Mike Stanton @convivir.bsky.social @convivir

@PrivateEyeNews 's Summer Teesside Special is out. Sunak and Truss's flagship Brexit freeport, Teesworks, Teesside, is effectively over as a functioning freeport. The 2025/26 accounts for the South Tees Development Corporation, the public body overseeing the site, are a disaster. Auditors are refusing to sign them off. STDC carries £420 million in debt to its parent, the Tees Valley Combined Authority. The accounts contain errors running to £23 million.🧵 europeanpowell.substack.com/p/the-deregula…

🚨 We've heard a lot about "DEI" over the last few weeks. Media including GB News, The Spectator, and UnHerd have massively amplified the acronym: the latter two are owned outright by billionaire Evangelical Christian hedge-funder Paul Marshall, and he's the biggest investor in GB News. The Telegraph appears to have kick-started mainstream coverage of the Jason Arday story: on 24 July 2026, Gordon Rayner and colleagues reported a fresh statistical analysis finding over 100 (later cited as 188) sentences in Jason Arday's PhD thesis identical or near-identical to another academic's earlier thesis. "Near identical" is doing a lot of work here. A typical humanities PhD thesis in the UK runs somewhere around 80,000–100,000 words. At an average of roughly 20–25 words/sentence for academic prose, that works out to something like 3,000–5,000 sentences in the whole thesis. That places the reported overlaps at roughly just 2–6% of the thesis. One independent Turnitin-style check later reported an overall similarity index around 4.2% for the thesis. Liverpool John Moores University, which awarded the doctorate, had already investigated similar concerns and found "honest and reasonable error," not misconduct. Neither Cambridge nor LJMU has directly addressed the Telegraph's specific statistical finding, and Cambridge's own investigation into Arday's qualifications was still ongoing, and not completed when he died. So while the allegations were real, contested, and unresolved, they were NOT settled fact, whatever the tone of the coverage that followed implied. Much of the coverage that followed, however, moved beyond the plagiarism allegations into something else: allegations that Arday was a fantasist, a serial liar, and his professorship simply the result of "DEI". The strong implicit and often explicit suggestion was that he was only appointed because he was black. In the UK, "DEI" (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) doesn't exist: it's "EDI" (Equality, Diversity and Inclusion), not "DEI." The distinction is more than cosmetic. "Equity" (US usage) implies differentiated treatment to achieve equal outcomes, while "equality" (UK usage) means something quite different: judging everyone by the same standard, not adjusting treatment to engineer equal results. "DEI" itself is rooted in a specific American policy tradition, affirmative action, disparate-impact remedies, and diversity as a "compelling interest" that US courts and institutions spent decades litigating, particularly in university admissions, before the Supreme Court struck down race-conscious admissions in 2023. In the US context, "DEI" typically implies proactive intervention to correct group-level outcomes: demographic targets, representation goals, differentiated treatment aimed at equalising results. In contrast, UK "EDI" starts from a different legal premise entirely. It's tied to the 2010 Equality Act's nine protected characteristics, a framework built on individual rights against discrimination, not group-outcome targets. The Act simply says you should be judged on merit and conduct, not on immutable traits like your sex, race, or disability: a classical liberal principle predating any modern equality politics. Crucially, the protections cut both ways, so white, straight, Christian men like Paul Marshall and Dany Kruger have exactly the same legal standing against discrimination as anyone else. Universities, the #NHS, and most UK public sector bodies have used EDI as the standard term for years, predating the recent US culture-war salience of "DEI." So when commentators reached for "DEI" to explain Arday's career, they weren't just using the wrong acronym. They were importing an entire American framework, quotas, group-outcome engineering, race-conscious appointment, that has no equivalent basis in the UK legal or institutional system Cambridge actually operates under: it was a substitution of one country's contested policy debate for another's, without anyone writing about it actually checking whether the substitution held up. Kathleen Stock's 29 July UnHerd piece, which arguably originated the 'DEI' framing, was literally titled "Jason Arday: Cambridge's DEI darling." Not EDI. Richard Dawkins, Brendan O'Neill, Toby Young, David Starkey and numerous others all then ran with "DEI" over the following fortnight, across Marshall's own outlets: Dawkins mocking Arday's thesis prose in UnHerd on 8 August, Young declaring in The Spectator that "Professor Arday is the gift that keeps on giving." GB News has long-running opinion pieces on "toxic DEI policies infecting our institutions" and "anti-racism ideology... killing white Britons." Not one of them appears to have paused to check whether the acronym they were building an entire moral panic around actually matched the institutional language of the university they claimed to be scrutinising. People who spent weeks attacking the academic credentials of a Cambridge professor, several of them current or former high-profile academics themselves, couldn't even be bothered to get the acronym right for the thing they now claim explains his career, and, by implication, his death. None of this is to say EDI programmes are beyond fair criticism, they aren't. But criticising how a UK institution runs its own equality policy is a different exercise from importing an American acronym wholesale and using it to explain away a man's career. The gap between "DEI" and "EDI" matters more than it looks. The "DEI hire" framing wasn't describing Cambridge's actual equality and diversity policies at all. It was a ready-made American culture-war attack template, pasted onto a British academic because the shape happened to fit, by writers and outlets who never checked whether the label matched the institution and individual they were supposedly holding to account. By deploying "DEI" instead of "EDI," commentators effectively bypassed the actual statutory and institutional reality of UK higher education in favour of a pre-packaged, highly emotive American narrative template. There's a broader pattern at work here: over the last decade or more we've seen how localised institutional debates are frequently subsumed by broader ideological narratives. When imported culture-war talking points overwrite and overwhelm local legal and procedural contexts, the nuances of the actual story, and the humanity of the individuals involved, get lost in the noise.

GET A GRIP @docrussjackson

a week ago

Compare and contrast the articles in The Spectator by the dispicable Brendan O’Neill - one published on August 16 and one on February 20, 2026.

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A “hyperscale” datacentre in outer London would generate more than 1m tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. What devolution/democracy? Local councils bypassed, people ignored by Ministers chasing growth. Datacentres produce few long-term jobs, guzzle energy. theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/a…

It's here! Gil Durán's "The Nerd Reich" lands at a moment when the thesis it names, Silicon Valley fascism, has already left the page and entered planning law. Free zones are the exit strategy. Freeports, SEZs, Investment Zones, AI Growth Zones: these aren't administrative tweaks; they're the mechanism by which the operators who can't win an election instead win a jurisdiction. Ringfenced tax, disapplied planning, private governance carved out of democratic reach, all sold as "growth." The zone doesn't need the state's permission once it has the state's land. Millionaires and billionaires mostly stay quiet because the zone model doesn't threaten their class, it protects it. Every enclosure built this decade has been co-designed with capital, not imposed on it. Silence isn't neutrality, it's participation. The Network State philosophy makes explicit what the zones do quietly: exit rather than reform, sovereignty as a product you purchase, citizenship as a subscription.

I can remember travelling overnight on a coach after work, joining the picket line then travelling back to work the next shift, snatching sleep on board. Lots of white working class people did the same because we were inspired by the Grunwicks strikers.

Taj Ali @Taj_Ali1

5 days ago

Looking back at archival footage of thousands of miners, dockers, printers and firefighters supporting Asian women at Grunwick and thinking about Black and Asian solidarity with the miners’ strike. A lot more working-class people saw themselves as part of a broader movement.

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Samreen just sent me this incredible poem from Afghanistan. She's stuck in a boiling hot attic with on/off electricity and a marginal internet connection. She will see if you like her poem though, and it will help.

Can we, in any seriousness, trust the Israeli military to investigate itself? And let us not forget: There are thousands of Hinds in Gaza—thousands of children killed, each with a name, a family, a story, and a future stolen from them. Justice must prevail. Justice will prevail.

@joshxhowie michaelrosenblog.blogspot.com/2025/08/two-fa… If you would like an honest and open conversation about this, I'm offering you mine with this blog (above). It's updated. After you've read it, we could go from there?

The cruelty shown to Jason Arday in the last two weeks of his life is matched only by the cruelty shown to him after his death.

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I don’t know if anyone else has seen this appeal by the Arday family through their local MP? They’ve expressed their thanks for some of the vigil that have taken place already but they are making an appeal to be consulted and at this moment in time the family endorses the Trafalgar Square vigil on Monday. And there is also only one GoFundMe that they have endorsed. Possibly, you are all aware of this, but I thought I would share it anyway. 🙏🏻 facebook.com/share/v/19WEwm…

gofundme.com/f/in-memory-of…

@n_riddell @peterjukes @Michael_For14 @NoLongerTheFuzz @BylineTimes Yeah, James Orr up to his neck in it.

Management feel the heat as drivers strike over degrading conditions counterfire.org/article/manage…

This is how a movement to deal with climate chaos can start. counterfire.org/article/manage…

Looking forward to launching the second edition of A People’s History of London…all welcome…@VersoBooks

RIP Jason Arday. A month ago, I was asked by someone I know and trust to sign the Good Law Project statement in solidarity with Jason Arday. I didn’t know a great deal about Jason, but what I could see was that, like many prominent Black people in public life, the press coverage surrounding him was vile and disproportionate. So I signed without hesitation. Sadly, that was only the beginning. What followed was a public and brutal takedown that unleashed a tirade of racism by the worst elements of the British media and the right-wing commentariat. I was repeatedly approached by the press, with every new “revelation”, asking whether I still supported Jason. My view has always been the same: regardless of the claims being made, Jason deserved due process and fairness. I learned of his death through the press too, who were soon quick to approach me to see if I’d be available to go on their show. I think the least the press can do now is leave Jason and his family alone and allow them to grieve the loss of a loved one. I don’t believe this was ever simply about “professional conduct” or “plagiarism”. There is a profound difference between scrutiny and a sustained public campaign that turns an individual into a symbol of everything the right believe is wrong with DEI. The effect has been chilling. It tells Black people and others from underrepresented backgrounds that entering prominent public positions will make you a target. A target not only for criticism of your work, but for a much broader political and cultural backlash. And we should be honest about what that does. It doesn’t just destroy the reputation of one individual. It sends a message to everyone watching: know your place, don’t step too far forward, and don’t expect the same margin for error afforded to others. Jason deserved better than that. He deserved better than what he was subjected to. His family deserve privacy and compassion now.

@Rich_Y_ @DanielKebedeNEU So why are so many dishonest people in positions of power and influence?

Nathan Cofnas is the man behind the Jason Arday story. Here’s who he actually is. In February 2024, Cofnas wrote a blog post claiming that under a “meritocracy,” Black people would “disappear from almost all high-profile positions outside of sports and entertainment.” He called racial equality “based on lies.” Cambridge’s Emmanuel College cut ties with him over it. The Leverhulme Trust, which funded his research, disavowed him and opened its own investigation. He sued Emmanuel College for discrimination. He lost. Cambridge’s own disciplinary body dismissed all 58 complaints against him, ruling it fell under free speech protections. He then moved to Ghent University in Belgium. Over 300 staff and students there protested his hiring, questioning whether his views were compatible with the university’s ethics code. This is the man who spent months going through a Black professor’s PhD thesis and personal history, then published it on Substack. That’s what triggered Cambridge’s investigation into Jason Arday. This context is missing from nearly all the coverage. A self-described “race realist,” who argued Black professors would basically disappear under merit alone, is the one who decided which Black professor deserved scrutiny. Black professors: under 1% of the UK total. Black academics reaching professor level: 3.8%. This isn’t the first case. It won’t be the last. Go under the original post and see how overt racism works.

@

57 years ago

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I'm sorry but there are a lot of people with blood on their hands here. It's been weeks of abuse and absurd media coverage. They just couldn't stop, determined to beat the man into the ground. Jason Arday wasn't a culture war pawn, he was a fucking human being.

Politics UK @PolitlcsUK

2 weeks ago

🚨 BREAKING: Jason Arday has been found dead at an address in Battersea

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Dear Mogg Farage’s victory over Binface tells me we’re on the brink of a cataclysmic tectonic shift. You and me had better ride the pony before it eats us. As Blur sang so memorably, ‘Every move you make I’ll be watching you.’ Vita elvis ars wonga Boris