Academic against orthodoxy
Joined June 2019
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Are you sure the people chasing and attacking their political opponents aren't the actual fascists? 🤔
🚨BREAKING: far right Restore Britain including fascist Patrick McGinnis have been chased out of Camden by Stand Up to Racism locals as they tried to leaflet for the Holborn & St Pancras by election
#standuptoracism
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This will be an assault on academic freedom if he is fired because of his research. However, the message is clear if he is fired because of Arday: certain groups are beyond question in academia. A chilling turn in the Arday tragedy either way.
Andy Scott retweeted
This is incorrect. Jason Arday was responded to as a symbol of a tribe against whom there is much animus but that tribe was not “black people.” It was Critical Social Justice (woke) activists. And enablement of the wrongdoing was directly tied to the views of that movement
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Why was Jason Arday's plagiarism a front-page story, and not Johann Hari's? Or Dr William O'Reilly's?
Because when white people do wrong, they're seen as individuals, and not stand-ins for their entire race.
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
The Arday's case goes way beyond plagiarism. He lied on his bio, his credentials, he invented attacks on him, he sent police to shut down research into his own academic fraud. It ceased to be plagiarism case a long time ago. theguardian.com/education/ng-i…
Andy Scott retweeted
I think @PaulEmbery makes some very valid points here. It is so difficult because in these tragic circumstances, we all need to reflect. But for now a worry: the hounding narrative is in danger of pushing serious mistruths & will lead to even more chilling of free speech, press freedom & accountability. Those who maliciously/carelessly accuse others of racism (in my book at least one of the worst smears); those who glibly call in libel lawyers or the police to silence scrutiny; those who shamelessly blame queries about academic corruption for a truely devastating death - it is THEY who are recklessly hounding good faith individuals. If the 'lesson learned' is 'put up or shut up', we may as well abandon truth-seeking, integrity, journalism. That would be another tragedy.
Jason Arday’s death is tragic. But please spare us the sanctimonious complaints that he was merely an ‘obscure’ academic who was the victim of a racist witch-hunt. The probing and questioning and exposure were entirely legitimate.
Arday was plainly guilty of plagiarism. He had also made a series of fantastical claims about his life and career. He ended up being appointed as a professor at one of the world’s most august seats of learning – where his students, who had worked extremely hard to get there, were paying large fees for the privilege of being taught by him.
Far from being obscure, Arday had happily engaged with the media over many years, often repeating his false claims. He appeared on numerous TV shows and guest edited Radio 4’s flagship Today programme. He even carried the Olympic torch.
Moreover, he had secured a major publishing deal for his autobiography, which was set to be released in Britain and the US just as the scandal broke. By no measure was this man ‘obscure’.
When a fellow academic in Plymouth began to question his credentials, Arday (or someone close to him) made a complaint to the police. When a journalist from Times Higher Education started investigating, he was subjected to a police inquiry and also received a threatening letter from the leading libel solicitors, Carter Ruck.
Arday and those around him were clearly not averse to hounding others when they felt like it.
It’s very possible that Arday did not have sufficient support measures in place when he was finally exposed – but that’s on others. The investigation and questions amounted to legitimate journalistic inquiry.
This was never just about Arday’s fabulism. It was also about the increasingly controversial philosophy of DEI, the obsession of our political, corporate and educational institutions with pushing that philosophy, and how it might have led to someone with Arday’s subpar credentials being appointed in the first place.
These are all valid questions to ask – and, by asking them, journalists are simply doing their jobs.
A tragic end to a life built on lies.
bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1j1…
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Andy Scott retweeted
The leader of the Lib Dems, and the leader and deputy leader of the Green party, think some women have penises. In itself, it seems like a relatively unimportant matter. But it is symptomatic of a contempt for science and evidence-based truth. Could you vote for a flat-Earther?
Pretty surprised at the number of folk who have an issue with this. The dude is still holding and refusing to relinquish a knife after stabbing two people - the police response seems pretty proportional.
🚨 WATCH: Police struggle to detain the 45-year-old suspect after two Jewish people were stabbed in Golders Green
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Top man. There's something very British about staying this calm in a crisis.
facebook.com/reel/1565714032…
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Can someone, anyone, please scrap the triple lock.
🚨 WATCH: Nigel Farage formally commits to the state pension triple lock if Reform UK win the next election
"The people to whom pensions are being paid, certainly compared to a younger generation today, are those who have actually worked and paid into the system"
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This is the predictable outcome of pathologising totally typical behaviours and endulging the people's worst narcissistic tendencies.
Why are Gen Z so obsessed with people being neurodivergent or neurotypical? I’m sitting in a cafe and the girls on the table next me to me are trying to justify their rudeness and selfishness as symptoms of ADHD and are talking about one of their “neurotypical” friends behind her back saying they don’t know how long they can be friends with her because she doesn’t understand how their brains work.
Social media has so hugely influenced people into diagnosing themselves with being neurodivergent to the point where everyone seems to have ADHD nowadays.
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"We need to exclude disabled people from public life because racism." Regressive moronity at its finest.
Calling Black men the n-word is racism. If John has coprolalia and can’t control the slurs he says, he should watch from a separate area, not in the main audience where Black people are exposed to slurs
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
Segregation of a person because of their disability would amount to direct discrimination and therefore unlawful under the Equality Act 2010.
legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/…
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Incredible that a PM is making literal schoolboy errors in his underatanding of inflation and prices.
The choices this Labour government has made means inflation has fallen today to its lowest rate in a year.
Lower food and petrol prices are helping ease the pressure on household budgets.
I know there’s more to do, cutting the cost of living is my number one priority.
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
Inflation is higher now than when Labour took office and is 1% above target inflation.
Lower inflation does not equal lower prices, as inflation is a measure of rising prices.
ons.gov.uk/releases/consu…
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Absolutely brutal and 100% true.
I don't say this often or to many people because it is a rare accolade, but you must be one of the most simultaneously arrogant and stupid commentators who has ever disgraced the public airwaves in this country.
The fact that you ever get invited on TV at all is a testament to just how stupid the entire worldview you represent is. Imagine a set of ideas so moronic that you are their best representative?
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Andy Scott retweeted
You cannot simultaneously believe that (1) all borders are fake and should not be policed, and (2) that land can be "stolen."
This is one of the most braindead beliefs a person can hold.
I suspect a persons perspective on this depends a little on where you live, but it would be interesting to read a more detailed argument from Colin. It certainly feels in the UK like the end of the woke era (although significant pockets of influential woke remain).
I am sorry to inform you that wokeness is not losing power. It’s doing what Sauron did after his supposed “defeat”: quietly raising armies in Mordor.
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Support for this has quickly become a litmus test for general competence and sincerity. Anyone trying to argue this is a good deal is either a moron or disingenuous.
1/ We’ve secured a record-breaking 8.4GW of offshore wind, enough to power the equivalent of over 12 million homes.
This is the largest amount of offshore wind procured in any auction ever in Britain or indeed Europe.
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