despite finding no case to answer, the police chillingly told the journalist to stop contacting Prof Arday because of his “mental health”. Prof Arday’s case is symptomatic of an academy that seems to have lost its way. Too many appear to have downed the tools of scholarly enquiry, and picked up the flags of progressive activism. Instead of asking questions, Cambridge took every opportunity to parade Prof Arday, apparently desperate to believe the fairy tale and broadcast their own virtue for having the foresight to hire an ethnic minority person with learning disabilities. It is hard not to conclude that Prof Arday was used by Cambridge to embellish its reputation – not for academic rigour, but for “inclusive” representation. It has instead tarnished all concerned."

Cambridge has questions to answer on Arday plagiarism controversy - "Three principals of Cambridge colleges signed a petition organised by the Left-wing Good Law Project decrying The Telegraph’s reporting as part of a racist, Right-wing smear campaign (one of their names was later quietly removed as the evidence mounted)... David Harris, Professor Emeritus at Plymouth Marjon University, who first raised concerns about Prof Arday’s work in 2023, said that “any reasonable person would have concluded from Prof Arday’s claims that he had published this book”. He said that academics often listed their forthcoming work but usually made it clear it was not yet published and that Prof Arday’s claim had fallen on “the naughty side of bluffing”. “If he included this work in his portfolio when he was applying to be a professor at Cambridge, then he has serious questions to answer. It means he could have been given the job under false pretences,” he told The Telegraph. Prof Arday also claimed between 2019 and 2023 that he had published a book titled Considering Racialised Contexts in Education: Using reflective practice and peer-mentoring to support black and ethnic minority educators. He was still claiming the book was published when he took up the post as Cambridge’s youngest black professor in March 2023. It was not until December 2023 that the Durham website was finally altered to say the book was “in press”, meaning it had passed peer review and been accepted for publication, but had not actually been published yet. It remains unclear whether the book was ever actually published. Prof Arday listed the book himself on Amazon in 2024, but it included no cover image and was only available to be pre-ordered for delivery in 2030."

The Cambridge diversity scramble that led to Jason Arday plagiarism fiasco - "Hilary Cremin, the head of Cambridge University’s Faculty of Education, could not stop smiling as she welcomed Jason Arday to her department as a professor. “We are so lucky to have you,” she beamed. “You are the best in the world in terms of the research that you do.” Those words have come back to haunt Prof Cremin after Mr Arday resigned on Wednesday night following weeks of damaging revelations by The Telegraph about his apparent plagiarism and partially fabricated CV. Now Prof Cremin is among the senior Cambridge staff facing serious questions about the appointment of Mr Arday, their defence of him in the face of mounting evidence of academic fakery, and their high-minded dismissal of questions about his record. Put simply, did Cambridge University lower its own standards to hire a man of questionable merit simply because of his skin colour? And having done so, did one of the cornerstones of Britain’s world-renowned education system prioritise its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) credentials over its hard-earned reputation?... John Preston, emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Essex, said: “The appointment of Prof Arday certainly raised eyebrows at the time with people who work in this area because his publication record appeared rather thin. It raises questions about whether he was appointed for other parts of his CV. “There were a lot more qualified people who would have been more suitable... they probably wanted to address their own failures in DEI in the past.” What is beyond question is that Cambridge was desperate to hire more black and ethnic minority professors when it took on Mr Arday in 2023, having been embroiled in a row about its lack of diversity shortly beforehand. The university even went as far as to say it aimed to hire a greater proportion of non-white staff than other universities. According to a diversity target set in 2019, it wanted to reach “at least the national benchmark in BAME [black, Asian and minority ethnic] professors (9.6 per cent) with actions planned to exceed national benchmark”. When the job of professor of sociology of education was advertised, Cambridge told candidates that: “The following groups are currently under-represented in our community: women, those with a Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic background and those with disabilities.” Mr Arday, who had spoken many times about his childhood autism and learning difficulties, ticked two of those three boxes... Six of the nine academics on the panel have expressed support for DEI initiatives, with some adopting more radical positions. Anoop Nayak, a professor of social & cultural geography from Newcastle University, previously criticised the “neoliberal whiteness of Anglo-American universities”, and said charging overseas students higher fees could be “tantamount to institutional racism”. He also praised Black Lives Matter, Rhodes Must Fall and pro-Gaza student encampments for helping “decolonise the curriculum from the ground up”. Another panel member, Michalinos Zembylas, professor of educational theory at the Open University of Cyprus, has argued that education should teach students to “disrupt, refuse, and displace liberal democratic principles” and create a “new moral order” that challenges Western democracy. One source with first-hand knowledge of the process told The Telegraph: “It was weird. It felt as though they were just going through the motions. The questioning of the candidates didn’t seem very thorough and I think they had already decided who was going to get the job.”... Prof Bhaskar Vira, pro-vice-chancellor for education, said of Mr Arday at the time: “His experiences highlight the barriers faced by many under-represented groups across higher education and especially at leading universities. “Cambridge has a responsibility to do everything it can to address this by creating academic spaces where everyone feels they can belong.”... Cambridge could be forgiven for failing to notice such inconsistencies, but almost as soon as he was appointed, academics at other universities, who knew of Mr Arday by reputation, contacted Cambridge to warn the university of their concerns about Mr Arday’s work... Cambridge basked in the glory of its most high-profile diversity hire. Profiles were written about Mr Arday here and in the US, and the BBC could not get enough of him. He was a recurring panellist on Question Time, he guest-edited the Radio 4 Today programme, he was given his own podcast series and was interviewed as an expert in his field numerous times... Mr Arday wrote: “I have no problem with constructive criticism, but the tone of your emails are unkind and hostile. You are a monument to the fact we live in a society where grammar is valued above equity. If only all academics were as diligent in their fight for equality as you have been in attending to my spelling.”... One former MA student told The Telegraph: “Apart from one meeting throughout my whole course, he made a number of excuses not to meet with me or provide any substantive feedback on my work. As a supervisor, he was terrible. “Any feedback that he did give was that my work was outstanding and that I didn’t need [supervision].” The student got a lower grade than they had expected and appealed to the university on the grounds of poor supervision. The appeal was rejected... Deborah Prentice, the vice-chancellor who was hired in the same year as Mr Arday, did nothing to publicly address the growing crisis that was eating away at Cambridge’s reputation. Spokesmen for the university insisted that neither she nor anyone else could do anything. Academics within the university pointed the finger at the research policy, integrity and governance division, which is overseen by Prof Sir John Aston, the pro-vice-chancellor for research and a mathematician"
If you think a black person is unqualified, you're racist.

Dons call for Cambridge leaders to take blame for Jason Arday appointment - "Priyamvada Gopal, professor of postcolonial studies at Cambridge’s English faculty and one of the group organising the letter, said: “An independent investigation must scrutinise how such an early-career appointment to a very senior and prestigious professorial chair was made and what both the faculty of education and university management may have got very badly wrong.” She added: “Whatever the results of any investigation, the university bears no little responsibility for the grotesque racism which this whole business has unleashed, and for the harm done both to the individual in the line of fire, to Black academics as a group, and the broader field of critical race studies... “The university must also pay attention to the consequences of putting young people of colour in highly visible places to carry the burden of representation before they are ready to withstand scrutiny.”"
Black people are always victims, even when they lie and plagiarise

Cambridge academics demand inquiry into Arday appointment - "“The circumstances of appointing somebody to a very senior, very prestigious post at such an early stage in his career is unusual, and to then also put him forward in the media with such a high profile and frankly a bit of a target on his back is also unusual... Dr David Harris, an academic at Plymouth Marjon University, who had been reviewing Mr Arday’s work as part of a wider research project, and Prof Martyn Hammersley, a sociologist at the Open University whom Dr Harris had asked to review, wrote to Prof Cremin in 2023 with evidence of Mr Arday’s plagiarism... he falsely claimed to hold a master’s degree in psychodynamic counselling from Birkbeck University and to be an “honorary professor” in Durham University’s sociology department.

Arday’s students think Cambridge failed them. Now they want their grades reviewed - "Cambridge University could be forced to review the grades given to students of Jason Arday after graduates unhappy with their results said they were considering legal action. A number of Mr Arday’s former students have complained that they received lower grades than expected after “inadequate” supervision by the professor. In one case, a student who asked to change supervisor was accused of being racist. Separately, Prof Deborah Prentice, the university’s vice-chancellor, is facing demands to refund the tuition fees of students who were taught by Mr Arday after they were “deceived about the nature of their education”. A mass refund or large-scale retrospective grade changes would be unprecedented in the university’s 800-year history. Prof Prentice is also facing criticism for failing to grip the crisis engulfing the university, which has damaged its reputation on the international stage. The academics have accused the £507,000-a-year leader of the university of “inaction”, having made no public comments... Cambridge announced that it would be reviewing the process by which it appoints senior staff, in what is being seen by some academics as an attempt to head off an independent inquiry. Cambridge is facing a rebellion from its own academics, who have demanded in a letter to Prof Prentice that there must be “a thorough and transparent investigation into the wider circumstances of this damaging episode”. Former Cambridge students who contacted The Telegraph complained that Mr Arday gave them minimal supervision, telling some they did not need supervision because they were so outstanding, only for them to get lower grades than predicted... "Students who were taught by Arday appear to have been taught, and charged money for, a course that he was unqualified to lead and have, in effect, been the victims of fraud". Mrs Braverman also wrote to Lucy Powell, the Education Secretary, warning that the Government could not allow universities to be “taken over by a culture of fear and progressive dogma” and called on the Office for Students to “intervene in such blatant cases of two-tier hiring”. There has also been criticism of Prof Cremin, the head of the faculty of education, who was gushing in her praise of Mr Arday when he was hired... Prof Cremin said the British education system should drop its “obsession with grades” as they exacerbated inequality. In a video interview with the Educational Collaborative for International Schools she said: “I think we need to move away from the idea of high-stakes testing – the idea of an A* at 18, which will be a gateway into what you do next, but which is a completely arbitrary thing. “It doesn’t signal intelligence or potential, trust me – I meet these young people in Cambridge. It’s simply a marker of schooling. And, as I was saying earlier, you can buy that. So it’s ultimately a marker of wealth.” She added: “We all know this, but education exacerbates inequality – it doesn’t reduce it... our obsession with grades and our inability to really teach young people to be critical thinkers and to move outside the norm is creating generations where there are huge wellbeing risks.”"

James O’Brien: I feel like a mug for defending Arday - "O’Brien, a former host of BBC Newsnight, had previously accused The Telegraph and The Times of “studied and deliberate ignominy” after the first revelations of apparent academic fakery... On his show on Friday, O’Brien said: “What’s your takeaway here? Because mine is very, very personal. I can’t separate the personal from the public. I feel like a mug, actually, is the short answer.” However, he said he felt no guilt and suggested that only a racist would have doubted Mr Arday’s position as a Cambridge professor before the revelations... O’Brien has faced criticism for the figures he has chosen to defend, having previously supported Carl Beech, who falsely claimed to have been raped and abused by a group of high-profile politicians and public figures. Beech was jailed for 18 years in July 2019 for perverting the course of justice, fraud and child sex offences, but was freed earlier this year under the Government’s early release scheme."

Jason Arday is merely a symptom of the Left’s corruption of excellence - "For James and Du Bois, the best thing one can offer a child, especially a disadvantaged one, is an education underpinned by ambition and high standards. This ethos is now under severe threat. An ideology that proclaims to be on behalf of “inclusivity” and “equality” is now destroying the very foundation upon which these two things can flourish: excellence. A mindset that claims to be on the side of marginalised young people is ultimately excluding them from the best that Western civilisation has to offer. Cambridge’s appointment of Jason Arday would seem to be a reflection of this anti-Arnoldian worldview; Labour’s war on academic excellence, meanwhile, is built on the same toxic assumptions that underpin it... The fact he was accepted by Cambridge, apparently uncritically, seems to demonstrate the extent to which normal standards of academic rigour were relaxed. This is a damning indictment of that august institution. He was perhaps employed to improve the representation of an ethnic minority among Cambridge professors. He has ended up tarnishing the university. But to focus exclusively on Arday is to miss a fundamental point. He is the symptom – perhaps even a victim – of a much wider problem. In a way he has performed a great service for all of us: he has exposed a deep rot within our education system that needs to be scrutinised and thoroughly challenged. Lucy Powell’s agenda is part of this same rot. Labour’s Education Secretary has described the reforms of Michael Gove, which improved the outcomes of countless children, as a “straitjacket”... It is children from disadvantaged backgrounds who have the most to gain from a system that prioritises excellence and a common set of high standards. Consider two children who attend the same inner-city state school. One comes from a middle-class family with university-educated parents. Outside school, he attends music classes and lives in a home stocked full of books. On weekends, he regularly visits museums and art galleries with his parents. The other pupil comes from a working-class family that is largely indifferent to education; the mindset of his parents is “as long as my son doesn’t end up in prison he will be fine”. Who out of these two pupils is more likely to benefit from having a system that emphasises discipline and rigour? Who, frankly, needs this more? That idea that working-class and black pupils should be judged by a different set of standards is condescending in the extreme. In effect, it says to them the “best of what has been said and thought” is not for you. If Arday had been judged by higher standards, Cambridge might well have been spared a lot of embarrassment. Arday, meanwhile, would not have been exposed to the censure and humiliation that has followed his name in the past week. But there is a deeper point to this. Many ethnic minority families see a traditional education as the best way to give their children the chance of leading a successful and flourishing life. They would be insulted by the idea that white middle-class children deserve one kind of education that differs from the education offered to their own children. They would be offended by a lowering of standards to accommodate their children, as though there is some inherent fault in them that only positive discrimination can rectify. And they would be right to be angry. To suggest ethnic-minority children are not capable of gaining as much from a rigorous education is not just wrong as a matter of fact. It is also morally wrong. It would fall under the bigotry of low expectations. The American educator and theorist ED Hirsch is instructive on this issue. The Core Knowledge Foundation, a non-profit he runs, is dedicated to spreading the idea that there is a set of historical and cultural things any citizen ought to know to enjoy the benefits of living in a modern society. As Hirsch puts it in one essay: “It will do black American children little good, for example, to learn a lot about their African and African-American past if they still cannot read and write effectively, do not understand natural science, and cannot solve basic mathematical problems.” All the talk of emphasising inclusion, of trying to secure an equality of outcome, of wanting to promote diversity, is rendered utterly meaningless if children are not furnished with the capacity to think clearly and know what ought to be known by any educated person. Quality education is a wonderful privilege. To deny someone this on the basis of their race or class is to do the opposite of what progressives claim to want. It wouldn’t serve the disadvantaged; it would merely entrench their plight."

Links - 9th August 2026 (2 - Left Wing Economics: UK)

Labour’s equality crusade is bad news for Britain - "The truth is, governments of all stripes often express a desire for “more equal” outcomes. But there are two main challenges.  The first is that plans to engineer equal societies almost always focus on finances, hardly ever on a higher equality of happiness.  The second is that such demands are underpinned by two certainties: that it is unfair that entrepreneurial billionaires are as rich as they are, and that Britain has become more unequal in recent years. Neither is correct.  Take “fairness”. According to Forbes, the UK has 56 dollar-billionaires, while the US has nearly a thousand. On a per capita basis, the US has almost 3.5 times more billionaires than Britain – indeed, any country would give its eye teeth to have the array of global success stories seen in the US.  Scanning down the list of these people – in either country – it is immediately apparent that these are not long-established fortunes. Rather, they are lists of people who have founded some of the planet’s most successful companies, such as Jeff Bezos’s Amazon, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, Sergey Brin’s Google and the multifarious firms founded by Elon Musk.  Meanwhile, in the UK, one finds the likes of chemical magnate Sir Jim Ratcliffe and engineering whiz Sir James Dyson. In all these cases, there is a critical point to remember. The values of their fortunes are based on stock holdings in their companies which are only successful because they provide goods and services we want. In effect, their worth has been determined by us all. What about the idea that Britain has become more fiscally unequal?... the problems of a low Gini are rarely examined.  The Gini coefficient for the UK touched 0.2 in the 1970s, while ratios were even lower for many Eastern European communist states. But what these apparently highly equal societies showed was that when money is not the differentiator between risk and reward, other factors fill the void.  For communist societies, these factors were obvious – simply having money did not give you access to the party-controlled shops where desirable Western goods were available. Instead of money, what mattered was special privileges and, critically, those privileges are not caught by any Gini coefficient measurements.  Meanwhile, in the UK – during the supposedly egalitarian 1970s – another form of privilege was on display. Britain did not have shops only open to those with party approval, but it did have high tax rates, which killed entrepreneurialism and ambition and led directly to a moribund economy – and with it a stultified social structure. What mattered was social entitlement.  Ironically, those railing against class privilege should have been the keenest proponents of dynamic free markets – for there is no better way of undermining sclerotic societies than offering opportunity to those who may lack social connections but have considerable ambition. Often, in economics, how a desirable outcome is attained matters just as much as achieving the goal itself. Where a moderate Gini score is a result of a natural economic progression, with a broad base of productivity-driven wealth creation, it is both good and can be maintained.  But where a similar Gini has been achieved through manipulation, or instilled through state action, the results are likely to be unjust and will certainly be unsustainable. The UK’s Gini held steady at 0.33 from 2012 to 2022, and more recently is likely to have fallen as significant numbers of high earners leave the country.  There is an old joke that the people keenest on diversity in every other way always make an exception for earnings. But this does not necessarily lead to positive outcomes – particularly not if most people are equally poor. There is plenty of research that shows the greatest number of people are happier when they see their own material position improve over time, and that demands economic growth. If we really want equality, perhaps we should start there."
Time for more degrowth!

Burnham is dangerously devoted to failed ideas - "Andy Burnham believes that the 1970s were a time of plenty, to which Britain should return. In some senses, our new prime minister is correct: in the 1970s there were plenty of strikes, plenty of power cuts and plenty of bad ideas pushed by the Labour Party. Unencumbered by a strong grasp of history or economics, Mr Burnham looks set to adopt the very worst of them: the wealth tax. The fact that in Britain property is taxed more heavily as a share of GDP than in any country in the OECD seems to have escaped his notice... Labour promised in their February 1974 manifesto to impose an “annual wealth tax on the rich”, which would include houses, land, businesses, pensions and art. On top of this, they proposed new taxes on transfers of assets and property transactions. With energy rationed and unemployment surging, the well-off were to be soaked to avoid addressing fundamental problems in the British economy.  Like so many of Labour’s ideas, it came up short when confronted with reality. After Labour won the election, Denis Healey, the then chancellor, tried to implement the policy but eventually gave up.  As with David Lloyd George before him, who had tried to introduce his own wealth tax in 1910 in the form of a land value tax (another failed idea supported by Mr Burnham) Healey determined it was “impossible” to make the proposed levy “yield enough revenue to be worth the administrative cost”.  Taxing wealth meant employing thousands of new, expensive civil servants to value assets with no ready market price. Moreover, the Treasury warned that a wealth tax could lead to an “exodus of UK capital” and “risk serious damage to the economy”, as people sought to protect their assets and the incentive to invest collapsed.  What was true then is true now... Indeed the dramatic flaws of the 1974 plan are, if anything, even greater today, given capital is more mobile than ever before and many assets arguably harder to value.  Time and time again, countries that have imposed a wealth tax see capital flight, depressed investment and falling tax receipts.  Rather than conduct this self-harming experiment on the British people, Mr Burnham need only look at Ireland, Austria, Denmark, Germany, Finland, Iceland, Sweden or Spain. All have abolished wealth taxes in recent years. Nonetheless, Labour remains perversely addicted to this idea. When Ed Miliband was Labour leader he proposed an iniquitous “mansion” tax on properties worth more than £2m. Despite the British public telling Labour exactly what they thought of that plan at the 2015 general election, Ms Reeves resurrected the proposal last year... He also seems to support Ms Reeves’s vindictive plan to charge interest on those who cannot pay the bill straight away, rolled up until death or the estate is sold – as well as the decision to make unspent pensions subject to inheritance tax too, instituting a form of double taxation for grieving families.  The incoming prime minister’s love of pernicious failed ideas from the 1970s does not stop there. In 1975, Healey reformed the precursor to inheritance tax. It was disastrous, in effect making it harder to pass businesses down through the generations, forcing the break-up of family firms, farms and estates. Yet Mr Burnham seems to want to repeat the trick by replacing inheritance tax with a series of even greater death taxes, to be paid by even greater numbers of people, supposedly to fund social care."

The true cost of Britain’s tax on aspiration - "Punishing tax rates mean ambitious workers may decide that there’s no point getting ahead, undermining the earning power of the cohort on which the nation’s finances increasingly depend. Kristian Niemietz, of the Institute of Economic Affairs think tank, said: “While it has become fashionable to claim that ‘the rich don’t pay taxes’, the truth is that we have a highly progressive tax system, which, if anything, has become overly reliant on a relatively narrow base of high earners.”  According to data from HMRC, men pay more tax on average than women, and those aged between 40 and 59 pay the most.  Campaigners said that the numbers highlighted how much of the tax burden falls on high earners – and that despite the claims of economic activists, such as Gary Stevenson, an ex-trader and YouTuber, the wealthy were paying their fair share of tax.  John O’Connell, the chief executive at the Taxpayers’ Alliance campaign group, said: “High earners pay vastly more into the system, even before National Insurance and countless other taxes are included.  “Someone on £150,000 can pay as much income tax in four years as a median full-time worker pays in around four decades, yet many politicians still talk as if they are not paying their way.”"

Burnham plans £38bn tax raid, say Reform - "Andy Burnham is to launch a £38bn tax raid on the wealthy to fund a spending spree in office, analysis by Reform UK has found.  A report into the prime minister-in-waiting’s pledges found Mr Burnham would bring Labour’s total increase in taxation from around £66bn to more than £100bn a year.  This includes promises of a “care levy” of up to 10 per cent of the value of estates after death, reforming the rates of capital gains tax (CGT), and imposing National Insurance on landlords’ rental income.  Implementing a torrent of new taxes not mentioned in Labour’s 2024 manifesto will increase pressure on Mr Burnham to call an early election... Robert Jenrick, Reform’s economy spokesman, said: “Andy Burnham has spent 20 years reaching for other people’s money – a death tax on family homes, a graduate tax on young people getting their first pay cheque, a £14bn raid on savings and investment, and new levies on everything from your parking space at work to your weekend away.  “Taken together with Rachel Reeves’s record, Labour could well raise more than £100bn a year of tax rises. If Mr Burnham disputes this, the remedy is simple: rule these 10 taxes out, by name, today.”   The UK already has its highest tax burden on record, following raids by Rachel Reeves on employer National Insurance contributions, new VAT on private schools and a freeze to income tax thresholds.  Mr Burnham has declined to set out detailed tax plans ahead of his first Budget but has pledged to remain within Labour’s fiscal rules, which require debt to be falling as a percentage of GDP... Mr Burnham has hinted at a range of expensive spending plans that will require funding from taxation.  He has suggested he would support increasing the top rate of tax to 50 per cent for the highest earners, which would amount to a breach of Labour’s 2024 manifesto not to raise income tax.  He has also refused to rule out a range of tax changes, including aligning CGT with income tax, which he said earlier this month he would “want to look at”.  Mr Burnham is also considering lowering the threshold of Ms Reeves’s “mansion tax” on properties worth more than £2m to just £1.5m, which would drag many homeowners in London and the South East into higher rates of council tax.  A levy on landlords’ rental income would raise around £3bn a year, according to the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR), although economists have warned the policy would lead to a restriction in the housing supply and higher rents for tenants. Other suggestions Mr Burnham has previously supported include a graduate tax to replace student loans, higher gambling duties, a workplace parking levy and greater powers for mayors to charge tourists for overnight stays.  In total, Reform said the policies would bring the tax increases from Sir Keir Starmer and Mr Burnham’s governments to £104bn, with £38bn of increases from the new administration alone.  A report by his allies at Mainstream, a Burnham-aligned think tank, has previously estimated that the policy would raise up to £14bn, although it would likely lead to wealthy taxpayers leaving the country. City bosses and ultra-high-net-worth individuals have warned that a Left-wing Chancellor would reduce market confidence in his government, and could raise the cost of borrowing.  The Treasury already spends around 10 per cent of its total expenditure on debt interest, despite Ms Reeves’s attempt to reduce borrowing and win over the bond markets."

LBC on X - "Gary Lineker is among 120 UK-based millionaires calling on Andy Burnham to impose higher taxes on their wealth in an open letter."
Tyler on X - "The trouble is that everyone knows he doesn’t actually want to pay more tax, he wants the adoration in his social circle of luvvies for pretending he wants to pay more tax.  If he actually wanted to pay more tax, he wouldn’t have spent hundreds of thousands of pounds fighting a tax bill three years ago.  They do these performative stunts because they want to be more loved and wind up being more hated instead... You have an option to voluntarily pay more tax if you wish. The idea that if you wanted to pay more tax the government would turn you down it pretty ridiculous. This is all just moral posturing."

The Composite Guy on X - "In gold-standard Nordic economies like Denmark & Norway, Brits are the most fiscally productive migrants. In the UK, no ethnic group has a lower unemployment rate than White Brits. Yet the prevailing attitude on both the left and the right is that native White Brits are lazy."

The UK's Bonds Are Giving Latest PM Burnham a Reality Check | Financial Post - "Gilts struggled again on Tuesday after sliding on Monday when Burnham took office, taking yields to a two-month high before easing... Article content Article content Article content  Burnham has repeatedly stressed the need for fiscal discipline, but also unnerved the gilt market by saying Monday he’d look for “flexibility” in the rules that govern borrowing and spending. That’s left UK assets pricing in an uncertainty premium as the full scope of the government’s priorities won’t be revealed until an autumn budget... “The biggest risk is the fiscal arithmetic not adding up,” said Laura Cooper, global investment strategist at Nuveen Asset Management. “The Treasury’s traditional role as an internal brake on spending has gradually softened, which argues for higher gilt term premia.” Article content  Gilts have been under pressure ever since Burnham put himself forward for leader last month after winning a parliamentary seat... Longer term borrowing costs have risen more this week, with 30-year yields hitting the highest since mid-May. These have been in focus ever since former prime minister Liz Truss’ 2022 budget of unfunded tax cuts tanked the market, leaving investors sensitive to any loosening of fiscal policies by the sixth new leader in the past decade. Article content Article content  Britain’s borrowing costs are already the highest in Group-of-10 countries, and public debt is roughly equivalent to its gross domestic product."

Burnham to promise to undo Thatcher’s economic legacy in first speech as Labour leader
Left wingers have never forgiven Thatcher for postponing the UK's economic decline

After 25 years in politics, Burnham still doesn’t understand tax - "Burnham has already committed himself to two expensive policies that yield little benefit: buses, of course, and energy bills. On the former, he has committed £500m to cap single bus tickets at £2 until the end of next year.  While he has framed this as a revolutionary policy, it is only a return to the Conservative-era £2 cap, which was raised to a £3 cap by Starmer. This makes no difference to the constituents of his former mayoralty, where fares are already capped at £2, nor to the more than nine million people in London, where single fares are £1.75.  How will he pay for such a policy?  Ask Heidi Alexander, the Transport Secretary, and the answer is “beats me”.  Speaking on the morning news rounds, Alexander conceded: “The detail will need to be worked out. We wanted to make the announcement today.”  Considering the parlous state of the nation’s finances and Burnham’s insistence that he is “ready” for government, we deserve a little better than a childlike “we just couldn’t wait!”. What of his VAT cut on energy bills?  For the bargain price of £850m, Burnham is scrapping VAT on the electricity portion of your energy bill, to return a princely £45 to your pockets over the course of a year.  However, as Helen Miller, the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, points out, the policy will only apply between October 2026 and April 2027, for a total average saving of just £25, or £4.17 a month.  But much like Liz Truss’s energy subsidy – which, it must be noted, was phenomenally more expensive than anything Burnham has suggested – it is a poorly targeted tax break. Burnham’s VAT cut will benefit the largest households – typically with the highest income – the most, since they use more energy.  Miller also notes that if Burnham had wanted to genuinely ease the burden of energy costs, targeting gas prices would have been more sensible, given these have risen 24pc since the war in Iran, compared with the electricity price cap’s 5pc – not to mention the net zero levies applied to electricity. As with the buses and the short-lived income tax break, this, too, begs funding questions. Darren Jones, for whom no room was found in Burnham’s cabinet, quickly pointed out a contradiction with No 10’s line.  They claim the cut is funded by the scrapping of Starmer’s Digital ID scheme; Jones notes this was never funded... If the new Prime Minister doesn’t quickly mature from his policy of “spend now, probably don’t find the money later”, he’ll soon find himself in hock to the bond markets – like it or not."

Brace yourself for Andy Burnham disappointment – he'll make you pay - "Official statistics reveal that since Labour came to power, benefit claims for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) have increased by 40% with the government approving an average of 40 personal independence payments (Pip) a day over the last two years where ADHD is given as the main condition.  Pip is a benefit for those with long-term health conditions or disabilities who need extra support with daily living or mobility. On top of this, of all those claiming Pip for ADHD, it is estimated that around 40% are in receipt of the top rate of this benefit worth £194 a week which is additionally paid along with most other benefits with no requirement to look for work.  Currently more than four million people claim Pip at a cost of £26billion a year according to the latest figures for 2024-25, government forecasts predict this will rise to £45billion by 2031. This is unsustainable and contributes to the financial ticking time-bomb that Andy Burnham will inherit when he becomes Prime Minister."

Labour treat taxpayers like mugs – creating dependency is not compassionate - "Labour is so wasteful with other people’s money that it now wants to throw cash at solving problems that do not even exist. Taxes are at an all time high and the economy is anaemic, but Bridget Phillipson has called for unemployed parents to be given free childcare... Under this government, the state now steps in to provide breakfast for schoolchildren and also teaches them how to brush their teeth. It wants to keep chipping away until personal responsibility becomes obsolete because the state takes care of every aspect of life.  There’s not even any need now to worry about how to keep the family entertained in the school holidays. Unemployed parents are given special rates for major visitor attractions. So, a family of four can visit the Tower of London for £4 instead of the usual £111 bill. None of this helps the children escape the benefits trap. If they grow up to learn that parenting is carried out by the state and the tab for everything is also picked up, then there is little incentive for them to make their own way in the world.  But that suits Labour fine. It is the party of welfare and wants to recruit the next generation of voters. Research by the Centre for Social Justice found that a three-child family in work needs £71,000 a year before tax to match an equivalent jobless family. The think tank warned that scrapping the two child benefit cap and failing to tackle welfare reform had led to a “worsening of deeply perverse incentives” in the benefits system under Labour. It found there has been the fastest increase on record of the number of children growing up in workless households, standing now at a total of 1.5 million. CSJ chairman Iain Duncan Smith warned in the report that “taking money from those who work hard to give to those who work not, is bad economics and bad politics”.  The former Tory leader pointed out pouring money into benefits is not the same as tackling the root causes of poverty. But it is a concept that Labour seems unable to grasp. Social security minister Stephen Timms published an interim report this week that found that the main disability benefit, the personal independence payment, is “not fit for purpose”.  The bill for Pips is set to hit £41billion at the end of the decade, but Timms did not find that a problem. He told the BBC: “My view is the current level of spending is not a great concern.”... Labour must learn that creating dependency is not compassion because at the moment it is failing the people it wants to help and treating taxpayers like mugs."

Watch as UK Minister is told £200m-a-year 'benefit fraud is decriminalised in the SNP's Scotland' - "Devolved benefits agency Social Security Scotland receives thousands of allegations of fraud every year but only a handful are ever passed on to the Crown Office for prosecution. The latest report suggests that around £188million was paid out in fraud or error last year from a total bill of almost £6billion... Speaking in a debate on work and pensions in the Commons on Monday, John Cooper, the MP for Dumfries and Galloway, said: "In Scotland, benefit fraud has effectively been decriminalised; the number of prosecutions is vanishingly small."

Meme - Kevin Ovenden: "Let's be clear about this: cutting spending and jobs elsewhere means not just slashing socially useful spending and services. It also means cutting the effective demand those sacked workers effect through their spending power. This does not bring growth. It shifts resources to the arms companies and to the military. It does not produce engineered products that can go into making useful commodities or transporting them. It goes into producing weapons whose use means destruction. This is a logic that the working class and the labour movement should oppose."
Al Jazeera English: "BREAKING: UK boosts defence funding by an extra £15bn, says Finance Minister Rachel Reeves as PM Keir Starmer says higher spending will require cuts to non- military areas such as civil service staffing"
This given how pathetic the UK military is. Left wingers think unlimited social spending grows the economy and want to cut defence spending to 0 so the West's enemies can easily take over. But they hate the West, after all

Burnham ‘caved in to unions’ in final act as mayor - "The pay settlement for Manchester bus drivers, worth up to 56 per cent over three years, is one of the highest in modern times... One transport industry source said the move was a “capitulation to union demands” and raised concerns about the knock-on effect of such a large pay rise. “Given that wages are 50-70 per cent of underlying bus costs, this will increase network costs by 5-10 per cent at a stroke. If you give increases of this order of magnitude, there is the problem of the domino effect,” he said.  He explained this is where a pay rise leads to demands from other public sector workers for similar increases. Mr Burnham has described the franchised Bee bus network as a “blueprint” for Britain... But figures show that the network, which Mr Burnham decided to bring under his control in 2021 with a franchising arrangement, is heavily reliant on taxpayer subsidies.  Last year, Manchester’s bus network was the most heavily taxpayer-subsidised in the country, aside from London. The amount of subsidy Manchester’s buses have received – both from central and local government – has increased sharply since the Bee network was launched.  According to official figures, its net subsidy rose to a record high of £83.7m in 2025, more than double the amount it received just two years previously."

A simple £50bn tax break could boost London – but Labour will blow it - "Many other jurisdictions seem to enjoy much higher levels of pension investment in domestic equities than the UK, but for most of them such home country bias is largely a cultural phenomenon.  If the UK went the mandatory route, we would join China, Hong Kong and India as the only countries in the world that imposed such a heavy-handed approach.  The primary duty of pension providers is to maximise returns to investors, not to subjugate this responsibility to the Government’s wider growth objectives."

The £1bn ‘Manc-hattan’ scandal looming over Andy Burnham’s leadership - "Andy Burnham made his intentions on housing abundantly clear in the run-up to becoming mayor of Greater Manchester in 2017.  No longer would a local taxpayer housing fund support “large companies which should have used their own finance”, nor would it prioritise “city centre and luxury schemes”.  Instead, Burnham vowed to use the fund for the “long-term goal of an affordable home for all”.  Almost a decade later, Burnham’s promises lie broken.  While he has transformed Manchester’s skyline with dozens of towering new developments, his new era of affordability has failed to materialise.  Instead, the so-called “King of the North” stands accused of bankrolling thousands of high-end luxury flats that many of his working-class supporters can’t afford."

Andy Burnham speech latest: MP unveils plan for No 10 North in Manchester - "Andy Burnham plans to take Britain back to the 1970s with state intervention in the markets and a mass social housing programme.  The former mayor of Greater Manchester said that the economy “from the mid-1980s onwards” had not been built for ordinary people and vowed to put a renewed focus on building council housing and technical education.  His comments nod to a decade in which 1.1 million council homes were built and many children still went to a “Secondary Modern” to learn technical skills if they didn’t pass the 11+.  Mr Burnham also said his economic vision would mean “not leaving everything to the markets” and “public intervention where necessary” – rolling back the mass privatisation and city deregulation brought in by Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s."

Left vs Right Wing Extremism / Trans as Humiliation Ritual

"Left Wing Extremism: I want to castrate, sterilize and mutilate 13 year old girls permanently, turning them into grotesque clones of boys for profit and have 300 lb. drag queens dancing around gyrating their crotches at 4 year olds.
Right Wing Extremism: let's not do that actually you sick fuck"

Disclose.tv @disclosetv: "JUST IN - Music icon Rihanna has enlisted Elon Musk’s transgender child to model in the latest campaign for a lingerie brand – DailyMail"
Frank McCormick @CBHeresy: "Unable to defeat the warlord on the battlefield, they captured his son, turned him into a ladyboy, and paraded him in a female minstrel show.
This was a humiliation ritual practiced by a degenerate tribe that viewed dishonor and degradation as substitutes for honor in battle."

Links - 9th August 2026 (1 - Jason Arday)

Glasgow University denies Jason Arday visiting prof claim - "The University of Glasgow has told The Herald that Professor Jason Arday, the academic embroiled in a growing plagiarism row, has never held a visiting professorship there, directly contradicting his official biography on Cambridge's website. In 2021, Prof Arday became a Professor of Sociology of Education at the University of Glasgow’s School of Education, making him, at the time, one of the youngest professors in the UK... a spokesperson for Glasgow said: "I can confirm that Professor Arday isn't a Visiting Professor at the University of Glasgow." When asked if he had ever held that position, the spokesperson said he "was never a Visiting Professor here"."
Damn racist university!

Plagiarism row professor 'said he was on Seven Up'... which was broadcast decades before he was born - "Professor Arday said that when he talked of 'Seven Up', he didn't mean 'Seven Up' the famous TV series, which followed children at seven-year intervals in the format he described. He says that in fact he was referring to 'a local community and parent-led initiative developed around the Ubuntu principle that "it takes a village to raise a child". 'It was organised by Black women to support Black mothers raising children with complex learning needs.' He asked that we attribute the quotes to 'a source close to Professor Arday'. 'The reference to "Seven Up" was used informally as a shorthand illustration of the concept. It was not intended as a literal comparison and should be understood in the context in which it was made. Attempts to present the phrase in isolation risk creating a misleading impression of both the initiative and Professor Arday's comments,' Professor Arday said."
Clearly, the Daily Mail is lying again.

Thread by @Tyler_A_Harper on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "On the Arday scandal: it shouldn’t be lost that elite schools have a record of elevating black mediocrities to milestone, “first-ever” positions. To do so, they always skip over *actual* black heavy hitters—e.g. Claudine Gay winning the Harvard presidency over Danielle Allen. This is the most revolting things about these scandals. There are plenty of talented black academics, and these elite schools step over their bodies to elevate scrubs who either come from rich families (Gay) or who let them feel the warm glow of the white man’s burden (Arday). It gives the distinct impression that places like Harvard and Cambridge don’t actually want hyper-accomplished, brilliant Black academics elevated to major positions. They want either hyper-rich elites whose biggest talent is billionaire-schmoozing-while-black, or charity cases. If you know the inside baseball of the Harvard presidency hire, you know that extremely impressive black academics were interviewed. But instead Harvard went with a hack from a concrete monopolist family, then demanded we all celebrate this “first ever” as JUSTICE and PROGRESS."

The Great Unchecked Fairy Tale of Jason Arday - "A depressed ex-professor who lost his entire family in a road accident. And when anyone finally starts asking questions, the answer is always the same: you’re a racist. That is the real story. Not just the claims. The fact that an entire class of people was so desperate for a black, autistic, working-class success story that they treated ordinary verification as an act of bigotry... He claimed three hours of speech therapy every day, six or seven days a week, from the age of three. In a later video he upped it to four to five hours every day from the age of three. He has also said his mother “holds five degrees” and that he comes from “a family of nurses.” His parents have never given a public interview. Not once. No clinic named. No therapist. No school records from Wandsworth, Southfields or Merton confirming any of this. The five-degrees claim for his mother only appeared recently. Earlier profiles just called her a mental health nurse. Daily private therapy on that scale for eight years would have cost a fortune. No one has ever produced a single independent source for any of it... He left school with GCSEs in PE and Textiles — tests that require literacy and are normally taken at 15 or 16. His forthcoming memoir now softens it to “left secondary school with two GCSEs… still barely able to read or write.” The story moves when it needs to. He has also claimed to be deaf in one ear. This claim appeared only recently and has never been independently verified. His parents have never given a single public interview, never confirmed the diagnoses, never confirmed the speech therapy, never confirmed the five degrees, and never spoken in support of any part of the early-life story. He has said that in a former life he was a PE teacher. This is one of the few claims that fits the documented record... Unlike almost everything else, this detail has never required extraordinary verification because it is mundane and consistent. The Origin Story That Changed When No One Was Looking. On his own 2010 JustGiving page, when he was 24 and a Sports Lecturer at Richmond upon Thames College, Arday wrote about a Christmas 2002 visit to a homeless shelter at seventeen. He met a friend from Secondary School who had become homeless after a “terrible sequence of events” that led to depression. He introduced him to Shelter. His lifetime fundraising target at that point was £250,000 before the age of 50. University fundraisers over three years had raised just under £4,000. The same modest story and the same £250,000 target appear on his 2011 JustGiving page. By 2021 the school friend had disappeared. Suddenly it was a depressed ex-professor who had lost his wife and children in a road accident. Same shelter. Completely different story. No one asked why... He has claimed thirty marathons in thirty-five days in 2010... Andy Murray publicly repeated a version of the story in which Arday had a fit or seizure during the challenge, fell, sustained the hairline fracture, and still continued. No contemporary local newspaper report from the summer of 2010 has ever mentioned a runner collapsing or having a seizure during the thirty-marathon effort. His own 2010 JustGiving page set a target of £5,000 for the thirty marathons. The 2011 page said the 2010 challenge had raised just over £8,000 and called the treadmill challenge (target £2,000) his “last ever running challenge of any kind.” Neither page mentions any injury. Contemporary local press coverage of the 2010 challenge doesn’t mention a fracture or swollen leg either. Ultra-runners of that calibre are known in the community. He isn’t. University biographies quietly changed the six-day claim. No results. No witnesses. No medical notes. Arday has also claimed in some profiles to have been a semi-professional footballer. No club, no season, and no match records have ever been produced to support this... A man has a life-threatening brain tumour removed three weeks before his doctoral examination, suffers a stroke that wipes his memory of the entire thesis, still somehow passes, and then goes on to build a public career in which this story is regularly repeated — without a single independent medical or institutional source ever confirming that any of it happened. It is simply another claim that floats free of evidence, protected by the same atmosphere that made questioning any of the other stories feel dangerous... The real scandal is not that a man told tall stories. People do that. The scandal is that an entire class of institutions and opinion-formers was so desperate for a diversity fairy tale that they never required the stories to be true. They needed a black, autistic, working-class professor who had overcome impossible odds. The more impossible the odds, the better the story. So they repeated it. They put him on the BBC. They gave him platforms, honorary degrees, a memoir deal with Simon & Schuster that is still proceeding. It is notable that a Cambridge professor required a co-writer to tell his own life story. They signed solidarity letters coordinated by the Good Law Project. And when the contradictions began to surface — the JustGiving pages showing the original modest targets and the secondary-school friend, the chronological impossibility of the Seven Up claim, the police denial of the pig’s head investigation, the quiet editing of university biographies, the extensive textual overlap in the thesis, the complete absence of parental statements or medical records — they did not demand evidence. They demanded silence. Anyone who asked for proof was immediately accused of racism or of “punching down.” This is what happens when identity becomes a substitute for truth... Jason Arday did not need to invent a modest success story. He invented a legend. And for years almost no one dared to ask whether any of it was real — because he is black, and in the current climate that was supposed to be enough. It was not enough, and it never should have been."

Journalist questioned by police for investigating Cambridge professor - "Scotland Yard spent four months investigating a journalist who tried to expose the plagiarism row that has engulfed Cambridge University. Jack Grove, a reporter for Times Higher Education (THE), was accused of harassment after he emailed a series of questions to Professor Jason Arday about his academic record. Prof Arday also hired the law firm Carter-Ruck, which suggested in a letter to THE that its “apparent attack” on him “may be... racially motivated”. The Metropolitan Police spent four months looking into the claim of harassment before deciding in February to close the case. The police did not interview Mr Grove, who only found out about the investigation when the Met contacted him to inform him they would be taking no action. The Met also reportedly passed on a complaint to another force about an academic who was also looking into the academic record of Prof Arday, but the other force refused to investigate. The Met is among forces that have been accused in recent months of wasting time on pointless investigations while insisting they do not have the manpower to routinely attend burglaries and other crimes. Mr Grove told The Telegraph he was “stunned” to receive a phone call from the police to be told he had been investigated simply for doing his job. He said: “I was told a complaint had been made against me and investigated, but the force was not taking it forward. The officer told me that I shouldn’t contact Professor Arday again because his mental health had been affected by my actions... “I was just doing my job. Journalists should be free to ask questions of anyone, even star professors. It’s very rare that academics refuse to speak to the press – that caused me to look into this matter further and I was astonished by what I found.”... It also emerged on Tuesday that Prof Arday falsely claimed to have been a visiting professor at Ohio State University. On the Cambridge Faculty of Education page, he claims to be a visiting professor at the US university in the Office of Diversity and Inclusion. However, a university spokesman said they had “no record of an employee by that name” and that “visiting professors appear in our employment records”. Ohio State’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion also closed last year... Police forces around the country have been accused of wasting resources on investigating non-crimes."
Attacking the media is only fascist when they push the left wing agenda

Met chief admits inquiry into journalist investigating Arday was wrong - "Sir Mark Rowley said his force had “dropped the ball” by looking into a claim by Prof Jason Arday that he was being harassed by Jack Grove, a reporter for Times Higher Education, after Grove emailed him a series of questions about his academic record... the Met told The Telegraph it had been wrong to tell Grove not to ask any further questions of Prof Arday... Lord Young of Acton, the general secretary of the Free Speech Union, has written to Sir Mark, seeking an explanation for the decision to investigate. In his letter, seen by The Telegraph, he wrote: “Telling a journalist to stop making lawful inquiries of a public figure under investigation for potential professional misconduct is not safeguarding – it is press censorship, delivered over the telephone by an officer who appears not to have realised he was speaking to a journalist doing his job until Mr Grove told him so.”... Lord Young said it was unclear why Devon and Cornwall Police had been able to dismiss the complaint so quickly while the Met took four months to come to “broadly the same conclusion”. Lord Wolfson, the shadow attorney general, condemned the Met’s actions. He said: “If true, Scotland Yard investigating a journalist for asking questions in the public interest is deeply troubling. The police should investigate real crimes, not chill legitimate scrutiny.”... Lord Young urged the Met to provide officers with “basic free speech training so they will stop wasting everybody’s time investigating these vexatious complaints”. He asked the force to explain what legal basis there was for the investigating officer to advise Grove to stop contacting Prof Arday or writing about him. He also asked what steps the Met was taking at the outset to ensure officers were not investigating a journalist who was simply trying to do his job."

Benjamin Ryan on X - "Jason Arday, who holds one of the most prestigious positions in global academia as a professor at Cambridge, required a ghostwriter for his forthcoming memoir, I learned in my reporting for @FreeBeacon on his lies about his charity work. The ghostwriter is credited in the UK edition of the book. But there is no mention of her on the Amazon page or the US cover of his book, which despite Arday being embroiled in scandal and exposed as apparent serial fabulist, Simon & Schustser still intends to publish a week from today."
Colin Wright on X - "Arday couldn’t even write his own memoir because he had no one else’s work to copy and paste from."

Thread by @Afinetheorem on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "I don't want to pile on to the Cambridge situation, but media coverage saying "plagiarism" are really missing the boat. There is pretty obvious fraud - literally claiming he did interviews that couldn't have happened and so on - in like every paper of his that I looked at. In this one, : The age/gender of specific participants IDs keep changing? 16 person focus groups recruited from 14 universities (come on, man)? Random student quotes include "racialized plight," "the historical deficit model"? Same article: claims 21 hours of one-on-one interviews, but not a single quote or result based on these ever mentioned again. Also, a quote from this study was "reused" in his different 2022 study supposedly coming from a person of a different age/race! It's made up, gang. On his personal life, seems obvious many of them are made up as well - is there *a single one* with outside corroboration? But that's above our pay grade - clear academic fraud at a major univ isn't. It's unacceptable. Trust in universities matters! Just to make things clear on Arday, 2018 article "interviews" students; 2022 "interviews" staff. Shall we put Claude in charge of univ fraud? This is obvious and it ticks me off people pretend not to see it (and there is more!). Btw, *all* those quotes are fake, even in 2018... Be honest with yourself: this is not just "I forgot to include a citation to previous work"."
Jonatan Pallesen on X - "This is the most important aspect: Jason Arday committed scientific fraud. He must go. And so must the leaders at Cambridge who support him after it is revealed that he has committed fraud. This includes among others Sonita Alleyne, the Master of the college at U. of Cambridge in which Jason Arday is employed. She stands in "unwavering solidarity" of Jason Arday. We obviously cannot accept a situation in which members of the leadership of a university stand in unwavering solidarity with academics who commit scientific fraud. One can hope that eventually even the media will pick up on this, and start seeing more of the picture."

Meme - David Decosimo @DavidDecosimo: "The evidence of Arday's plagiarism is the same now as last week. The *only* thing that changed was public opinion. Lester saw that persisting in his manifest dishonesty might hurt his own standing among his allies. This is the very opposite of what a scholar is supposed to be."
Alan Lester @aljhlester: "I'm not sorry for siding on principle with a man being hunted by a lynch mob, led by an outright racist. I am sorry though, for suggesting that the extent of Arday's uncited duplication of other scholars' work is widespread among peers or "appropriate". It isn't."
Alan Lester @aljhlester: "Disgusted with @thetimes for presenting this non-story. If it has to be covered at all it should be framed as Discredited Racist Smears Black Cambridge Professor in Sustained Campaign to Undermine Him. Arday quoted & cited sources appropriately."
Naturally, he was blocked

Cambridge bosses face staff revolt over diversity poster boy row - "The university insists he is the victim of a “vile campaign to undermine his credibility”, but some senior staff believe the institution’s own credibility is now at stake... a draft resolution, known as a Grace, is circulating among senior members of Cambridge’s academic staff, stressing the importance of academic integrity and requesting an investigation into alleged shortcomings in the Research Policy, Integrity and Governance division (RPIG). The RPIG has attracted criticism from professors at other universities for ignoring warnings about Prof Arday’s work as long as three years ago, and insisting his PhD is a matter for Liverpool John Moores University, which awarded him his doctorate. If the Grace is submitted to the Regent House – effectively Cambridge’s parliament – and is passed by it, it would be “virtually a no confidence motion in the vice-chancellor”, in the words of one academic source."
Looks like Cambridge needs to be purged of racists!

Cambridge investigates Jason Arday after Telegraph reveals his false book claims - "Prof Jason Arday has resigned from the University of Cambridge after The Telegraph revealed he falsely claimed to have published a book... The statement came hours after the university announced it was investigating him following new information regarding his “academic qualifications and honorary appointments”... Prof Arday had repeatedly claimed that he was the author of a book called Being Young, Black and Male: Challenging the Dominant Discourse. The book was listed in his biography description in published essays as well as promotional material for speaking events, and was attributed to the Palgrave Macmillan publishing house. In reality, it was never published. The revelation raised questions over his employment at the University of Cambridge. To apply for a professorship at Cambridge, applicants need to submit an extensive portfolio of work, which includes a complete bibliography of essays, journals and book chapters... Announcing his resignation on the Good Law Project’s website, Prof Arday said: “While criticism is an inevitable part of academic life, what I have experienced has gone far beyond scholarly disagreement. The relentless accusations, speculation and public commentary have taken a profound toll on me and on those I love. He added: “This decision should not be interpreted as a loss of faith in scholarship or in the values that first brought me to Cambridge. Nor should it be mistaken for an acceptance of the narratives that have surrounded me. It is simply the decision of someone who has reached the limits of what any person should reasonably be expected to endure.”... Prof Arday has incorrectly claimed to be a visiting professor at the Nelson Mandela University in South Africa. On the Cambridge Faculty of Education page, he claims to be a visiting professor at the university, in the city of Gqeberha, formerly Port Elizabeth. However, a university spokesman said Prof Arday had “no formal affiliation” with the institution and had served as an adjunct professor on a fixed-term association that ended in November 2025... Cambridge previously said Prof Arday was the victim of a “vile campaign to undermine his credibility”, but had faced a staff revolt over its refusal to re-examine his academic credentials... Palgrave Macmillan, an academic and trade publishing company, accepted Prof Arday’s proposal for the book but did not publish it. Despite the book not being publicly available, he continued to promote himself as its author. While he was working at Durham University in 2020, he uploaded the title of the book to the university’s online repository, an online archive to which academics can upload their research and other work. However, he did not upload any files or content from the book. The entry said “manuscript in preparation”, suggesting the work had not yet been completed."
Racism wins again!

The Cambridge fantasist is proof that stupid intellectuals are poisoning Britain - "There is no one quite as stupid as an intellectual. A friend who taught at Cambridge before fleeing for the relative sanity of a Swiss professorship blames the Arday scandal on “a weak, woke administrative class” who have bought into the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) cult. “The disease began,” he says, “when the colleges started to hire so-called senior tutors, many of whom are failed academics on an ideological mission to change the ethnic make-up of the Cambridge faculty. Their loyalty is with Left-wing politicians. Most academics are naïve, cowardly, sentimental, indifferent or gullible, so they just go along with it. It’s a disaster.” In my time at Cambridge, more than 40 years ago now, the masters of colleges were almost all distinguished academics. Today, a senior scholar with multiple highly rated publications to their name and an intimate knowledge of the university would struggle to even make the shortlist. Senior positions are routinely filled by former BBC and other Left-wing media personnel, ex-Labour politicians, civil servants and ethnically diverse mediocrities from the charity sector who spend their time plotting how to remove their college’s centuries-old “offensive” features. It’s awful, like watching poison being injected into an old friend’s bloodstream; some of those people don’t love and cherish Cambridge, as they should, but want to destroy one of the world’s greatest universities from within. There is a hero in this story and his name is not Jason Arday, but Jack Grove – a brilliant reporter for Times Higher Education, who some time ago got a tip-off about an “apparently minor breach of research ethics protocols” committed by Arday... “It is liberal white academics who are smitten with Arday,” Grove tells me. “There are a lot of excellent black social scientists who can’t stand him. They are doing rigorous work and following the rules. They recognise Arday’s work as nonsense – he only ever talked about his life, pop music or sport in his public talks, not his research.”... A professor I know who worked her way up the academic ladder is angry that women, in particular, and white Britons from working-class backgrounds are being sacrificed for the greater good of diversity. “It’s got to the point now where if someone identifies as having a disability or is from a certain ethnic minority, they are guaranteed an interview. I’ve had to interview people for a post they were absolutely not qualified for and had no experience in. It’s farcical.”... Arday submitted a formal, 24-page complaint to Times Higher Education’s chief executive. The dreamy savant was apparently playing hardball to protect his position... I find it revealing that not one of Arday’s collaborators has come out to defend him. His support at Cambridge comes mostly from people such as Simon Woolley, principal of Homerton College, and Sonita Alleyne, the master of Jesus, Cambridge’s most woke college. It’s largely only activists who are still sticking by him... If Arday has made a lot of highly intelligent people look very stupid, it’s because they are stupid. A blind commitment to DEI as an absolute good, the embarrassing eagerness of liberal nitwits to flatter themselves as enlightened and good. All this creates the conditions in which frauds and unworthy candidates can steal senior roles that properly belong to brilliant people of experience. (Yes, even if they’re white and male.) If the academics failed to see through their diversity poster boy, it’s because not believing him meant losing faith in their most cherished illusions. Arday has made Cambridge a laughing stock... One distressed Cambridge alumnus lamented the woke cowardice of his once famously rigorous university. Many of us will feel the same. The progressive ideology that made Arday Cambridge’s youngest black professor is undermining all our institutions, from the police to Oxbridge. It prioritises identity over individual talent and hard work. It turns a blind eye to cheating in the name of anti-racism, which is profoundly racist. The DEI termites are eating away at the foundations and gradually ruining Britain as standards crumble. Let’s hope this particular scandal stops the rot. One last thought. People with autism are sometimes reported to find lying or dissembling difficult. Funny that."
Left wingers will still insist that DEI is so that anyone who is not a straight white cis man can get a job

Jason Arday reflects a much deeper rot within universities - "It is hard not to feel a flicker of sympathy for Arday. Yes, his claims were egregious, but the system encouraged them. A video has been widely circulated showing Hilary Cremin, head of the faculty of education, telling Arday that “you are the best in the world” – no wonder he might start believing he was untouchable. This is the deeper problem: diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives within academia have undermined both meritocracy and diversity of thought by suppressing different views... parts of academia have decided that demographic characteristics are no longer one of many inputs, but a binding constraint. Some departments have advertised open searches while privately deciding that only a candidate from a particular demographic group would be appointed. Others have used demographic targets or quotas in drawing up final-round shortlists. They may claim that diversity leads to a more creative research culture, but what matters is diversity of thought. A mix of theorists and empiricists, or saltwater and freshwater economists, is far more important than gradations in skin tone. The distortion continues after hiring. “Citation justice” encourages researchers to select reference lists by authors’ identities rather than only scientific relevance. Nature Human Behaviour published an editorial stating that it might reject or retract papers that “could reasonably be perceived to undermine the rights and dignities of an individual or human group on the basis of socially constructed or socially relevant human groupings” – even if scientifically accurate – and that it would consult “advocacy groups” to inform such decisions. A paper accepted by a leading management journal was changed because readers objected to what it said. Demographic considerations can influence who becomes a journal editor, is invited as a keynote speaker, becomes president of a professional association, or receives a research grant. Yet the diversity that matters most – cognitive diversity – is discouraged. Election as a Fellow of the British Academy is the highest UK honour for a social scientist, so rigorous scrutiny should be expected... At a university, dissenting or unwelcome views can lead you to be hounded out of your job, stripped of Emeritus status, or face less visible but equally damaging punishments such as the loss of institutional support. Why should anyone outside universities care? Because academia matters. Current professors teach future generations. Their research shapes policy and practice both directly and indirectly by influencing future research. Faculty jobs, journal slots, grants and honours are finite. Every appointment in which demographic optics outweigh merit displaces somebody else. Every weak paper contaminates the literature and can influence policy. Every pound of funding allocated on criteria other than research quality is unavailable for potentially groundbreaking work. Yet those in the privileged position of academia rarely recognise their own privilege. Nobody at Cambridge appears to have asked the obvious questions. The lords, dames, sirs and professors who rushed first to celebrate Arday and then to denounce his critics never have to worry about losing a faculty position or a research grant – they already have theirs. They can pull up the drawbridge while making themselves feel, and look, virtuous by saluting the flag of DEI. Indeed, the most revealing aspect of the Cremin video was not what she said, but that Cambridge chose to film it, publicise it and celebrate it. Universities appoint outstanding academics every year. They do not normally produce promotional videos announcing their moral satisfaction with the appointment. Whatever final judgment is reached on the plagiarism allegations, Arday is not the point. Institutions saw a story that flattered their values and forgot to ask whether it was true. Academia should be society’s most sceptical institution. If it cannot scrutinise its own heroes, it has no moral authority to instruct anyone else."

Links - 8th August 2026 (2 - Migrants: UK)

Burnham can’t keep swerving the immigration question - "both legal and illegal migration are running at very high levels by historic standards, putting impossible pressure on our public services, depressing GDP per capita and driving social conflict. What does Mr Burnham plan to do about this? He has barely uttered a word on the subject since entering Downing Street. Perhaps this is because Mr Burnham realises that immigration is the issue on which his fantasy electoral coalition risks crumbling. Labour put its faith in Mr Burnham because he promised both to peel off support from Reform UK and to stem Labour’s losses to the far-Left Green Party. That is perhaps possible when talking only about buses and social care. Fixing Britain’s borders offers Mr Burnham no such luxury. The Left’s worst pathologies make Mr Burnham’s task all the more difficult. Far from seeing this week’s events as a wake-up call, many still cling to the idea of rejoining the EU, even though doing so would open up our borders even more egregiously. Others continue to fetishise human rights laws, which make it harder to deport illegals and it is at the heart of Europe’s troubles."

France sends extra police officers to coast but they won’t stop migrants - "France has deployed an extra squad of police officers to patrol its north coast, but rather than stopping migrants, they will tackle a summer surge in tourism."

Tom Harwood on X - "1 in 10 people in this country are foreign nationals. 1 in 4 sexual assault convictions on women in 2024 were committed by foreign nationals. This is clearly complicated by the fact that the migrant population is disproportionately younger than the native population. And, obviously, it is men from late teens to their 40s who commit the overwhelming majority of crime. Unfortunately, the Ministry of Justice refuses to publish convictions broken down by offence, nationality, age and sex. Such data would enable us to adjust properly for the factors of age and sex. It's in everyone's interest that the MoJ release the data."
Left wing logic: refuse to collect and/or release data, then accuse those of pointing out the truth of spreading misinformation

Katie Lam on X - "The Home Office has decided that the Islamic Centre of England, a registered "charity" caught selling Hezbollah trinkets, should be able to sponsor visas for imams. This is obviously disgraceful, and puts the public at risk. Will the Home Secretary overturn it?"

Meme - Matt Goodwin @GoodwinMJ: "Astonishing. Most people in Northern Ireland now say the biggest divide is not between unionists & nationalists but between immigrants and people born in Northern Ireland"
"In what ways is our society most divided today? Select up to three.
Between immigrants and people born here - 49
Between unionists and nationalists - 35
Between white people and ethnic minorities - 32
Between Protestants and Catholics - 31
Between people who see themselves as British and those who see themselves as Irish - 28
Between rich and poor - 22
Between left and right - 18
Between people who lived through the Troubles and those too young to remember - 16
Between Belfast and the rest of Northern Ireland - 9
Between young and old - 7
Between renters and homeowners - 5
Between people who went to grammar schools and those who didn't - 4
Between settled people and Travellers - 4"

Emily WD🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 on X - "➡️ People say violence against women and girls in UK is being decriminalised... 🇬🇧 He sexually assaulted a 14YO girl and a woman - then threw two chairs through a restaurant window. Just a £400 fine. Meanwhile, throw 2 stones that hit no one and get 2 years in prison."
Bring Back Safeguarding on X - "Labour Government just expect women and girls to live like this, not only to put up with sexual assault, but also to accept seeing the perpetrator walk free so he can attack us again."

Tommy Robinson 🇬🇧 on X - "David Lammy is taking legal action to block publication of foreign nationals' crime rates in England and Wales. The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is seeking to overturn a ruling by the Information Commissioner that data revealing the full scale of foreign offending in England and Wales from 2018 to 2024 should be published. Citing "costs". They think we're stupid. Corrupt to the core."

W0zza on X - "Comedian Leo Kearse said "theres so many Somalians in London it just doesn't feel like Bangladesh anymore" 🤣👌🏻👏🏻"

Left wing activists REFUSE asylum seekers in their town – hypocrites - "The hypocrisy of some on the Left really does know no bounds. In fact, if the writers of The Thick Of It pitched this story as a script, it would probably be rejected for being too far-fetched. The Oxford branch of Stand Up To Racism has launched a petition opposing the Home Office's plans to house 1,250 asylum seekers at a former Ministry of Defence site near the picturesque Oxfordshire town of Bicester. Why? Well, apparently because living on an old MoD site would be "dehumanising" for the asylum seekers. Fair enough, everyone deserves to be treated with dignity. Their second argument, however, is where things become truly fascinating. They claim the camp could become a target for intimidation and protests by the "far-Right" in the same way asylum hotels such as the one in Epping have been. Now, forgive me if I'm missing something, but if people are genuinely fleeing war, persecution or oppression, I suspect their biggest priority is reaching somewhere safe. A secure camp in rural Oxfordshire doesn't exactly sound like the worst place to begin rebuilding your life. But here's the question nobody there seems willing to answer. If Bicester is unsuitable, where exactly should these 1,250 people go instead? The petition doesn't appear to offer an alternative. Not one... Bicester is a beautiful town filled with lovely homes occupied by compassionate, socially conscious people who clearly care deeply about those seeking sanctuary. So why not open those homes? If every supporter of the petition welcomed just one or two asylum seekers, the problem would disappear overnight. No camps needed. No complaints about institutional accommodation. No concerns about isolating vulnerable people. The new arrivals would live among local families, become part of the community and enjoy the very neighbourliness campaigners so often champion. Everybody wins. After all, it's easy to proclaim "Refugees Welcome" from behind a placard. It's rather more meaningful to put the kettle on, make up the spare room and welcome someone through your own front door. Perhaps they'll do exactly that. And if they don't? Well, I certainly won't accuse them of wanting asylum seekers housed anywhere but their own leafy corner of Oxfordshire. I'll leave that conclusion to you, dear reader."

Migrants who successfully bear Home Office reveal real reason they crossed - "Migrants who successfully won a High Court battle with the Home Office wanted a UK education and believe it is “a better country” than France, court documents show. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood’s one-in, one-out deal with Paris was dealt a blow after a group of asylum seekers claimed their deportations were unlawful. Immigration officials removed a migrant's right to demand that a claim of being a victim of modern slavery be re-examined... One of the claimants, KAG, “asserted that he “did not claim asylum in France due to concerns about poor treatment of asylum seekers and lack of support. [He] expressed a desire to claim asylum in the UK to pursue education and because [he] believe[s] it is safer”. The High Court judgment added of AYA, another claimant: “He said he did not claim asylum in France because he “saw people sleeping rough in the streets”. AYA also said that he had been told the UK “was a better country and this is why he came here”."
Clearly, France is a dangerous hellhole and migrants fear for their lives there

Shocking visa loophole exposed despite crackdown - 'It is an abuse' - "Migrants are still bringing a “shocking” number of family members with them to the UK despite a crackdown, ministers have been warned. Fury erupted after Cameroonian workers in the UK successfully applied for 180 family members to join them in the in the year to March. This comes despite only 12 health and care visas being issued to workers from Cameroon last year... 257 Ghanaian health workers came to the UK last year but 2,131 “dependants” of health workers from Ghana based in the UK came here over the same 12 months... Under Labour’s plans, migrants will be told to wait at least 10 years before they can apply for settlement rights. Foreign nationals who arrived in the so-called "Boris wave" face a 10 to 15-year wait to apply for indefinite leave to remain. And migrants could be barred from claiming benefits unless they become British citizens. Arrivals applying for indefinite leave to remain after 10 years must have no criminal record, speak English to A-level standards and have no debt, under Labour’s new proposals. But Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is under pressure to water down her proposals. Left-wing MPs, trade unions and health groups want the Home Office to exempt migrants already in the UK from the new rules."

Visegrád 24 on X - "Dozens of illegal migrants crossing the English Channel in a small boat shouted “This is the end of England” moments before landing on British shores. One man said, “London is finished, London is finished. Rozi Khan has finished London.” The migrants were also seen throwing personal documents into the sea during the crossing. The dinghy, carrying dozens of people including women and children, completed the 21-mile journey across the Channel. According to the report, 11,821 migrants had crossed by small boat to the UK by 25 June this year."

Diana Alastair💚🤍💜 ⚢ ❌❌✡️ on X - "This woman got six weeks in prison - suspended - and 50 hours of unpaid work. The old man she’s assaulting died.
***
This is Bilikesu Olagunju, from Nigeria. She’s in the UK on a Health and Care Worker visa. Her first job started in December 2024, when she was employed as an agency carer for John Attard, an 88 year old dementia patient from Bexley, Kent. On 19 December, she took a job as an agency carer for John Attard, an 88 year old great grandfather with dementia. Seven days later, on Christmas Day, John Attard’s son Chris found him unresponsive in bed, blood dripping down his face. John Attard was rushed to the hospital, but did not regain consciousness, and died ten days later. Video footage was later turned over to police by Chris Attard. In the footage, Olagunju shouts at John Attard to stand up as she undresses him roughly, yells that she will flog him, and — unbelievably — threatens to call the police on him. At one point she drags him across the living-room floor by the arm as he cries out that she is hurting him. She even jerked the table away when he tried to eat, spilling hot coffee on him in the process, and put marmalade in his coffee because she knew he was diabetic. Last month Olagunju pleaded guilty to one count of ill-treating or willfully neglecting an individual while acting as a care worker. Judge Charlotte Welsh sentenced her to 6 weeks in prison, suspended for 18 months, and 50 hours of unpaid work at Woolwich Crown Court, commenting that: “Being a carer is a very, very difficult job and frankly people don’t appreciate it until they need it. I am convinced that you had not received sufficient training.” Olagunju did not lose her Health and Care Worker visa, in spite of not having the training to do her job properly, nor was she deported. Instead, she found a job at a UK hospital - working with stroke patients."

Record 20,000 foreign criminals avoid deportation - "Home Office figures show there are currently 19,779 offenders living freely in Britain, more than double the 8,500 at the same point in 2020. They have been identified for deportation by the Home Office but have been freed from prison to live in the community. Many are using human rights laws to thwart their removal. A Telegraph analysis of more than 400 immigration appeals by foreign criminals in the past 18 months revealed sex offenders, robbers, fraudsters, arsonists and domestic abusers successfully challenged their deportation by claiming it breached their rights to a family life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The research, the first of its kind, found more than 40 per cent avoided deportation either by claiming it denied them a right to a family life, or that they would face persecution in breach of Article 3 of the ECHR on their return to their home country."
Left wing logic: most migrants don't commit crimes, so it's ridiculous to be concerned about those who do. Of course, they need to pretend that crime is costless

Meme - Shabana Mahmood MP: "I am deeply saddened to hear about the stabbings in Huntingdon. My thoughts go out to all those affected. Two suspects have been immediately arrested and taken into custody. I am receiving regular updates on the investigation. I urge people to avoid comment and speculation at this early stage."
Shabana Mahmood MP: "I am horrified by news of the attack in Edinburgh. I am grateful to the police and emergency services for their bravery in apprehending the suspect and for their speedy response in attending to the victims. The suspect appears to be motivated by anti-Muslim hatred. There is no place for hatred and violence against Muslims. I know it is not who we are as a country."

Daily Mail on X - "Afghan migrant, 18, who stabbed a man to death is a 'traumatised refugee', court hears"
Leo Kearse - see me on tour! Links in bio on X - "Poor guy. Really hope that stabbing someone to death helped him with his trauma. I'm so glad my government secretly airlifted 35,000 of these guys in without telling us."
Count Ovaltine Von Phuq-Wolf the 2nd on X - "I'm kind of sympathetic to the guy.....I killed around 27 prostitutes and I felt like a well powerful sex animal right after each one. It was as if all those times my uncle Jim fucked me as a 7 year old simply melted away."

Don Keith on X - "🚨Holy Cow! The UK government just got caught hiding twelve new migrant centres. Speaker Lindsay Hoyle furious at Labour for keeping MPs in the dark. They can’t keep doing this in secret. Britain is being transformed against the people’s will. End the betrayal."

GB News on X - "Lib Dem MP left 'frustrated' at plans to house asylum seekers in small Bicester community: 'It's inappropriate!'"
Sharron Davies HoL MBE on X - "Funny how things change when it’s in their constituancy"

Daily Mail on X - "Bangladeshi man whose 'culture may affect his attitude towards female children' is jailed for raping autistic 12-year old girl and grooming nine-year-old"
Leo Kearse - see me on tour! Links in bio on X - "If I say this man is "from a rapey paedo culture", I'm a racist. But he can defend himself in court by saying he's "from a rapey paedo culture". Make it make sense."
RadleyK on X - "Why would a nation import parasitic people from rapey paedo cultures? That doesn't make any sense either."
Leo Kearse - see me on tour! Links in bio on X - "It's almost as if communists have infiltrated every institution and are trying to destroy us"
It's racist, xenophobic and Islamophobic to say that Bangladeshis are pedophiles. Time to jail him for spreading this misinformation!

Meme - Sargon of Akkad: "Diane Abbott accidently admitts the party does not represent the interests of working class northern Labour seats."
Aisha Malik-Smith @avocadamn: "Labour abstentions on the Immigration Bill."
Diane Abbott MP @Hackney...: "Technical difficulties explain some failures to vote. But I also understand that five MPs contacted whips to say they were going to abstain as voting against immigration bill will "put further holes in the red wall""

Jason Kenney 🇨🇦🇺🇦🇮🇱 on X - "Watch the incredulous reaction of this UK Green candidate to the suggestion that mass migration drives up housing costs. It perfectly reflects a serious problem on the left. Ideological rigidity, and lack intellectual curiosity often means they never encounter conservative arguments. So they are often stunned and incapable of formulating a response to arguments, or facts, that they’ve never considered. I think one reason for this is the tendency of many on the hard left to adopt a manichean worldview, which means regarding the right not just as adversaries, but as evil."
"Empathy" strikes again!
Left wingers think that supply and demand do not set prices, and that they are arbitrarily set based on "greed", after all

Immigration is out of control: this ten-year plan could fix it - "Why does consensus across Britain’s political class about the country’s problems not translate into effective action? There is a high degree of agreement: the need to hack back the regulatory state, to increase private and public investment, to make the NHS more productive; and, we can now add, reducing historically unprecedented levels of immigration while minimising damage to the economy. One reason this consensus does not translate into action is vested interests, and for politicians to beat them they need at least as much trust and legitimacy as the interests they are challenging. When politicians sink in public esteem it is harder to take on powerful professional and business bodies, environmental campaigners, nimbys etc, because those groups have access to the public too, not to mention the law... It was understandable in the early days of government for Labour to highlight their miserable economic inheritance. But to continue heaping blame on the Tories for what are mostly deep structural problems over which the whole political class has presided sounds increasingly churlish... Reducing immigration requires a five to ten-year plan with cross-party support. It needs such broad support because Keir Starmer will struggle with the pro-immigration instincts of much of his party if he cannot sell this as a popular national plan. Also, high immigration is embedded in Britain’s economy and protected by powerful vested interests and the legal culture — it will require time and a deep consensus to uproot it... Why is it so hard to get immigration numbers down? A recent Policy Exchange report which asks that question, by former senior Home Office official Stephen Webb, elegantly explains that it is a classic example of pressure group theory: the preferences of a large majority of the public (those who think immigration is too high is now over 70 per cent, according to YouGov) are no match for well-organised vested interests. The benefits of immigration tend to be privatised, enjoyed by businesses, universities and the NHS/social care employers, while the costs are socialised, borne by the public and the taxpayer, especially those of working age. And with the post-Brexit shift towards less productive, lower skilled migration, those costs are rising. The lobby that favours mass immigration may have a weaker voice in the media than ten years ago, due to social media and alternative outlets such as GB News, but it has a powerful voice where it really counts, in boardrooms, court rooms and in the Treasury and most Whitehall departments, with the partial exception of the Home Office. In fact, we are all implicated in the country’s immigration addiction by our desire to get things on the cheap. About three quarters of that massive inflow in 2023 was accounted for by student visas and health/social care work visas, plus dependents. This is a symptom of a Treasury short-termism that cuts the cost of higher education and health/social care now but adds to the welfare bill needed to support low-productivity newcomers in the longer run. The Office for Budget Responsibility calculates that a low-skilled migrant by the age of 80 will, on average, have cost the taxpayer £582,000 and low-wage migration in general will end up producing a net fiscal cost running into the tens of billions. Relentlessly high immigration also has the effect, in both private and public sectors, of postponing not only investment but necessary reform. The decades-long dependence by the NHS on foreign doctors and nurses,mainly from much poorer countries — about 40 per cent of UK doctors are trained abroad compared with 12 per cent in France and just 1 per cent in Italy — means we have failed to properly reform our over-elaborate system of medical training. The more recent dependence of social care on migration, which was meant to be a temporary response to the pandemic, has postponed the fundamental reform that sector requires. About 60 per cent of the 270,000 people who arrived on health and social care visas from 2021 to mid-2024 (bringing a further 377,000 dependents) were low wage carers. Fewer than 1 per cent were doctors. Meanwhile, the 750,000 international students, accounting for nearly 25 per cent of higher education revenues, has allowed the whole sector to mushroom out of control, churning out too many young people with high debt and unwanted generalist academic skills. Cutting off the student and work visas cannot be done overnight without serious damage to higher education, the health and social care system and other dependent sectors such as hospitality... We also need better incentives for individuals to comply with their visa requirements. A system of “sureties”, a sum of money lodged with a secure third party, would ensure a significant penalty if visa holders do not leave on time. And an increase in the qualification period for permanent residence from five to ten years, a move just backed by Badenoch, would make it less tempting for those on temporary visas to repeatedly extend. The last extension came under the Labour home secretary Charles Clarke and the Netherlands recently joined Switzerland in raising its qualification period to a decade. A final part of the package is much tougher penalties for those who enable illegal work or residence"
It's only oligarchy when it hurts the left wing agenda

Police 'toned down' statement of mother whose hotel worker daughter was murdered by an asylum seeker in case it led to race riots - "Police 'guided' the family of a hotel worker in 'toning down' their public statements after she was murdered by an asylum seeker – in case their words led to anti-immigration rioting. Rhiannon Whyte, 27, was stabbed 23 times with a screwdriver by Sudanese national Deng Majek while waiting at a train station in October 2024. Majek, 28, who was sentenced to 29 years in prison in January, then spent the night dancing and drinking in the car park of Park Inn Hotel in Bescot, Walsall, where Rhiannon worked. Her death came three months after the fatal stabbings of three young girls in Southport by 17-year-old Axel Rudakubana, a British citizen of Rwandan descent... Rhiannon's mother, Siobhan, has claimed police said they didn't want 'another Southport' when she told them her daughter's life support was to be turned off. She said: 'Did they tell us what to say? No. Did they guide us so it didn't look so aggressive? Maybe. I was aggressive – they toned it down.' Ms Whyte – who stresses that she is grateful for the help she received from the police in the aftermath of her daughter's murder – added: 'I think they didn't want violence... they didn't want a riot.' It follows revelations in last week's Mail on Sunday about how the Government's secretive Research, Information and Communications Unit tries to manage the 'challenges' of multiculturalism by manipulating public mood following murders or terrorist incidents with a racial element... It was only after Majek was sentenced that Ms Whyte mentioned the fact he had arrived in the UK on a small boat three months before the attack – and criticised Sir Keir Starmer. She said: 'The Prime Minister's got blood on his hands.'"
Don Holliday on X - "Authorities keep doing this to stop a race riot from erupting, but the fact is white people have shown a saintly amount of restraint which tells me that the real crime statistics are probably so bad that white people would go scorched earth if they knew the truth."