David Runciman is surely right to shift the focus from one individual, Jason Arday, to the mesmerising presence of Cambridge and to critique the illusions behind its determined hold over imaginations of even the most informed branches of public opinion in the schools, the media and politics (Cover Story, 14 August). Yet one inadvertent irony of his procedure is to have us attend once again, with even more exaggerated awe, to the specialness and singularities of Cambridge, even as its shortcomings are exposed. Would all this matter anywhere else? And if it did happen elsewhere, would it make the pages of the New Statesman?
Beware the word “prestige” when accorded to a university. It is not innocent, but redolent of unconscious complicity in the magical hierarchies such institutions should rightly dispel. There should be no such conflation of social and intellectual values; the “prestigious” is not an inherent virtue deserving unsceptical assent.
Philip Smallwood, Bristol
A tragic end to a brilliant life
I was very uncomfortable with the most recent NS, which featured two articles linked to Jason Arday and a cover with his image behind shattered glass. Whatever the facts, it seemed clear to me that Arday must have felt under severe pressure and in a fragile mental place. It was obviously legitimate to comment in some way editorially. The issue seemed too much, even if there was no intent to hound.
Martin Davis, Bridgford
I write to congratulate you on the excellent decision to commission David Runciman and Pratinav Anil to write on the wider issues relating to Jason Arday’s life and academic career. The cover was inappropriate in the circumstances, given what later unfolded. But both pieces illuminated new aspects of the issues and I have recommended them to a number of friends. They reflect the best of the magazine and are both still relevant and pertinent. Perhaps even more so now. Arday’s life and death is a tragedy. It also raises many wider issues relating not only to academia and publishing, but also to journalism: who did and didn’t speak, and why.
Margaret Bluman, London N19
Pratinav Anil’s article in the latest NS is an excellent example of the “sprezzatura” he alludes to in his insightful account of the significant socio-political aspects of the Arday-Cambridge fiasco. The article cuts through all the recent bigoted right-wing/maudlin left-wing tosh that can be found in newspapers and down-market magazines. Being able to find articles of this quality regularly in the NS is why I keep up my subscription.
Brent Charlesworth, Lincoln
I was only slightly aware of the Jason Arday controversy when my NS arrived, but I was shocked by its cover, which appeared to me to be in the style not of a responsible magazine such as the NS, but of the front pages of tabloids. While the two articles inside the magazine raise interesting and relevant points on this complex subject, I think the cover picture only added to the furore.
Hilary Chadwick, London SW1
Cambridge at its worst: the profound errors of judgement made both leading up to and following the tragic Jason Arday affair, as covered in two excellent accounts in the NS. Cambridge at its best: Verity Harding’s sober and astute essay on AI (Another Voice, 14 August).
David Perry, Cambridge
Dashed hopes for growth
Brandon High (Correspondence, 14 August) suggests that the postwar consensus could have continued if Ted Heath had not called an election when he did. This overlooks the widespread loss of faith in Keynesianism following the failure of the “dash for growth” Budget. Our present problems directly flow from that change of economic perception, but this was misguided. David Stuckler and colleagues have shown that Keynesian multipliers vary between different kinds of public spending and that for health, education, welfare and many community services, they exceed the figure at which the spending generates enough economic growth to produce the taxes to pay for itself.
Keynesianism worked in the 1950s and 1960s because it was focused on these high-multiplier areas of spending, and failed in the dash for growth because it wasn’t. Unless we increase spending on these services, we will not generate the economic growth to reduce the deficit and to fund high-priority but low-multiplier spending, such as defence.
Stephen Watkins, Oldham, Lancs
Third party, no guestlist
Freddie Hayward (American Notes, 14 August) has an odd conception of what constitutes a third party. Apparently the SNP (eight seats), Reform UK (eight), Plaid Cymru (four), and Restore Britain (one) have a better claim to this title than the Liberal Democrats with 71. And we wonder why nationalist and far-right parties get a disproportionate share of the media…
Colin Paine, Horsforth, Leeds
The past is present
Ten out of ten for Jeremy Bowen’s sweeping article (The NS Essay, 14 August). I am nearly 90 and, as a former Cold War journalist and EU diplomat, I have lived through the period he recounts. I remember sitting up in bed with my wife at midnight in 1962, listening to reports of Khrushchev’s fleet turning back from Castro’s Cuba. With Putin and Trump trying to run things, with climate change and with forest fires creeping north, I have crossed my fingers once again.
Michael Lake, Hereford
When, as a political science student, I stood at the Berlin Wall in 1989, I felt an extraordinary sense of relief. The Cold War was ending, and an era of democratisation and international cooperation seemed to be dawning. Few then could have imagined that, a generation later, we would inhabit a world in which the rules-based order is being challenged by autocrats. Those rules are not only weakened by authoritarian leaders, but when democratic governments disregard them for their convenience. The lesson of 1990-91 was that military power is more legitimate when exercised through international law and alliances. Iraq in 2003 showed how that credibility could be squandered. In 1989 I believed I witnessed a world governed by rules rather than power. Today, I fear it is the reverse.
Federico Forni, London SW15
Sorting fact from fiction
Tom McTague claims that “fewer of us feel we have enough time or concentration to read a novel”(Editor’s Note, 14 August). In fact, there is no evidence we are we reading less. Sales of fiction and non-fiction are strong in the UK, with people on average reading more than those in other countries, and more than 50 per cent considering themselves to be “regular readers”.
John Boaler, Calne, Wilts
Lezard finds the right words
It cannot be easy to write about Rod Liddle for a left-wing magazine in a way combining the urbane, the (not overly) judgemental and the self-deprecating. But Nicholas Lezard (Down and Out, 14 August) has done just that. I raise a glass of single malt to him, and were he with me would pour him one too. While many Spectator readers have said Liddle’s was the first column they would turn to, so is Lezard’s when I open the NS.
Tom Stubbs, Surbiton, Surrey
A big thank you to Nicholas Lezard this week for “saving me the bother” of looking up the English word “cupidity” (love of money) immediately after hitting me with the unexplained “bien pensant” and “de mortuis nil nisi bonum” in the previous paragraph. Expecting your readers to need help with English, but not with French or Latin? Come on, mate, it’s far too early in the day to be on a translation app.
Brian Cunningham, Norwich
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[Further reading: The shaming of Jason Arday]
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This article appears in the 20 Aug 2026 issue of the New Statesman, Summer Special
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