LBC radio presenter James O'Brien has sparked fury with his comments about disgraced Cambridge professor Jason Arday. Arday – Cambridge's youngest Black professor in history – resigned from his post this week after facing accusations of plagiarism and fabricating parts of his memoir, and O'Brien said he felt like a “mug” after being in personal contact with him.
O'Brien's Personal Take
On LBC, O'Brien said: “What's your takeaway here? Because mine is very, very personal – I can't separate the personal from the public. I feel like a mug, actually, is the short answer. I don't feel guilt, I don't feel 'Oh, you should have done differently, you should have done better', because who would? Who would meet a Cambridge professor and immediately start thinking 'God, I wonder whether you actually deserve to be one'. I certainly wouldn't do that.”
He added: “If I was a racist and I met a Black Cambridge professor, then I probably would find myself thinking, 'Yeah, really? Black guy? Professor? I don't think so'. But I'm not a racist, so it didn't cross my mind.
Backlash on Social Media
The comments sparked fury on X, with one viewer writing in response: “I know O'Brien thinks this makes him look saintly but it shows he only saw Arday's ethnicity. He refused to engage with the substance of the allegations because *all* he saw was a Black man. Had he been looking at an academic accused of plagiarism he'd have dug deeper.”
Someone else agreed: “He's the definition of the virtue snivelling left wing useful idiot. All opinions, causes, situational morality, and an overinflated sense of his own importance and intelligence.”
And another said: “Nailed it. It's the contradiction at the heart of progressive thinking. That you can somehow eradicate racism by emphasising skin colour as opposed to moving past it.”
