RIP Jason Arday

I’ve just seen the news that Jason Arday has been found dead at his home.

I’m not very good at saying the right thing in these kinds of circumstances, but this is just so very sad and tragic. What a mess - and how heart-breaking it must be for his family.

It’s too soon for any details to emerge, but I think a very plausible assumption must be that he committed suicide.

His fall from grace was obviously too much for him to handle (assuming suicide being the cause of death).

I expect over the next few days there will be a lot of blame focused on all those who called him, and Cambridge, out. No doubt there will be renewed accusations of some kind of ‘racist’ witch hunt.

Wrong target.

Instead look to blame those who put him on too high a pedestal so that when the inevitable fall occurred it was far too high a fall. Jason, sadly, was obviously ill-equipped to be placed on such a pedestal - and it’s not really his fault. In a sane world, like the one we used to have based on meritocracy and a sound body of scholarship, there is simply no way that someone like Jason Arday could ever have been elevated to this position.

I’m angry and sad in equal measure. Angry at the virtue-signalling buffoons who did this to him, and sad that he felt taking his life was the only recourse left to him. We were right to expose Arday, right to expose the deeply systemic issues that enabled this, but never, ever, did we wish for this tragic final chapter to his life.

As for all the piss-takes and banter that went on - well maybe in retrospect we might feel it was a bit much, but as my mum used to say “If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen”. It would appear that not only was Arday intellectually ill-equipped to be where he was, he was also emotionally ill-equipped.

The people who enabled this tragedy have an awful lot to answer for.

Rest in peace Jason.

[It may be we will learn that it was some other cause of death - this short piece has been written on the assumption it was suicide].