If the selectors of this artwork wanted to use it as a litmus test for British attitudes to race and Black womanhood, they have succeeded.

All of the racists — and more — have emerged out of the floorboards.

I read Rupert Lowe's appalling response, with its very clear fascist echoes. I also read Prof Gus's response. And I had to ask myself why I also initially felt uncomfortable about the statue.

My first thought was: why couldn't it have been less "caricature", less "Jessica Rabbit", more real? An image of a regal African woman, who stood as a metonym for Mother Africa, the cradle of civilisation?

And I hate this colour blue.

After a restless night, I've woken up with the following conclusion.

The statue is incredibly provocative — it's meant to be.

To my mind, it deliberately draws on old tropes of Black womanhood, but with a very important twist.

I felt uncomfortable because, somewhere in the recesses of my mind, it reminded me of Mammy Two Shoes from Tom and Jerry. She was the woman in blue who was fat and mostly faceless — a caricature from the era of American slavery.

At school, my closest friends loved me for being their "Black Mammy".

Bizarrely, I hadn't realised that until a few years ago, when I bumped into an old school "friend", who said: "You know, we always loved you. You were our Black Mammy."

Needless to say, I set fire to that friend.

More significantly, that cartoon character had always sat uncomfortably with me. So when Jeffrey Archer made his comments in 1999 about Black women, while running for London Mayor, they simply added to my ambivalent sense of self.

According to him, a person's head would "not turn in the road if a black woman passed you because they were badly dressed, they were probably overweight and they probably had a lousy job".

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Those words stuck.

I had seen the abuse my beautiful mother went through. When we lived in Cambridge, between 1995 and 1998, children would frequently run around my mother shouting: "Monkey, monkey, monkey."

No doubt we've all had these experiences.

So when I first saw the statue, all those emotions came running back to me.

BUT — and it's a very important but — this Black woman in blue isn't faceless.

She's striding confidently and proudly into the future despite the racist tropes that float around her like flotsam.

Everyone is looking at her, whether they like it or not.

She is like Jessica Rabbit — also full of sex appeal.

And yes, we live in a racist country.

So this is a really important reminder to carry on walking forward into the future with our heads held high.

Meantime, people like Rupert Lowe will be forced to look at the confident, sexy woman in blue sitting atop the Fourth Plinth for the next two years.

And Restore's campaign for London Mayor, based on tearing down "this filth", can go screw itself.

The statue will be standing for two years but removed before the election of the next Mayor of London.

Absolute genius!

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And in any case, his campaign is bound to be as unsuccessful as Jeffrey Archer's.

Having felt sad that the sculpture wasn't more regal, I now realise that the artist has deliberately selected the colour blue.

More accurately, it is lapis lazuli — a historically significant colour because it was ground into ultramarine and was one of the most expensive and prized blue pigments in the ancient world.

Moreover, it serves as a universal symbol of royalty, dignity and power.

The statue is thus also a reminder to stop shooting from the hip and to spend time in reflection and thought.

If only we could stop jumping to conclusions and making judgements about people based on fleeting knowledge.

The woman in blue made me uncomfortable when I first saw her.

After taking the time to think about why, I now realise that perhaps she was meant to.

“Don’t Come Empty-Handed”: Bahamians tell King Charles as calls grow for formal apology ahead of Royal Visit

By: TracyAnn Dunkley

Culture & Entertainment Editor

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Pressure is mounting on King Charles III as The Bahamas calls for a formal apology for slavery and colonisation ahead of his Caribbean visit next month.

The Bahamas National Reparations Committee has called on King Charles III and the British Royal Family not to arrive in the country “empty-handed” when they visit next month, demanding a full and formal public apology for the devastating legacy of slavery and colonisation.

The demand comes as the King prepares to begin a Caribbean tour on October 27, with The Bahamas expected to be his first stop before visits to Guyana and Antigua and Barbuda for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.

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According to reports in the Bahamian press, the Bahamas National Reparations Committee wants the King’s visit to include a meaningful public acknowledgement of the country’s history and an apology for the role of Britain and the monarchy in the forced enslavement of Africans and colonial rule.

The intervention places reparatory justice firmly at the centre of what might otherwise have been presented as a routine royal visit.

A growing Caribbean demand

The Bahamas’ demand comes at a significant moment for the wider Caribbean reparations movement.

Just days earlier, Jamaica formally escalated its own campaign by presenting a landmark petition to King Charles seeking answers to fundamental legal questions about Britain’s role in the transatlantic slave trade and whether the United Kingdom has an obligation to provide reparatory justice.

The Jamaican petition asks whether the enslavement of Africans was lawful, whether the system amounted to crimes against humanity and whether Britain bears a legal responsibility to provide restitution.

The petition represents a significant shift in the Caribbean’s approach to reparations, moving the debate beyond political statements and historical acknowledgement and into the legal arena.

Jamaica’s Culture Minister Olivia Grange said the consequences of slavery continue to affect the country’s development generations later, while regional reparations advocates have argued that the wealth of European nations was built in substantial part on the exploitation of enslaved African people and colonial territories.

A politically significant royal tour

The King’s visit to The Bahamas will therefore take place against a political backdrop very different from the royal tours of previous decades.

Caribbean nations are increasingly questioning their constitutional relationship with the British monarchy, while reparations and the legacy of empire have become central issues in regional political debate.

Barbados became a republic in 2021, and Jamaica has continued discussions about removing the British monarch as head of state.

For many in the region, the question of constitutional independence is increasingly connected to the unfinished business of colonial history.

The Bahamas remains one of the Commonwealth realms where King Charles is head of state. But the demand from the country’s reparations committee demonstrates that the relationship between the monarchy and the Caribbean cannot simply be separated from the history of empire.

The message being sent ahead of the King’s arrival is clear: ceremonial visits and warm diplomatic language may no longer be enough.

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“Don’t come empty-handed”

The phrase attributed to the Bahamas National Reparations Committee carries a powerful message.

It suggests that campaigners do not want another royal visit dominated by symbolism while the fundamental questions surrounding slavery, colonialism and reparatory justice remain unresolved.

For supporters of the reparations movement, an apology would represent an important step towards formal recognition of Britain’s responsibility.

Critics may argue that today’s generation should not be held responsible for the actions of previous centuries.

But reparations advocates respond that the issue is not individual guilt. It is about institutional responsibility, historical benefit and the continuing consequences of systems from which Britain and its institutions materially profited.

The question now is whether King Charles’s Caribbean visit can avoid the issue.

With Jamaica taking its reparations campaign directly to the King and The Bahamas demanding a public apology ahead of his arrival, the pressure is growing.

This may prove to be one of the most politically significant Caribbean tours of King Charles’s reign.

The Caribbean is no longer simply asking Britain to remember its history. It's Increasingly demanding that Britain confronts it.

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By: Euen Herbert-Small

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By: TracyAnn Dunkley

Culture & Entertainment Editor

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Jamaica is pressing Britain to return sacred Taíno artefacts held by the British Museum, putting the recovery of its Indigenous heritage alongside its campaign for justice over slavery.

Culture Minister Olivia Grange is due to meet museum officials during her visit to Britain to advance discussions on repatriation. Her message is direct: these treasures belong to Jamaica.

“They are priceless, they are significant to the story of Jamaica, they belong to the people of Jamaica,” Grange said.

On Wednesday, the Jamaican minister will meet officials for planned talks amied towards a longstanding demand over cultural objects taken from Jamaica during colonial rule. Jamaica says this precious artifacts should not remain permanently beyond the reach of the people whose history they represent.

Birdman | Cultural Spirit figure of the Taino Arawak tribe.

Sacred heritage, not colonial souvenirs

Among the Jamaican Taíno works in the British Museum are the Bird-Man spirit figure, a male figure possibly representing Boinayel the Rain Giver, and a canopied cohoba stand.

These are not simply decorative carvings. They are sacred objects associated with the religious and ceremonial life of Jamaica’s Indigenous people.

The Bird-Man combines human and bird features, including a prominent beak and outstretched wings. The male figure bears markings beneath its eyes associated with interpretations of Boinayel, although the museum describes that identification as uncertain.

The canopied stand depicts a human figure beneath an elevated platform and is linked to cohoba ceremonies and spiritual practice.

The museum dates the stand to approximately 1028–1156 and the male figure to approximately 1256–1300. Both predate European colonisation by centuries.

They testify to a Caribbean civilisation with its own artistic achievements and spiritual traditions, long before European powers claimed ownership of its land and people.

Indeginous male spirit figure

From Jamaica to London

The museum’s records say the three carvings were found in a Jamaican cave in 1792 and exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries in London in 1799. Acquisition notes connect them with collector Isaac Alves Rebello.

Their documented movement into British collecting took place while Jamaica remained a British colony. Jamaica’s argument is that its cultural heritage should come home.

This is not a new demand. In 2020, the Jamaican government publicly confirmed that it was pursuing the retrieval of Taíno sculptures from the museum. The latest announcement signals renewed discussions, not an agreement to return them.

Repair goes beyond money

Grange’s visit also includes Jamaica’s petition asking King Charles to refer questions about slavery to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.

The questions concern slavery’s legality under English and international law, and whether Britain has a legal obligation to provide a reparatory remedy. Meanwhile former Supreme Court justice Lord Sumption has criticised that initiative, accusing Jamaica of taking advantage of British guilt. 

The slavery petition and the Taíno restitution demand are distinct claims. But together they challenge a narrow understanding of reparatory justice as simply a financial argument.

For Jamaica, repair also means recovering the material evidence of a history disrupted by conquest and colonial domination.

The next test is whether Britain’s institutions move beyond discussions and produce a concrete route home. No return date or completed restitution agreement has been announced.

Professor Deborah Prentice says the two-part independent review will examine Cambridge’s support, interventions and protections before Professor Jason Arday’s death, as well as his recruitment, mentoring and the university’s handling of misconduct allegations.

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Cambridge Vice-Chancellor Professor Deborah Prentice has announced a two-part independent review into Professor Jason Arday’s time at the University of Cambridge and the support, interventions and protections available to him before his death.

In a video statement, Prentice said the weeks since Arday’s death had been a period of “profound sadness and reflection” across the university. She said members of the Cambridge community had shared fond memories of him, alongside the pain, sadness and anger they continue to feel.

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The University Council has now authorised an independent process intended to identify institutional shortcomings and areas requiring improvement.

The announcement marks a significant shift in focus. For weeks, the questions were overwhelmingly directed at Professor Arday—his work, his personal history and whether Cambridge should have appointed him. Cambridge is now being forced to examine itself: what it did, what support it provided and what it failed to do as the pressure surrounding him intensified.

BREAKING:
Cambridge Vice-Chancellor Professor Deborah Prentice announces an independent review into the university’s treatment of Professor Jason Arday.

The review will examine the support, interventions and protections available to him before his death, and what Cambridge… pic.twitter.com/fmFDYPBoRk

— Jam Radio UK News (@Jam_RadioUK) September 4, 2026

Support and protections before Arday’s death

Part One will examine the support, interventions and protections available to Professor Arday during the period before his death.

It will be led independently by Nazir Afzal OBE, the former Chief Crown Prosecutor for North West England. Afzal is expected to report within three months, with Cambridge saying the resulting recommendations will be considered and acted upon urgently.

This goes directly to concerns already raised by Cambridge students, staff and alumni, who accused senior university leaders of failing to protect Arday while he faced an escalating and frequently racialised public campaign.

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Cambridge’s announcement does not answer those allegations. It does, however, acknowledge that the university’s support, safeguarding decisions and actions before Arday’s death now require independent scrutiny.

The stated remit is institutional. It is not presented as an investigation into the medical or legal cause of Professor Arday’s death, but into what Cambridge did, what help was available and whether the university could or should have acted differently.

Recruitment, mentoring and misconduct procedures under scrutiny

Part Two will conduct a broader examination of Professor Arday’s time at Cambridge and the university processes surrounding it.

It will consider his recruitment, the mentoring and support offered to senior academics and how Cambridge responds when allegations of research misconduct are made.

An external chair and an expert panel, all independent of the university, are to be appointed. This stage is expected to conclude within six months.

The review will therefore examine both Cambridge’s appointment procedures and what happened after one of its most visible Black and neurodivergent academics became the subject of sustained national scrutiny.

Lord Simon Woolley previously called for an investigation into what he described as a “vicious media onslaught” against Arday, arguing that the scrutiny had moved beyond legitimate examination and become a “blood sport”.

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Lord Simon Woolley calls for investigation into the media treatment of Professor Jason Arday

Woolley said Arday had been subjected to a vicious media onslaught and called for the press campaign to be investigated.

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Public pressure then intensified rapidly, with more than 50,000 people backing calls for an inquiry in little more than 24 hours.

Cambridge promises summaries, not the full reports

Prentice said Cambridge would publicly share a summary of the findings, recommendations and proposed actions after each part of the review reports.

However, her announcement did not commit the university to publishing either report in full.

Professor Sir Hilary Beckles later described the events surrounding Arday’s death as a “gruesome, networked catastrophe”, warning about the consequences when institutional power, media pressure and racial hostility converge around a vulnerable individual.

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Sir Hilary Beckles delivered a stark assessment of the institutional and racial forces surrounding Arday’s final weeks.

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That distinction matters. Public confidence will depend not only on who leads the reviews, but on whether their evidence, conclusions and criticisms are made fully visible rather than filtered through university-approved summaries.

Questions also remain about the final terms of reference, which witnesses will be heard, whether Professor Arday’s family and those who tried to support him will be consulted, and whether the reviewers will have unrestricted access to internal communications and decisions made by Cambridge’s senior leadership.

Vice-Chancellor condemns racist abuse

Prentice also acknowledged the particular impact of Professor Arday’s death on Black members of the university and Cambridge’s neurodiverse community.

She condemned what she described as an unacceptable rise in racist, hateful and abusive attacks against university staff and students in online forums and on social media.

Cambridge says it is working with relevant staff and student groups to direct people towards targeted support. But the acknowledgement raises a harder question: why was the scale of racial hostility recognised so clearly after Professor Arday’s death, rather than countered decisively while he was alive?

Related · JamRadio

Jason Arday was hounded to death and Britain should be ashamed

JamRadio’s editorial warned that the public hounding of a vulnerable Black academic could not simply be brushed aside.

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A review is not yet accountability

The new process is the clearest indication yet that Cambridge accepts its own actions—or failures to act—must now form part of the examination of what happened to Professor Jason Arday.

But launching a review is not, by itself, accountability. Its credibility will depend on the breadth of its remit, the evidence the reviewers are permitted to examine, how fully the findings are published and whether responsibility is allowed to reach the highest levels of the university where necessary.

Cambridge says it wants to listen carefully, learn honestly and act responsibly.

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Homerton College, University of Cambridge has issued a public statement of support for its Principal, Lord Simon Woolley, as scrutiny of his position intensifies in the weeks following the death of Professor Jason Arday.

Posted to Instagram by the college, the statement praises Lord Woolley's leadership since his appointment in 2021, citing his "commitment to widening participation, academic excellence and an inclusive College community" as reflecting values "central to Homerton's mission." It goes on to confirm that his appointment "followed the College's established governance and appointment processes" and that he continues to serve "with the confidence and support of the College's leadership and Governing Body."

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The statement directly acknowledges the toll of recent weeks, noting that Lord Woolley "supported [Arday] in the midst of relentless media coverage" following the professor's death, and that "recent public discussion" has placed "professional and personal pressures" on Lord Woolley himself. It closes by reaffirming the college's commitment to "fairness, respect and dignity" for its community.

Professor Arday, who became Cambridge's youngest-ever Black professor in 2023, resigned from his post at Jesus College in early August after swirling allegations of plagiarism and questions over his academic background, which he denied. He was found dead at his home in Battersea, London on 15 August, aged 41. A statement issued on behalf of his family described a "campaign of sustained abuse" waged against him since his appointment.

Lord Woolley, who has led Homerton since October 2021 and founded the campaign group Operation Black Vote, spoke at the Trafalgar Square vigil for Arday and called publicly for an investigation into what he described as a "vicious media onslaught." That intervention has since drawn scrutiny of its own.

On Monday, The Spectator published a hit-piece article by Andrew Gilligan headlined "Simon Woolley is not fit to lead a Cambridge college," which questioned aspects of Lord Woolley's public biography, revisited his past association with former mayoral adviser Lee Jasper, and argued his appointment to Homerton was itself part of a wider pattern of unsuitable Cambridge appointments. JamRadio published its own response to the piece on 31 August, arguing that Gilligan's case rested on "loaded language, the insinuation of guilt by association and a grievance nearly two decades old" rather than any assessment of Lord Woolley's actual record at Homerton.

Homerton's statement never names the Spectator or Gilligan directly, and it doesn't engage with any of the specific claims in his piece. But the timing of the official statement, arriving within days of the Spectator's article and the wider Telegraph coverage of Lord Woolley's "media onslaught" comments and the wording. The line that "Lord Woolley's appointment as Principal followed the College's established governance and appointment processes, and he continues to serve with the confidence and support of the College's leadership and Governing Body" reads as a direct answer to Gilligan's central claim that Woolley is unfit for the role, even without naming him. A seemingly reasonable inference from the sequence of events rather than something the statement confirms outright.

The wider comparison

While Homerton has now put out a formal institutional statement of backing for its own Principal, complete with a reaffirmation of governance process and Governing Body confidence, no equivalent statement was issued on behalf of Professor Arday from his own college, [Jesus] before his death. Cambridge's Vice-Chancellor did issue a brief statement of condolence after Arday died, but nothing resembling this kind of proactive, institutional show of support arrived while the pressure on him was building.

Some of that difference is structural, while Professor Arday was a fellow of Jesus College, not Homerton, the responsibility for backing him publicly would have sat elsewhere. But several commentators, including in a widely shared essay published this week, have drawn the same parallel Homerton itself gestures toward in its statement: two Black men in senior Cambridge positions, both subjected to intense and rapid public scrutiny within weeks of each other, with markedly different institutional responses.

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By: Euen Herbert-Small

Assistant Editor

By: TracyAnn Dunkley

Culture & Entertainment Editor

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Andrew Gilligan calls for Homerton principal's removal. But when read closely, it is a character prosecution built on loaded language, guilt by association and a grievance nearly two decades old.

At 6.50am on Monday, The Spectator published an article carrying an extraordinary verdict: “Simon Woolley is not fit to lead a Cambridge college.”

The accusation is grave. Lord Woolley is the principal of Homerton College, a crossbench peer and the founder of Operation Black Vote. A serious case for removing him ought therefore to examine his conduct in office: the college’s governance, finances, academic environment, treatment of students and fellows, fundraising, institutional confidence and the outcomes of his leadership since 2021.

Andrew Gilligan’s article does almost none of that.

Instead, it begins with Woolley’s most heated words at the vigil for his friend Professor Jason Arday, reaches backwards almost 20 years to Woolley’s association with former London mayoral adviser Lee Jasper, questions the legitimacy of his honours and appointment, compares him directly with Arday and arrives at a verdict on his professional fitness without producing an assessment of his actual performance at Homerton.

This is not merely robust criticism. In JamRadio’s view, it bears the recognisable construction of a mainstream-media character assasination.

The verdict is planted before the evidence.

Gilligan does not introduce Woolley neutrally and then invite readers to assess the facts. He describes him as “ranting” and toys with the description “some rabble-rouser from the lower shallows of race activism”. By the second paragraph, he has already told readers that Woolley represents “further evidence that unsuitable appointments at Cambridge did not begin with Jason Arday”.

The work has already been done. Woolley has been placed inside a frame of rabble-rousing, racial agitation and institutional unsuitability before Gilligan reaches his qualifications, his record or any alleged failure at Homerton.

This is not incidental language. It directs the reader towards the destination announced in the headline. This is sublime programming based on scripted prompting with hot keywords and phrases, which Gilligan performs masterfully.

The comparison with Arday is especially revealing. Gilligan later writes that Woolley helped not only to defend but to “create” Arday, referring to the mentorship Professor Arday received through Operation Black Vote. The word “create” converts mentorship into manufacture. It encourages the reader to see Arday not as an individual scholar appointed through Cambridge’s own processes, but as a product constructed and promoted by a network of Black activists.

The ideological suggestion underneath is difficult to miss: Black advancement is manufactured, institutions are captured by diversity, and allegations of racism are then deployed to protect unqualified beneficiaries from scrutiny. This is the ethos of Gilligans unproven and subjective opinions. It does not conform to objective journalism.

Gilligan reaches for a grievance nearly 20 years old.

Much of the article is devoted to Lee Jasper and grants issued during Ken Livingstone’s mayoralty. Gilligan was a central journalist in that controversy. Woolley, who regarded Jasper as a mentor, strongly criticised Gilligan’s reporting at the time.

That history does not automatically disqualify Gilligan from writing about Woolley. But it does make him a participant in the conflict, not a detached observer arriving without history. He has a 20-year-old axe to grind and is now seeking a new national audience.

Gilligan acknowledges that Jasper was cleared of criminal wrongdoing and that he had not accused Woolley of personal gain or wrongdoing. He nevertheless reproduces an extensive catalogue of old accusations involving organisations with which Woolley had associations, including complaints and alleged threats attributed to other individuals.

What is the reader supposed to conclude about Woolley from conduct the article does not attribute to Woolley?

An 18-month independent review by DLA Piper subsequently found no evidence of widespread external interference in London Development Agency decisions. It said Jasper’s involvement in the projects examined was limited and did not appear to have affected the decision-making process. 

None of it establishes misconduct by Woolley. Yet Gilligan revives the entire atmosphere of the scandal, surrounds Woolley with it and allows suspicion to travel by association. 

That is guilt by association, dressed as historical context.

Insinuation replaces evidence.

The same method appears when Gilligan discusses Woolley’s knighthood and peerage. He suggests that Theresa May was desperately seeking a Black figure willing to engage with her government after the Windrush scandal, notes that Woolley received a knighthood and then a peerage, and adds that, with those honours “safely in the bag”, Woolley resumed attacking the Conservatives.

The implication is one of political convenience and personal calculation. The evidence for it is not supplied.

Gilligan does not demonstrate that Woolley moderated his views to obtain an honour, struck any bargain with government or altered his conduct after receiving one. The insinuation is allowed to occupy the space where proof should be.

Readers should also know who is offering this political assessment. Gilligan is not only an award-winning journalist. He subsequently served as an adviser to Boris Johnson at City Hall and in Downing Street and as an adviser to Rishi Sunak. That does not invalidate his journalism, but it makes the article’s treatment of a prominent anti-racism campaigner and critic of Conservative government a relevant part of the context—not merely an irrelevant footnote.

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What does “underqualified” actually mean?

Gilligan says Woolley was underqualified for Homerton and compares him unfavourably with academics, ambassadors, permanent secretaries, a general and other establishment leaders.

But Homerton’s published requirement was for an outstanding record of leadership and achievement in the candidate’s field. It did not require the principal to be a career academic or possess a long list of scholarly publications.

By the time of his appointment, Woolley had founded and led Operation Black Vote for approximately 25 years, served as an Equality and Human Rights Commissioner, chaired the advisory group connected to the Government’s Race Disparity Unit and, entered the House of Lords. Homerton’s own announcement credited him with addressing representational imbalances, transforming institutions and nurturing individuals. He was elected by the college to take office in October 2021; he was not imposed on it by an external diversity body as Gilligan seeks to suggest.

Most strikingly, the article offers no meaningful examination of Woolley’s record during nearly five years in office. Where are the findings of failed governance? Where is the financial mismanagement? Where is the loss of confidence among fellows or students? Where is the evidence that Homerton’s academic mission has suffered under his leadership?

The case for his professional removal is made without examining his profession as practised.

Let's examine the examiner.

Gilligan writes as though Woolley’s proximity to political power somhoehow discredits him. After Gilligan’s own reporting helped topple Ken Livingstone, Boris Johnson appointed him London’s Cycling Commissioner in 2013, an appointment immediately dogged by accusations of cronyism.

Johnson later brought him into Downing Street as a transport adviser, the government appointed him to the TfL board, and Rishi Sunak made him a special adviser. Gilligan then reportedly helped persuade Sunak to abandon HS2’s northern leg. This is not a detached journalist examining political preferment. It is a former Conservative political operative, now reviving an old dispute to attack Lord Woolley while casting suspicion on appointments and honours other than his own.

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The Spectator is not an insignificant corner of the internet.

Before Jason Arday’s death, The Spectator published at least 19 substantive articles about him in approximately two weeks—16 of them naming him directly in the headline.

The Spectator is an influential conservative publication read across Westminster, Fleet Street and the wider British media. Its editor is former Conservative cabinet minister Michael Gove, and its owner, Sir Paul Marshall, also backs GB News. Its arguments do not remain neatly confined to its website; they provide the language, framing and apparent permission for a wider line of attack.

There is, however, evidence that the circle of scrutiny was already widening before Arday’s death. Black Current News reported on 9 August that journalists from a major right-wing newspaper had contacted every signatory to the original solidarity letter under a tight deadline and that Sonita Alleyne, Master of Jesus College, was already being blamed for Arday’s Cambridge appointments and subjected to calls for dismissal. 

Gilligan’s intervention moves that process into a more explicit phase. A prominent Black leader who condemned the media’s treatment of Arday is now himself declared professionally unfit by a journalist with whom he has a dispute stretching back almost two decades.

Journalists must be free to question powerful people, including Simon Woolley. Academic integrity matters. Public appointments and institutional biographies should withstand scrutiny. Strong allegations should be tested, and those who make overconfident public claims should answer for them.

It should distinguish personal wrongdoing from association. It should separate evidence from insinuation. It should assess a leader’s actual record before demanding his removal. It should disclose the significance of old adversarial relationships rather than using them as an invisible engine. And it should not decide that a Black leader was never worthy of his position and then work backwards through decades of material to create the desired impression.

Gilligan’s article does not establish that Simon Woolley is unfit to lead Homerton College. It establishes that Gilligan believes he is—and that he is willing to recruit Jason Arday’s controversy, Lee Jasper’s exonerated history, Woolley’s honours, his activism and his race into one cumulative public prosecution in the mainstream press.

After the extraordinary scrutiny directed at Professor Jason Arday, Britain’s media should be especially careful about how it turns individuals into causes, controversies into content streams and association into guilt.

Instead, The Spectator has seemingly setout to published a roadmap for placing another prominent Black figure in the crosshairs of the unbridled British media.

By TracyAnn Dunkley

Culture & Entertainment Editor

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Jason Arday made history in 2023 as the youngest Black professor in the University of Cambridge's history, appointed to the role of Professor of Sociology of Education aged just 37. His own story was as remarkable as his appointment: born in south London to Ghanaian parents, Arday did not speak until he was 11 and could not read or write until he was 18, later going on to build an academic career focused on race, inequality and education.

On August 5, 2026, Arday resigned from his Cambridge University following what can be described as a category 5 hurricane of non-stop articles by the mainstream press over allegations of plagiarism in his PhD thesis and questions raised over parts of his biography. He denied the plagiarism claims, on August 14, he was found dead at a property in Battersea, south London, aged 41. Police described the death as unexpected but not being treated as suspicious.

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Speaking on today's Smiley & West, Professor of Black Studies Kehinde Andrews — a personal friend of Arday's — described speaking to him the morning of his death and finding him "very down" in the aftermath of his resignation, saying Arday had effectively stopped leaving his house under the weight of public scrutiny and persistent hounding by British and international media. Andrews has argued the intensity of the coverage Arday faced reflects wider struggles for Black academics in UK universities.

Sir Patrick Vernon OBE, the Windrush campaigner and cultural historian who had publicly backed Arday during the controversy, launched a GoFundMe appeal with the support of Arday's family in the days after his death, to help cover funeral and memorial costs. Originally set at a £20,000 target, the fund has since raised more than £200,000 from thousands of donors, with Vernon relaying the family's thanks to supporters on the fundraising page.

Cambridge vice-chancellor Deborah Prentice called the news "desperately saddened," and the university has said it will review its hiring processes. In a statement issued through his publisher, Arday's family said he had faced "a campaign of sustained abuse" for over three years and asked to be given space to grieve privately.

By: Euen Herbert-Small

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Andy Burnham: Britain Was Told It Is Not Institutionally Racist. Do You Still Believe It?

An open letter to the Prime Minister—and an appeal to the conscience of Britain

Prime Minister,

Black Britain is not asking whether racism exists. We have lived the answer.

The question is whether you, as Prime Minister, have the courage to acknowledge the scale of Britain’s race problem—and whether your Government is prepared to confront it honestly.

In 2021, the government-appointed Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, chaired by Tony Sewell, concluded that it had found no evidence of institutional racism in the areas it examined. Britain, we were effectively told, was no longer a country in which the system was deliberately stacked against ethnic minorities.

For many Black people, the Sewell report was not simply mistaken. It was an act of national gaslighting.

It asked us to distrust the evidence of our own lives. It reduced structural inequality to geography, family background, culture and individual circumstances. It placed the burden of explaining racial disparities upon the people experiencing them, while allowing the institutions producing those disparities to escape meaningful examination.

United Nations experts warned that the report distorted evidence, repackaged racial stereotypes and attempted to “normalise white supremacy”. Yet five years later, Britain has still not formally reckoned with what that report represented.

Now your own Equalities Minister, Bridget Phillipson, says that racism has become normalised in Britain.

Both propositions cannot comfortably coexist.

If racism has become normalised, where has it been normalised? Only inside private minds and anonymous social-media accounts? Or has it also become embedded within our politics, our press, our public institutions and the machinery of the state?

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The evidence from Sewell’s own four sectors

The Sewell Commission’s conclusion must now be tested against the record in the very areas it examined: health, education, employment and enterprise, and crime and policing. The persistence of a disparity does not by itself identify every cause. But neither can class, geography or culture be invoked as catch-all explanations that relieve institutions of the duty to examine their own rules, decisions and failures of accountability.

In health, the disparity is measured in lives. The latest MBRRACE-UK data for England found that Black women faced more than twice the risk of maternal death experienced by White women in 2021–23. NHS England has also reported that ethnic-minority staff remain more likely to experience discrimination and abuse and less likely to believe that their trusts provide equal opportunities for promotion.

The contemporary evidence is not confined to tables. In August 2026, findings reported by the Society of Radiographers described patients refusing treatment from Black and Asian staff. One patient reportedly rejected a Black radiographer who was due to perform a chest X-ray specifically because of his race. These were incidents involving some patients, not a claim about White patients generally. They nevertheless demonstrate that overt racial exclusion is occurring inside a public health service whose institutions have a responsibility to protect staff, record incidents and refuse to accommodate discriminatory demands.

In education, the Government’s own evidence remains troubling. Its Inclusive Britain update acknowledged that Black Caribbean pupils remain more likely to be excluded than their peers even after economic disadvantage is taken into account. Professor Jason Arday’s treatment is a current human case through which to examine the wider questions of whose achievement is presumed legitimate, whose errors become spectacles and whether institutions protect Black academics with equal urgency.

In crime and policing, the disparity remains stark. Home Office figures for the year ending March 2025 show that Black people were stopped and searched at 3.8 times the rate of White people across England and Wales. The Independent Office for Police Conduct has said that systemic problems in race discrimination persist, even while noting resistance in some quarters to the term “institutional racism”.

In employment, unequal access and progression have not disappeared. NHS England’s Workforce Race Equality Standard found that White applicants were significantly more likely than ethnic-minority applicants to be appointed from shortlisting in 80 per cent of trusts. Fewer than half of ethnic-minority staff believed their trust offered equal opportunities for progression, falling to 42.3 per cent among Black staff.

This is why the Sewell report requires re-examination. The argument is not that every unequal outcome proves a single racist intention. It is that repeated racial patterns across the same sectors, combined with evidence about institutional practices and responses, make it untenable to treat the question of institutional racism as closed.

Professor Jason Arday was not an abstraction

Professor Jason Arday may represent the most terrible recent manifestation of what the Sewell report encouraged Britain to deny.

A Black, autistic and profoundly vulnerable man was subjected to what felt like a Category 5 hurricane of press coverage. What began with allegations concerning academic work expanded into an extraordinary public dissection of his life, achievements, disability and identity.

Professor Arday denied deliberate plagiarism. An earlier investigation by Liverpool John Moores University had cleared him, although Cambridge subsequently announced a further investigation after receiving additional information. Whatever legitimate questions may have existed, they cannot explain the scale, tone and relentless nature of the coverage that followed.

His family has said that he endured years of abuse and that the pressure eventually became too much. The Good Law Project, joined by parliamentarians, academics, equality organisations and more than 100,000 members of the public, has demanded an immediate public inquiry into the conduct of the press and its potential contribution to his death.

The allegations against Professor Arday did not take place in a racial vacuum. Neither did the media frenzy.

White academics, politicians and senior public figures have faced allegations involving plagiarism, embellished qualifications and professional misconduct without being engulfed by anything resembling the same volume or ferocity of coverage.

Professor Arday was not scrutinised merely as an academic. He had been celebrated as Cambridge’s youngest Black professor, as an example of progress and as evidence that institutional barriers could supposedly be overcome. When allegations emerged, his identity became part of the spectacle.

The same press that had held him up as a symbol appeared determined to tear that symbol apart.

This was not accountability in any recognisable or proportionate sense. It became annihilation by publicity.

Prime Minister, you must commission an independent public inquiry capable of examining the conduct of the press, the role of racialised narratives, the failure of self-regulation and the responsibilities of the institutions that knew Professor Arday was vulnerable.

No newspaper, regulator, university or government department should be permitted to investigate itself and then present its own findings as public accountability.

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Windrush proves that Britain cannot be trusted to mark its own homework

The Windrush scandal provides another devastating answer to the question of whether institutional racism exists in Britain.

Black Commonwealth citizens who had lived in this country lawfully for decades were treated as illegal immigrants. People lost jobs, homes, healthcare and benefits. Some were detained [ including myself ] and up to 53 people are now know to have died. Some were removed from the country. Families were divided, lives were shortened and identities were shattered.

The Windrush Lessons Learned Review concluded that the scandal was “foreseeable and avoidable”. Officials and ministers ignored repeated warnings.

Yet there has never been a statutory public inquiry into how the British state inflicted this harm.

Instead, the principal examination was a review commissioned by the Home Office into the conduct of the Home Office. The department responsible for the injustice was allowed to control the process through which Britain supposedly learned from it.

That is not justice. The tortfeasor cannot remain investigator, evidence-holder, compensator and final judge of whether adequate repair has been made.

Even the compensation process repeated many of the scandal’s defining behaviours: disbelief, excessive evidential demands, bureaucratic delay, fragmented decision-making and a reluctance to exercise discretion. A remedy that produces the correct result only after escalation, political intervention or threatened litigation is not a functioning remedy.

The victims of Windrush deserve an independent, survivor-centred and trauma-informed public inquiry—or a properly funded People’s Inquiry with the power to obtain evidence, hear testimony and examine the historical foundations of what happened.

Until Britain permits that examination, it cannot credibly claim to have learned the lessons of Windrush.

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Jamaica should not have to plead with Britain for justice

On 6 September, a Jamaican delegation is expected to come to Britain to petition King Charles III over reparatory justice for the British enslavement of African people.

Let us name this history accurately.

This was not some remote, impersonal “transatlantic slave trade” for which responsibility dissolved somewhere over the ocean. Britain organised, regulated, protected and profited from the enslavement and forced transportation of African people. British institutions accumulated wealth from it. British law treated human beings as property. When enslavement ended, Britain compensated the enslavers—not the enslaved.

Jamaica’s petition asks the King, in his capacity as Jamaica’s head of state, to refer legal questions to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Those questions include whether the forced transportation of Africans to Jamaica was lawful, whether it constituted a crime against humanity and whether Britain owes restitution for enslavement and its continuing consequences.

Think about the moral obscenity of that journey.

After centuries of extracted labour, stolen wealth and colonial rule, representatives of Jamaica must travel to the former imperial centre and petition the descendant of the Crown under which that system operated simply to have the legal questions considered.

Jamaica should not have to come pleading to Britain for recognition of an historical truth Britain already knows.

Your Government must not meet that petition with silence, procedural evasion or the familiar declaration that reparations are “not on the agenda”. Britain must engage respectfully with Jamaica, CARICOM and the wider reparations movement and accept that reparatory justice is not confined to an apology or a commemorative monument. It concerns debt, development, health, education, land, institutions and the enduring economic consequences of British enslavement and colonial extraction.

This is your moment of decision

Prime Minister, Britain cannot repair what it continues to deny.

You now have an opportunity to break with the complacency represented by the Sewell report. You can begin by acknowledging that institutional racism is not an insult directed at every person working inside an institution. It is a description of systems whose rules, cultures and practices repeatedly produce racially unequal outcomes, whether or not every participant consciously intends them.

We ask you to:

• formally reject the Sewell report’s denial of institutional racism;

• commission an independent public inquiry into the treatment of Professor Jason Arday and the failure of press self-regulation;

• establish a genuinely independent, survivor-centred public inquiry into the Home Office's Windrush scandal;

• remove responsibility for judging Windrush compensation from the department responsible for the original harm;

• and engage in good faith with Jamaica and the wider Caribbean on reparatory justice.

These are not requests for symbolic inclusion. They are demands for truth, accountability and repair.

Britain cannot continue celebrating Black achievement while abandoning Black people when they become inconvenient. It cannot praise diversity on the way up and unleash humiliation upon those it decides to tear down. It cannot point to exceptional Black success as proof that racism has disappeared—and then ignore the unequal ferocity with which Black people are punished for real or alleged failure.

Professor Jason Arday reached one of the highest levels of British academic life. His success did not protect him. His vulnerability did not restrain those pursuing him. His humanity did not stop him from becoming public prey.

That is why his story confronts Britain with the question the Sewell report tried to dismiss:

Is this country prepared to recognise the racism operating within its institutions—or will it continue insisting that Black people have simply misunderstood what is happening to us?

Andy Burnham, you are now Prime Minister. The question is no longer what the Sewell report thought of Britain.

The question is: what do you see—and what are you prepared to do about it?

Euen Herbert-Small is a British nationality researcher and campaigner for justice around historical legislative unfairness and its impact on members and descendants of the Windrush generation, and an editor at Jam Radio.

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Claude Hendrickson MBE calls for greater Black community ownership of land and housing through self-build projects and community land trusts.

The Leeds housing pioneer says community ownership can provide Black families with secure homes, employment and something lasting to pass to future generations.

Black communities in Britain need greater control over land, not merely access to houses built and owned by others, according to community-led housing pioneer Claude Hendrickson MBE.

Speaking to Jude Davis in a new Power To Prosper interview, Hendrickson said many African, Caribbean and Asian families come from cultures in which land represents security, inheritance and belonging.

“Where we originate from, we talk about land first. In the UK, we talk about the house on the land.”

Hendrickson, who is based in Chapeltown, Leeds, works to increase awareness of self-build housing and community land trusts among Black and minority-ethnic communities.

These models allow residents to play a direct role in securing land, developing homes and controlling community assets—rather than remaining dependent upon private developers, landlords or housing waiting lists.

Hendrickson has already demonstrated what can be achieved. He helped leading the Frontline Community Self Build scheme, through which unemployed African-Caribbean men and their families gained construction skills while building homes for themselves in Chapeltown.

The project eventually produced a street of 12 houses. Hendrickson described it as his greatest achievement after becoming a father. Accounts of the scheme show that many participants subsequently found employment in construction.

His intervention comes amid continuing concern that Black communities remain underrepresented within Britain’s community-led housing sector.

Research co-authored by Hendrickson found that the housing needs of Black and minority-ethnic communities were frequently unmet or under-prioritised. Participants also identified access to land, inconsistent funding and exclusion from decision-making as significant barriers. The University of Liverpool published the findings.

For Hendrickson, community ownership is about more than bricks and mortar. It offers people a sense of belonging, creates safer neighbourhoods and gives families the power to shape the places in which their children will grow up.

His message is clear: solving housing inequality must involve giving communities control over the land beneath their homes.

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Trump’s ambassador invoked American funding and threatened Ghent University’s US relationships. Days later, Nathan Cofnas’s preventive suspension was lifted.

American taxpayer power was deployed to protect Nathan Cofnas.

When Ghent University suspended the self-described “race realist”, US Ambassador to Belgium Bill White did more than object. He invoked the American government’s financial support for overseas universities, branded Ghent an undesirable partner and announced that Washington was reviewing “any relationships” it had with the institution.

Ghent reportedly had two ongoing US Department of Defense grants worth a combined $869,000. Those were American tax dollars—and the ambassador had expressly placed US-funded relationships on the line.

Days later, Ghent lifted Cofnas’s seven-day preventive suspension. White celebrated the outcome, praised the university’s rector and announced that he looked forward to continuing America’s relationship with Ghent.

There is no need for conspiracy theories. The intervention was public. The financial leverage was explicit. The result followed.

What Washington put on the table

White’s intervention was unusually direct. He called Cofnas’s suspension retaliation against an American scholar and described institutions that engage in or reward “scapegoating mob behavior” as undesirable US partners. Then came the material warning: the Trump administration was reviewing its relationships with Ghent.

That was not an abstract reference to academic freedom. Inside Higher Ed reported that Ghent was receiving two current US Defense Department grants with a combined value of $869,000. The ambassador’s words therefore carried the weight of an administration capable of affecting funding, research partnerships and institutional access.

After the suspension was lifted, White wrote that he had spoken “with all parties”, welcomed the agreement allowing Cofnas to complete his appointment and thanked Rector Petra De Sutter for listening to those calling for the protection of academic freedom. Cofnas, in turn, thanked the ambassador and said White’s support had helped to bring about what he called a just outcome.

The sequence matters. Washington identified a personnel decision at a Belgian university as a matter of US interest, pointed to the wider relationship and then publicly embraced the result.

Whom the American state chose to protect

This was the power of the American state being used on behalf of a man whose published racial politics contend that Black people are innately less intelligent and would virtually disappear from elite positions under his conception of meritocracy.

Cofnas calls this “race realism”. Its practical meaning is a racial hierarchy in which existing Black achievement can be dismissed as the product of lowered standards rather than ability.

In his own essay, A Guide for the Hereditarian Revolution, Cofnas wrote that under what he describes as a meritocracy, the proportion of Black professors at Harvard would approach zero and Black people would disappear from almost all prominent positions outside sport and entertainment. He argued that acceptance of hereditarianism among elites could dismantle the existing liberal order.

That ideological framework is inseparable from the way his allegations about Professor Jason Arday travelled. Questions about academic work became a wider assault on Black advancement, diversity and the legitimacy of Black achievement in elite institutions.

Yet when Cofnas’s own employment came under scrutiny, the response was immediate. An ambassador intervened. American-funded relationships were placed under review. The diplomatic weight of the United States was brought to bear.

One man encountered silence. The other received a superpower.

Professor Jason Arday received no comparable protection. While a Black British academic endured the destruction of his reputation and career, Britain’s institutional leadership remained conspicuously absent. When the position of the white American who pursued him was threatened, Washington moved within days.

There was no comparable British diplomatic intervention for Arday. No warning that institutional relationships were under review. No senior state official placing the prestige or resources of the British government behind his protection.

One man encountered institutional silence. The other received the protection of a superpower.

The contrast does not require every allegation against Arday to be dismissed, nor does it require every concern about Ghent’s handling of Cofnas to be ignored. It requires only that the distribution of institutional power be seen clearly. The person whose work became the object of a global campaign stood largely alone. The person who drove that campaign acquired the public support of the American state when consequences reached him.

What the record proves—and what it does not

Ghent has not said that US pressure determined its decision, and no evidence presently establishes a private bargain. The university has confirmed contact with the ambassador but says its preliminary disciplinary inquiry remains ongoing.

The lifting of the seven-day preventive suspension was not a complete exoneration. Cofnas has reportedly been required to work remotely for three months, has been barred from teaching during that period and will spend only 60 per cent of his working time on the postdoctoral project. Those restrictions matter and should not be obscured.

But neither should the intervention be minimised. The established facts are serious enough: the ambassador invoked taxpayer-funded relationships, threatened their continuation, intervened personally and then claimed the resulting decision as a victory. Cofnas himself credited the ambassador’s support with helping to produce the outcome.

The important question is not whether a secret deal can be proved. It is why the financial and diplomatic power of the United States was mobilised so publicly and so quickly for this particular academic—and what that reveals about whose freedom, reputation and employment powerful states choose to defend.

US tax dollars did not merely fund research at Ghent University. Their possible withdrawal became an instrument of political pressure—and Nathan Cofnas was its beneficiary.

Sources: Inside Higher Ed, 28 August 2026; Times Higher Education, 20 August 2026; Nathan Cofnas, “A Guide for the Hereditarian Revolution”.

JamRadio News Desk

Dedicated to clear, reliable reporting 

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The Metropolitan Police has named 17-year-old David Wynter as the teenager who died following a fatal stabbing at Brent Civic Centre in Wembley.

Police were called to Engineers Way at around 2:30pm on Tuesday, 25 August, following reports of a stabbing. Officers attended alongside the London Ambulance Service and found David suffering from stab wounds. Despite the efforts of paramedics, he was pronounced dead at the scene.

The Metropolitan Police initially said the victim was believed to be a teenager and launched a murder investigation. His identity has since been released, with his next of kin informed and being supported by specially trained officers.

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A 15-year-old boy was arrested on suspicion of murder on the day of the incident. Police have now confirmed that he was charged with murder on Thursday, 27 August. He appeared at Willesden Magistrates' Court and is due to appear at the Old Bailey on Friday, 28 August.

The investigation remains ongoing.

Police are appealing for anyone who has information about the incident to contact 101, quoting reference 4032/25AUG. Information can also be provided anonymously to Crimestoppers.

The Met has said there is no indication of a wider risk to the community arising from the incident.

JAM RADIO NEWS will continue to follow developments as the investigation progresses.

Professor Sir Hilary Beckles has issued a powerful tribute to Professor Jason Arday — and a grave warning about what can happen when public scrutiny turns into public destruction.

In a statement titled End of Arday’s Days, the Vice-Chancellor of The University of the West Indies describes Arday’s loss as a “gruesome, networked catastrophe”. His message moves beyond the final weeks of one academic’s life to confront the wider systems that decide whose excellence is celebrated, whose credibility is relentlessly questioned, and whose vulnerability is ignored.

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Arday, a scholar of race, education and inequality, was widely recognised as Cambridge’s youngest Black professor. His death has prompted mourning and difficult questions about the sustained pressure he faced after allegations concerning his academic work and personal history became the subject of intense public attention.

Beckles’ intervention is not a substitute for due process or careful reporting. It is a call to remember that institutions and media organisations have responsibilities that cannot end at procedure, headline counts or online debate. He argues that anti-Black racism is not only expressed in overt abuse; it can also operate through patterns of public humiliation, isolation and institutional indifference.

JamRadio has previously reported on the call for a public inquiry into Professor Arday’s death.

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In his statement, Beckles places Arday’s experience within a longer history of Black scholars navigating institutions shaped by colonial power. His point is clear: when a person is treated as a spectacle rather than a human being, the consequences can extend far beyond the immediate controversy.

The question now facing universities, editors and the public is not simply whether every allegation was reported. It is whether the total weight of coverage, commentary and institutional response treated a vulnerable person with the care and humanity the moment demanded.

Arday’s legacy should include his scholarship, his work to widen access to education, and the people who saw possibility in his journey. It should also compel a serious reckoning with how Black achievement is received, tested and protected in Britain’s most powerful institutions.

Source: Statement from Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, Vice-Chancellor of The University of the West Indies, 24 August 2026.

Read JamRadio’s latest reporting

JamRadio News Desk

Dedicated to clear, reliable reporting 

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A 23-Year-Old Clara Bale Named After Death in Islington Flat

A murder investigation was launched after police were called at around 9:33am on Thursday, August 6, following concerns for the welfare of a woman inside an address on Bollinder Place, Islington.

Officers attended alongside the London Ambulance Service and found Clara unresponsive. Despite the efforts of medical professionals, she was pronounced dead at the scene.

The Metropolitan Police have now confirmed her identity and said her family are being supported by specially trained officers.

Six People Arrested

Four women, aged 20, 21, 23 and 26, and two men, aged 21 and 24, were arrested at the scene on suspicion of murder.

All six have since been released on bail while detectives continue their enquiries.

Detectives have been carrying out forensic examinations, reviewing available evidence and speaking with witnesses as they work to establish exactly what happened in the period leading up to Clara's death.

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Family Pay Tribute

Clara's family have paid tribute to her, describing her as a brilliant young woman whose death has left an immeasurable void in their lives.

In a statement, the family said Clara was “filled with dreams” and described her as a bright light whose presence was felt by those around her.

They said she embodied hope, resilience and love, adding that her inspiring presence was felt in every room she entered.

Police Investigation Continues

Detective Chief Inspector Paul Waller, who is leading the investigation, said the enquiry is progressing and detectives are working to establish the circumstances surrounding Clara's death.

Police are appealing to anyone who may have information that could assist the investigation to come forward, no matter how insignificant they believe the information may be.

Anyone with information can contact the Metropolitan Police on 101, quoting reference 3700/06AUG.

Information can also be provided anonymously to the independent charity Crimestoppers.

Developing Story

The investigation remains ongoing and the six people arrested remain on bail while enquiries continue.

Jam Radio News will continue to follow this developing story and bring you further confirmed updates as they become available.

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A devastating open letter accuses Professor Deborah Prentice and Cambridge’s senior leadership of ignoring repeated safeguarding warnings and says their actions and inaction contributed to Professor Jason Arday’s death.

Cambridge University is facing an extraordinary revolt from within after more than 65 students, staff and alumni demanded the immediate resignation of Vice-Chancellor Professor Deborah Prentice over the institution’s treatment of Professor Jason Arday.

The open letter, hosted by the Good Law Project and addressed to Cambridge Chancellor Lord Chris Smith, accuses the university’s leadership of abandoning Professor Arday while he was subjected to an overwhelming and racially charged media campaign.

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Its conclusion is damning: the signatories say Prentice’s actions and inaction “directly contributed to the tragic and preventable death” of the 41-year-old academic.

They declare that they have “lost confidence in her stewardship” of one of the world’s most powerful universities.

Professor Arday, who made history as Cambridge’s youngest Black professor, died on 14 August—nine days after resigning from the university and Jesus College amid relentless scrutiny of his academic work, qualifications and personal history.

According to an analysis by media-monitoring organisation NewsCord, 249 articles were published about Professor Arday across 15 national news outlets in just 22 days. Much of that coverage continued after his resignation and his explicit request for peace and privacy.

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Safeguarding warnings allegedly ignored

The new letter moves the focus squarely onto Cambridge and what its most senior leaders knew about Professor Arday’s deteriorating welfare.

It alleges that people close to him repeatedly warned the university that he needed protection and safeguarding, but that their concerns were ignored.

The signatories are now demanding answers to two critical questions: what support did Cambridge provide after Professor Arday resigned, and did anyone at the university encourage or pressure him to leave?

Cambridge initially defended Professor Arday against what it described as a “vile smear campaign”. But as media pressure intensified, the institution changed course and announced an investigation into his appointment and tenure.

In a statement issued on 12 August—Just two days before Professor Arday’s death, Prentice described the controversy as a “troubling case” and an “aberration”.

Her statement concentrated heavily on academic standards, appointments and institutional processes. The student-led letter argues that it failed to show concern for the welfare of the human being at the centre of the storm.

That failure is now at the heart of the demands for her resignation.

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Cambridge’s handling of earlier complaints questioned

The letter also points to Cambridge’s earlier handling of complaints involving Nathan Cofnas, whose online allegations helped drive the latest wave of scrutiny against Professor Arday.

It states that 58 formal complaints were made to Cambridge in 2024 after Cofnas published claims about Black intellectual ability. According to the signatories, those complaints were dismissed, deepening mistrust among Black members of the university who believed their safety and dignity were being subordinated to fear of the right-wing press.

Good Law Project says it is withholding the names of the Cambridge students, academics and allies behind the letter because they fear retaliation from the media.

That fact alone is a devastating indictment of the climate now surrounding Black people at the university: members of Cambridge reportedly believe they cannot publicly demand accountability from their own institution without placing themselves in danger of becoming the next targets.

Prominent figures back the demand

The letter has attracted prominent public support, including from MPs Diane Abbott and Bell Ribeiro-Addy; former MP Claudia Webbe; Professor Sir Patrick Vernon; author Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu; journalist Samantha Asumadu; former police chief Leroy Logan; campaigner Zita Holbourne; Black Equity Organisation chief executive Timi Okuwa; and Alliance for Police Accountability chair Lee Jasper.

It also backs demands issued by the Cambridge Black Alumni and Student Collective for accountability, justice and institutional change.

Cambridge said on 21 August that it was undergoing “profound grief and deep reflection”. It condemned the racist abuse being directed at Black staff and students, promised culturally sensitive support and announced an independent process through which the university would learn lessons from the tragedy.

But that statement has not silenced the central question: why did meaningful reflection and visible concern for safeguarding appear to come only after Professor Arday was dead?

Cambridge has not publicly responded to the new demand for Prentice’s resignation at the time of publication.

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A collapse of confidence in Cambridge’s leadership

This is no longer merely a dispute about appointments, academic procedures or public relations. It is a collapse of confidence in Cambridge’s leadership and its ability to protect Black and vulnerable members of its own community when they come under attack.

Institutions cannot celebrate Black excellence when it enhances their reputation, then retreat behind process and silence when that same person becomes inconvenient.

Cambridge promoted Professor Jason Arday as evidence of progress. Its own students, staff and alumni now accuse it of abandoning him when he needed protection most.

Professor Deborah Prentice must now answer them.

Read the complete Good Law Project open letter and petition.

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We Cannot Keep Begging Their Media to Value Us While Refusing to Support Our Own

Black Britain already has independent journalists and community-owned platforms doing the work. The question is whether we will sustain them before the next crisis arrives.

After the vigil for Professor Jason Arday in Trafalgar Square, I saw people questioning why the BBC had devoted so little attention to an event that brought tens of thousands into central London.

MPs Diane Abbott, Dawn Butler and Bell Ribeiro-Addy were among those who addressed the crowd, alongside Lord Simon Woolley, the Good Law Project’s Jo Maugham and anti-racism campaigners. Abbott called for justice, while Woolley described what Arday had endured as a “public execution”. Singer Beverley Knight also joined the tributes.

Many chose to respond: write to the BBC, complain, demand better coverage. I thought breifly and concluded.

What exactly do we believe another letter or another 20,000 letters will change?

Black communities have spent decades appealing to the same institutions for fairness and recognition. We complain when our stories are ignored, when they are distorted, when Black achievement is treated with suspicion and Black suffering is granted less empathy.

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Then, once the anger passes, we return to the same organisations. We watch them, share their clips, circulate their headlines and reinforce their authority.

Meanwhile, Black-owned and Black-led platforms attempting to build something different are too often left struggling for attention, subscriptions and financial support.

That is why JamRadio exists. The vision was to build a Black British talk-radio and current-affairs platform: somewhere we can discuss our own events, investigate injustice, challenge power and help determine the narrative rather than merely react to somebody else’s.

Mainstream outlets do not simply report the news. They decide which stories matter, who is considered credible and how the public should understand an event. Editorial power is political and cultural power. Black communities need institutions capable of exercising some of that power for themselves.

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JamRadio is not alone. The Community Reporter, founded by journalist Melissa Sigodo, produces independent journalism centred on Britain’s Black communities, highlights underreported stories and holds power to account. BlackCurrent News, founded by award winning journalist Nadine White as a self-funded publication, covers Black life, politics, culture and power across Britain and beyond.

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Black Ballad has built a membership-supported platform focused on Black British women. The Voice has documented Black British life for more than four decades. Other independent journalists, broadcasters and community publications like All Angles UK continue doing essential work, often without the budgets, staffing or protection available to mainstream newsrooms.

These platforms already provide much of what we say we want: media that understands our communities before a crisis, recognises the history behind the headline and remains interested after the cameras disappear.

The problem is that we often support the idea of Black media more enthusiastically than the institutions themselves.

Journalism costs money. Reporters, editors, cameras, travel, hosting, studios, insurance and legal advice must be paid for. Yet Black media are frequently expected to survive on personal sacrifice and goodwill.

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Many people will pay subscriptions to multinational news corporations and spend hours driving traffic towards mainstream reporting, but hesitate to contribute a few pounds to an independent platform serving their own community. They praise Black ownership in principle while treating Black-owned journalism as optional or less authoritative.

Then, during the next crisis, we ask: Where is our voice?

The uncomfortable answer is that voices require infrastructure, and infrastructure requires sustained support.

This does not mean the BBC and other major outlets should escape scrutiny. The BBC must be held to its public obligations. Complaints, corrections and regulatory action have their place. But challenging their power is not the same as building our own.

You can unfollow any organisation; but I think the better strategy for change is also to point people in the right direction.
The biggest misinformation coming out the black community is we do not have our own media. When we have @TheVoiceNews & @UKBlackcurrent and others

— Antoine Allen (@AntoineSpeaker) August 18, 2026

We cannot keep begging another institution for ten seconds of airtime while ignoring platforms prepared to devote an entire programme, investigation or front page to our concerns.

The response to Professor Dr. Jason Arday’s death should provoke more than anger about one broadcaster’s running order. It should make us ask why we remain so dependent on institutions whose treatment of Black people we repeatedly describe as dismissive, unequal or hostile.

A strong independent Black press can challenge harmful framing in real time. It can investigate the investigation, supply context, preserve dignity and provide a meaningful right of reply. But it cannot do that while underfunded, understaffed and noticed only after tragedy.

Support must come while institutions are still being built. It means subscribing, sharing original reporting, advertising with them, sending them stories, citing their journalism and treating their reporters as legitimate voices in national conversations.

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JamRadio recently received a follow from a Black MP. That should be ordinary. Instead, it felt significant because recognition and community backing remain so scarce.

We are not short of Black journalists, researchers, commentators or storytellers. We are short of sustained collective investment in the platforms we are trying to build.

The question is no longer whether Black Britain can create its own media. It already has.

The question is whether we will support those platforms strongly enough to survive, grow and exercise real power, or continue returning to the same doors asking to be heard, and wondering why nothing changes.