The Spectator — edited by ultra-Zionist Islamophobe, Michael Gove — has launched yet another racist witch hunt this week against Black politician and activist Lord Simon Woolley, the principal of Homerton College.
Jam Radio, commenting on Andrew Gilligan’s Spectator article titled ‘Simon Woolley is not fit to lead a Cambridge college,’ said that Gilligan offered no evidence of failure at Homerton. Rather, it was an “old grievance dressed up as journalism”.
Jam Radio said:
After pumping out 19 articles on Jason Arday in two weeks, The Spectator has moved on to Simon Woolley.
Ex-Tory operative Andrew Gilligan offers no evidence of failure at Homerton—only an old grievance dressed up as journalism.
This is a media hit job.https://t.co/kx0As4ILbD
— Jam Radio UK News (@Jam_RadioUK) September 1, 2026
In the accompanying piece, Jam Radio broke down Gilligan’s attacks on Wooley, founder of Operation Black Vote, as:
- Guilt by association — Gilligan revived a 20-year-old discredited scandal involving Lee Jasper, a prominent social justice campaigner, without attributing any misconduct to Woolley himself.
- Insinuation over evidence — Gilligan used loaded language and implied Woolley’s honours were a Windrush-era political calculation by Theresa May, without proof.
Spectator instigates ‘high tech lynching’
Prominent Black author, Nels Abbey, reposted Gilligan’s article calling it part of a “high-tech lynching” designed to enforce white supremacy and terrorise Black people who speak out against racial injustice.
This is partly why we rightfully called the hounding to death of Jason Arday a lynching.
The implicit threat to Black witnesses of the historical lynching was that if you protest or speak in a way that is considered too strident and, therefore, may trigger change to the racial… https://t.co/n5T1WxHsj6 pic.twitter.com/BqIfsCAiA8
— Nels Abbey (@nelsabbey) August 31, 2026
Abbey was misrepresented on 1 August when the Spectator was witch-hunting Arday, after he appeared on Times Radio to defend Arday against plagiarism allegations linked to his PhD.
During the interview, Abbey read aloud from Liverpool John Moores University’s investigation letter, which concluded that the claims against Arday, who sadly, later took his life, were “not proven”.
Days later, the Spectator published an article that “rather bizarrely, described Nels as having chaired the university’s investigation, falsely implying that he had overseen it and helped decide the outcome,” Black Current News reported.
Abbey received a correction, but also a dismissive tweet from Gove, the magazine’s editor.
Woolley’s tribute to Arday
As Abbey correctly observed, Woolley’s use of the word “lynching” has now made him the target of the same publication that hounded Arday, complete with the same racism by trying to undermine him as “underqualified” for his position.
When he became principal of Homerton College in 2021, he was the first Black man to head an Oxbridge college and only the third Black person to lead these prestigious colleges.
Woolley described Arday’s treatment as a “lynching” during a vigil held in Trafalgar Square, London, last month.
During his speech, Woolley revealed his friend had said just days before he died, “They’re hounding me to death”, adding that he “couldn’t see a way out”.
The Spectator’s campaign against Black academics must be met with fierce pushback this time so what happened to Jason Arday never happens again.
Featured image via David Johnson/ PA
By The Canary
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