Stuart Wallis

I never met Jason Arday, and know nothing about him beyond what I have read, seen and heard in the media. As the debate around him raged in recent weeks, I stayed out of it, precisely because it struck me as one of those occasional frenzies in which facts get lost and humans cease to be treated as humans. I now wish I had reached out to him, tried to encourage him that “this too shall pass.” Many people today, those who knew him above all but also many like me who didn’t, will be feeling sadness and anger that this has all led to his death, a family suddenly without a father, parents without a son. None of us will ever know exactly what was going through his mind, but it is hard to disagree with @MayorofLondon that Jason Arday faced “an unacceptable public hounding and campaign of abuse … pernicious public shaming that other people in his position wouldn’t have faced.” Whatever the truth of the allegations against him, would he have suffered such a hounding had he been white, with short hair? I doubt it. The zeal with which the Trumpian anti-DEI brigade in the U.K. leapt on this story to try to push back the wheel of progress towards genuine equality was horrible. Again, Sadiq is right to say “His death was a tragedy but it should be a wake-up call for all of us.” RIP Jason. And to all of us, if ever you think someone you know may have cause to be suicidal, reach out to them.