James O'Brien has made a humiliating confession over his support for Jason Arday. The LBC radio presenter and former BBC Newsnight host had backed Arday after he resigned from the University of Cambridge.
Background
Arday was appointed as the youngest black professor at Cambridge in 2023. Last week, he resigned after mounting scepticism of his personal and professional claims led to a university investigation into his conduct. The academic has been accused of plagiarism in his academic work, including his PhD thesis and other research.
Arday's recent work has been called "flawed", with reportedly "impossible evidence" and inconsistencies. He also claimed to have published a book, but the publisher confirmed it was never released.
False claims
Arday said he was a visiting professor at Ohio State University, the University of Glasgow, and Nelson Mandela University, all of which deny the claim. He also claimed he had a master's from Birkbeck and was an honorary professor at Durham, but the former had no record of him and the latter said he no longer held any roles at the university.
The academic made several other claims about being non-verbal until 11, only learning to read and write at 18, running marathons, being a semi-professional footballer, charity work abroad, and raising up to £5.5 million for charities over 20 years.
O'Brien's admission
James O'Brien had previously accused The Telegraph and The Times of "studied and deliberate ignominy" after they revealed claims against Arday. But on his LBC show on Friday, 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 or 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 there?'. I certainly wouldn't do that.
"If I was a racist and I met a black Cambridge professor, then I probably would find myself thinking, 'Yeah, really, a black guy, professor, I don't think…' – but I'm not a racist, so it didn't cross my mind."
He added: "But it's more the personal contact that I've had with him subsequently that makes me feel like a mug. The fact that he thought I was someone that he might be able to persuade to stick up for him when he knew that he'd done wrong."
