Politics

During her abortive run for governor of South Carolina, Nancy Mace’s signature policy was to remove a tax on boat loan interest – appropriate enough for someone who always seemed to be trimming her sails to catch the wind.  After January 6 the newly minted Congresswoman declared that Donald Trump had no future in the GOP. But after his fortunes revived, she refashioned herself as a Trump loyalist and was a key figure in the effort to oust the then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. A rather monomaniacal focus on transgenders in women’s bathrooms and women’s sports followed, coinciding with the peak of public interest in that issue from 2021-23.

Behold the human wreckage of the cult of diversity. The tragedy of Jason Arday is that he was both built up and destroyed by the ruthless machinery of DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion). The academy made him into the golden boy of its philistine project of “decolonization” and gave not one thought to what the consequences might be if his thin story unraveled, as it inevitably would. No one can deny it now: wokeness makes false gods and real tragedies. Journalists found a story and they told it. It was the academy and Arday’s colleagues who failed to do their jobs The death of Arday is not only dreadful – it is enraging. It feels like a catastrophe foretold.

Simon Baron-Cohen, the distinguished Cambridge autism specialist, has been speaking movingly about his friend, Jason Arday, in a BBC radio interview. Baron-Cohen said the last contact he had with Arday was hours before he was found dead at an address in south London yesterday afternoon: “He really wasn't coping. He was being subjected to relentless scrutiny... ridicule, discrediting every detail of his life... He wasn't coping with the loss of his career, the loss of his reputation. He felt he couldn't go on.” Jason Arday was a victim, but not in the way that his political champions suggest Baron-Cohen went on to talk about him as “an incredibly kind and gentle and caring and generous man”.

"All of these men often times who are saying, ‘oh if you haven't had a kid by 30 like you're done,' it's just not supported," said Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, in a video uploaded to her Instagram Story on Sunday night. The 36-year-old congresswoman has announced to her audience of 9.6 million followers that she, like a growing number of American women, has decided to freeze her eggs. She continued, "Don't trust the people writing abortion laws, that don't even understand the first thing about a woman's body, to tell you about how many eggs you have at what age.

Jason Arday has resigned from his post at the University of Cambridge, but as the story rumbles on and new revelations about him emerge by the hour, The Spectator thought it would be useful to create a comprehensive reference guide of all the outlandish claims made by our modern-day Walter Mitty. Arday claimed that he went to both South America and West Africa to install water points Athletic prowess Arday claimed that he once ran 600 miles between Edinburgh and London in six days for charity, an accomplishment which would put him in the upper tier of world ultra marathon runners. He also claimed that he ran run 30 marathons in 35 days. On the 21st marathon he suffered from an epileptic fit and fractured his leg after falling down.

At least seven people have been killed in a mass shooting at a school in Nonthaburi, north of Bangkok. Details are still coming through, and conflicting numbers have been released, but so far it appears that five teachers are among the dead. The suspected gunman, a 14-year-old student, seemingly shot himself in the head. More than 30 people are reported injured, with at least nine in a critical condition. The shooter’s grandparents were also found dead at their home, where the suspect is believed to have resided. The firearm, a handgun, apparently belonged to the grandfather. Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul has already promised a new firearm control law in the wake of the tragedy.