Politics Home | Media Coverage Of Jason Arday Was Nasty And Disproportionate, Says Ed Davey

Lib Dem leader Ed Davey said there was a movement on the right “away from liberal progress” (Alamy)

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Former Cambridge University professor Arday was found dead in south London last Friday after being at the centre of allegations of plagiarism and falsified achievements. 

Arday had resigned as a professor of sociology of education at Cambridge the previous week and admitted errors in his work, but denied claims of plagiarism.

In a statement, his family said: “The campaign of misinformation was too much for Jason, who was a gentle man and who always wanted to see the best in everyone.”

Describing Arday’s death as an “absolute tragedy”, Davey told PoliticsHome that parts of the media had seemed to “focus in on it and attack him in a way which seems awfully disproportionate, unfair, mean, and nasty”.

“What it shows is that we have to push back against this Trump-like attack on liberal values where we embrace everybody equally and respect everybody.

“There seems to be a movement, particularly on the right, to move away from the liberal progress I thought we made, where we respect people, we judge them on their merit, and we celebrate the contribution that everybody made.”

However, the Lib Dem leader said it was “very difficult” to hold any one person or organisation to account for the treatment of Arday. 

“There are different parts of the media jumping on that shameful bandwagon, but I think we’ve got to see the problem facing our country on a broad level,” he said. 

PoliticsHome reported on Wednesday that over 50 MPs and peers had written to the Independent Press Standards Organisation asking for an investigation into media coverage of Arday before his death.

The cross-party letter, organised by Labour MP Afzal Khan, said reporting on Arday “reached far beyond what can reasonably be perceived as conducive to the public interest in relation to his alleged plagiarism”. 

It also argued that it is “not unreasonable to suggest that the colour of Professor Arday’s skin was a contributing factor in garnering the level of media scrutiny he faced”, and that “Arday’s white counterparts at the University of Cambridge alone faced allegations that did not result in the same level of attention or affect.”

Signatories include Labour MPs Tulip Siddiq, Kerry McCarthy, Paula Barker and Tan Dhesi; Green MPs Sian Berry and Hannah Spencer; Plaid’s Westminster leader Liz Saville-Roberts; and former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham has said Arday’s death “was a tragedy, on so many levels”, and called for a “moment of reflection” to reflect on “how things came to this”. 

The Lib Dems’ Black Lives Action Committee (BLAC) this week published an open letter in Liberal Democrat Voice saying there is a “growing anti-inclusion movement in Britain”.

Group members said they themselves had “failed” to take action when the Arday case was being reported.

“Four of us discussed the situation online,” the letter said. 

“We talked about what we should do, but we never reached a firm decision to act. One person repeatedly suggested that we should reach out to Professor Arday himself. We became caught in the web of inaction.”