The death of Jason Arday is – whatever you think of him, what he did or did not do, whatever your politics are, and most of all for his family, his child – a tragedy.
There have been reams already written not a week after he died defending him or explaining why the tragedy was his own, or his former employers’, or the media’s fault or societal attitudes to race.
I made an appearance on Newsnight last Friday, two hours after the news broke.
Mercifully, and rightly in my opinion, as part of their political panel we were spared being asked for our reaction, it would have felt inappropriate to give a ‘hot take’ beyond the obvious that this was a horrible end to ‘the story’, to his story.
However, what I thought to say before the programme started was that despite the inevitable suggestions that would come that he was ‘hounded to death’ a general principle to defend would be that we cannot have a society where politicians, the media, even academia (indeed especially academia) cannot ask questions to which the answers may be awkward, difficult and with profound ramifications just in case someone might be pushed to take their own life.
Not tied to this case, a general principle.
A journalist friend told me, over the weekend, that they had recently been called by someone they had been investigating and was about to publish. The person had responded as right of reply before he went to print. He was pleased they had contacted but was then told “if you publish this, I’ll probably kill myself, and then you’ll have blood on your hands”.
Now it happens for a number of perfectly good reasons he didn’t publish, but although he factored that comment into editorial discussions, he felt it was being used as a threat, and so was not part of why they decided to continue their scrutiny but rework the investigation.
On air on Newsnight were two friends of Arday’s and for them the news was very raw and immediate so I understood the tone they took but essentially their point was the whole episode was the racist pursuit of a man, smearing him until he lost his job, his reputation and ultimately his life.
‘Why?’ they asked ‘why did even the BBC join in in this feeding frenzy to drag down a black man because he was black.’
For them it was illegitimate scrutiny and transparently a smear campaign.
This by the way is exactly the same argument Reform are using, about the Parliamentary Standards Committee investigation into whether (and note the specifics here) Nigel Farage breached the rules on whether he should have declared the £5m he got from a Thai based Crypto-billionaire. Not if he should have taken this eyewatering sum, but whether he should have declared it.
Zack Polanski has repeatedly responded over the last year to scrutiny of himself, and his Green party that a lot of it is simply to smear him.
Andy Burham has faced repeated criticism that he is avoiding scrutiny and the media preferring cosy chats with ‘friendlies’ at best, and a stream of online influencer clips that tell us what he thinks of the Gregs menu or the name of a bread product!
Josh Simons the man who stood down in Makerfield, not to have a by-election in which he stood again, but to give the Prime Minister the route back into Parliament he needed just to be Prime Minister, set investigators onto the journalist who was scrutinising Labour together and their activities before the 2024 General Election.
The police, of all people, called a journalist who was looking into the accusations of plagiarism and fabulism around the then Professor Arday asking the journalist to consider stopping their investigation. Accusations which despite his friends on Newsnight denying, turned out to be largely true.
The giveaway on that is when some people who said they were false start saying ‘well it’s no worse than lots of others do’.
Reform supporter, and Farage backer of old Arron Banks has not denied hiring private investigators to look into the Chairman of the Conservative party. Who by very dint of his job has been asking questions about Reform’s finances and the role George Cottrell, and Richard Tice played in securing them.
Kemi Badenoch got a lot of scrutiny over why she approved the candidacy to a local council of Joshua Bonehill-Paine who had been jailed a number of years ago for antisemitic and misogynistic online harassment of MPs like Luciana Berger.
Some of that scrutiny came from this website. Of course it should, it’s part of our job.
Scrutiny is part and parcel of politics, especially to be expected by those who have a serious chance of being in government.
Scrutiny is not smear unless its conclusion is entirely false. Blocking or stopping scrutiny is not vindication. Arguments about levels of scrutiny and coverage are legitimate but ultimately second order to the principle that everyone has a right to ask a question, even lots of questions about those who would govern them or who are governing them.
It’s ancient history now (can you believe that but it feels like it) but there wasn’t enough scrutiny of the plan to make Mandelson US ambassador and it was legitimate scrutiny that got him removed, scrutiny pursued I may add by the official Leader of the Opposition.
Kemi Badenoch knows she’ll be scrutinised. She wasn’t a huge fan of the media, and can be sensitive (sometimes over sensitive) to their questions to her, or about her. Too many Conservatives in the last Government were the same. She’s learned however to handle it, to expect it, and a few months ago started even courting it.
“Unlike others you can ask me what you like” she told a press conference earlier this summer.
Is she being asked questions because she is the first black female leader of a political party? No. Some racists might but you can usually spot them a mile away because as I’ve noted before they insist on using her full Nigerian name in every reference to her. Thirty seconds investigation and you’ll find the timeline of that person has other big clues as to what’s really eating them.
Jason Arday was not some obscure academic who didn’t warrant scrutiny. His name in public has always been linked to the words (because they were true) ‘the youngest black professor in Cambridge history’. The BBC did a news piece on his appointment that shared his then unquestioned back story.
Race played a part in both his public promotion about his promotion, and it played a role in his down fall. But not the role.
Whether scrutiny is fair, is not defined by your background, race, and certainly not your politics, and it’s a stupid even dangerous idea that one man’s scrutiny is another man’s smear.
Nobody should be protected from scrutiny of what it is that put them in the public eye in the first place.
It would for example be right to scrutinise those that put Jason Arday into the public eye without seemingly questioning whether that was right for a man who all sides of this recent discussion agree was vulnerable.
Scrutiny of whoever in public life is not, and should not, be going away any time soon.