At Consigliere University, calamity is never a failure — it is a branding opportunity.
The senior team proudly subscribes to a motto known the world over: “No Reverse Gear, We Double Down.”
What begins as a minor workplace incident — the sort most institutions resolve quietly over an afternoon — is instead elevated into a million-pound court case. Not because the issue is complex, but because resolution would require the one thing the University refuses to provide: admitting it might have been wrong.
Mistakes are not corrected, they are fortified. Evidence, no matter how glaring, is recast as a matter of interpretation. If a favoured professor encounters a difficulty, reports are commissioned to dilute or dismiss the facts, conclusions are turned upside down, and Wonderland logic prevails.
At Consigliere, the institutional instinct is simple: if challenged, escalate; if exposed, deny; if cornered, spend more and more money until the problem becomes too expensive for anyone to question.
Communications operate on a doctrine of controlled aggression. Dissenters are verbally dismantled, at volume. The strategy is clear: intimidate the narrative into submission and hope the facts lose confidence along the way. It is one of the few areas in which the once-brilliant Consigliere University can still claim world-leading status.
Leadership achieves a paradox. Alice, the Vice-Chancellor, is both omnipresent and absent — a distant, unavailable presence, even when physically in the room. The senior team beneath her resembles an academic ghost town, with key roles unfilled for months or years because no candidate is ever deemed sufficiently exceptional to join the party. The March Hare, the Mad Hatter and the Dormouse run the show with confident aplomb. Decision-making becomes less a process and more a prolonged stalemate, punctuated by bursts of expensive urgency when matters spiral.
And yet, through it all, the motto endures: “No Reverse Gear — We Double Down.”
At Consigliere University, this is not resilience; it is doctrine. Small problems are nurtured into crises, crises are escalated into calamities, and accountability is treated as something best handled by their lawyers — who, it must be said, are doing very well indeed for themselves. The result is an institution that does not collapse so much as it continually reinvents the conditions for its own catastrophes: well-funded, supremely confident and entirely convinced it is doing an excellent job, while the staff (and the rest of the world) look on in quiet wonder.
At Consigliere, as it lurches from crisis to crisis, the senior team are confident that the problems lie with the managed, not the management.
As the March Hare snapped at the close of yet another emergency senior management meeting, “If it’s failing, we simply haven’t doubled down hard enough.” Alice, without looking up, added: “And if it collapses entirely, we shall call it a “Reimagining Consigliere University” — and commission a report confirming our success.”
Ah, Serious craziness. Just a fable. Consigliere University does not exist.
42 Comments
21percent.org · 24 July 2026 at 19:43
On the matter in the headlines, the problems lie in Human Resources division, the Research Integrity Office and the Communications Office. Like Consigliere, they have no reverse gear. They just hit the gas and continue to accelerate.
There was no reason for this to happen in such a public way. We feel sorry for the individual caught in the middle of it.
TheResearcher · 24 July 2026 at 19:55
The individual caught in the middle of it can come forward, apologize, namely to those he plagiarised from, and move forward. If he does not do it, he is no different from those who covered up.
EtonMess · 26 July 2026 at 17:59
Don’t know what a minor workplace incident has to do with plagiarism. Odd.
The objective must be correcting the scientific record quickly and providing reparations that meet the victims’ demands. The disciplinary consequences must be proportionate to the misconduct. After corrections and reparations are made, everyone ought to move forward.
Consiglieri U creates firestorms for itself by covering up or ignoring complaints, empowering bullies and attempting to silence victims.
Eileen Nugent · 2 August 2026 at 00:49
In any of these critical feedback situations the key thing to determine is the ratio of personal abuse with little/no element of critical feedback to critical feedback with little/no element of personal abuse the person is receiving.
If that ratio is high then a valid critical feedback situation in relation to a person raised by those who are in a position to give critical feedback is also being used by others not in a position to give critical feedback as an opportunity to subject a person to personal abuse which provides no additional useful information with which to accurately deal with the critical feedback situation and which creates additional unnecessary risk for a person at a time when a person is already in a high risk situation.
Wonderland · 24 July 2026 at 19:50
The Queen of Hearts is heavily promoted at ConsiglieriU. She loves arbitrary, tyrannical power and political injustice! Alice therefore features her prominently at ConsiglieriU website! The Queen of Hearts has no substance, no CV worthy of note, but she thrives by making false allegations against worthy colleagues so she destroys them and takes their place.
Sad · 24 July 2026 at 19:52
Queen Jean? Or another?
WONDERLAND · 24 July 2026 at 21:43
She is a childish, foul-tempered monarch whom Carroll himself describes as “a blind fury”, and who is quick to give death sentences at even the slightest of offenses
TheResearcher · 24 July 2026 at 21:22
The Times now…
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/education/article/jason-arday-plagiarism-cambridge-nathan-cofnas-q8q6f8lpx
TheResearcher · 24 July 2026 at 22:10
Some of the comments are surreal:
“Personally, I surely think that if you acknowledge your sources, which Arday has done, it’s not cheating? His employers have judged that he hasn’t. They’re my thoughts on the matter. ”
His current employer is Cambridge University, the Cover Up University!
TwoTierJustice · 24 July 2026 at 21:58
A big problem for the university (as alluded to in last thread) is the O’Reilly case. His plagiarism seems minor in comparison with Arday’s, yet the outcome for O’Reilly seems to be very different
Reposted “However William O’Reilly hasn’t been able to co-opt his victimhood to avoid accountability, for years, like Arday has. There’s an entire webpage about Arday (arasite.org). The author made several attempts to alert the university and was ignored to the point he or she had to start a webpage about it.
The Office of Research Integrity (Rhys Morgan) says Arday’s plagiarism isn’t Cambridge’s problem. So obviously Cambridge has known all about Arday but kept shoving the research misconduct under the rug, and they apparently gagged news stories about him.
Compare Arday’s egregious case with WOR’s case and ask yourself why the completely bipolar reactions by Cambridge? One reason might be that WOR has some haters in his department (known for in-fighting), and these haters are powerful. Another reason might be, if you check the biography of the VC, she has close ties to History through her husband, a former historian at Princeton. Might WOR’s haters be pals with the VC or her husband?”
EtonMess · 26 July 2026 at 07:15
I’ve seen the PeerPub posts about him.
At first glance one seems to have tons of examples. A closer look revealed it was two block quotes from the same book, something from 1995. But for whatever reason the PeerPub poster included several photos rather than just two, making the plagiarism look more extensive than it was. If O’Reilly had put some quotation marks around the passages, the problem would’ve been solved. I think any reasonable author would believe it was a careless mistake and accept a sincere apology with corrections. I would.
Had Arday done the same thing (and not repeatedly), I’d say the same thing. But the amount of evidence of Arday’s research misconduct leaves no room for comparison. There’s also the fact O’Reilly’s work was not widely read, written about in major newspapers or promoted by the University. Again there’s no comparison or logical explanation for the outcome for O’Reilly versus the cover up for Arday. Why didn’t the University hire defamation lawyers for O’Reilly too?
Delphine · 28 July 2026 at 17:14
What are you talking about? WOR plagiarised pages from his own undergraduate student’s essay.
Delphine · 28 July 2026 at 18:44
https://www.varsity.co.uk/news/26105
Eileen Nugent · 5 August 2026 at 01:06
If a person is in one situation where the person is a victim – e.g. the person was knocked off their bike – and that has a potential impact on another situation – e.g. the person has a job interview coming up – then a person could raise the fact that they are a victim in one situation to increase the accuracy of accountability in another situation.
The person could explain the reason they were late for a job interview is they were knocked off their bike when a red light was ran. Without taking into account the fact the person was a victim in one situation it is not possible to accurately hold the person to account in another situation. The person acknowledges the true impact of being a victim to themselves and accurately holds themselves to account in the job interview situation – there was nothing they could have done about being late for the job interview because they left home in plenty of time to arrive at the job interview on time and a driver ran a red light and as a result knocked them off their bike. The person explains the true impact of being a victim to those organising the job interview such that they also can accurately hold the person to account in the job interview situation – there was nothing the person could have done about being late to the job interview and those organising the job interview should do what that can to adjust the interview timing to interview the candidate & ensure they hire the best candidate for the job.
If a person didn’t explain/was not permitted to explain the fact they were a victim in one situation there would be inaccurate accountability in another situation and as a result there would be a deeper propagation of a victim state into a persons life than that arising from the original situation where they were a victim. This type of inaccuracy of accountability – person does not explain/person is not permitted to explain the fact they were a victim in one situation that had an impact on another situation – could result in the deeper penetration of a victim state into the life of a person raising the fact they are a victim – loss of a job opportunity. There is also a secondary effect on the lives of others if inaccurate accountability means the best candidate for the job is not hired and the victim state then starts to propagate into the lives of people other than the person who is a victim – loss of the best possible co-worker.
The person could also raise the fact that they are a victim to reduce the accuracy of accountability in a situation. The person could have been so late leaving home for an interview that had they not been in a bike accident they would in any case have been late for the job interview. The person themselves could have ran a red light as a result of being in a hurry and consequently got knocked off their bike by a driver taken by surprise. If in raising the fact that they were a victim in one situation – knocked off their bike accident – the person hides relevant details – would have been late for the job interview in any case, the person themselves ran a red light – then the person is not willing to acknowledge the true impact of being a victim in one situation to accurately hold themselves to account in another situation. In this case in raising the fact that they were a victim with others – those organising the job interviews – the person has also left others in a position where they cannot accurately hold the person to account in the job interview situation. The people organising the job interviews are being asked to adjust the interview timing as if the person could not have done anything about being late for the interview when this is not the case. If the interview timing is adjusted a chronically late employee might be hired into a position where timekeeping is critical to the detriment of future co-workers.
In this case when the person explains the fact they were a victim in one situation with hidden relevant information there is inaccurate accountability in another situation and as a result there is a propagation of a victim state arising in one situation into the lives of people other than the person raising the fact they are a victim. There is also a deeper propagation of a victim state in the life of the person who is a victim as it has resulted in a decreased ability of a person to hold themselves accurately to account i.e. the person is less able to rely on themselves going forward. This type of inaccuracy in accountability can result in the propagation of victim states into the lives of people other than the person raising the fact they are a victim and in a deeper propagation of a victim state into the life of the person who is a victim.
Inaccurate accountability can result in deeper propagation of a victim state arising in one situation into the life of a person who is a victim in that situation or into the lives of others were are not victims in that situation. Accurate accountability minimises the propagation of a victim state arising in one situation into the life of any person.
The key challenge in moving to addressing systemic problems and a person being a victim in relation to a systemic problem is developing the ability – individual and systemic – to accurately assess the impact of a systemic problem on a person. Without developing the ability to accurately assess the impact of a systemic problem on people & at the level of a person it is not possible to address a systemic problem without creating an even bigger systemic problem and/or additional systemic problems. The ability to address a systemic problem rests on accurate accountability in order to minimise the propagation of any victim states arising from that systemic problem through the life of any person.
If one aim of the social sciences is to address systemic problems then the resistance of an academics working in the social science to other academics applying standard academic error correction processes to research in the social sciences to improve the overall accuracy of research in the social sciences is a significant barrier to addressing systemic problems with social science research. Without that it’s not possible to develop the ability – individual and systemic – to accurately assess the impact of a systemic problem on people at the level of a person. It’s not then possible to work towards a state of accurate accountability where the propagation of victim states arising from a systemic problem through the lives of any person is at a minimum.
If a person is raising the fact they are/were a victim in a situation the key thing is whether the person is raising the fact they are/were a victim to increase or reduce the accuracy of accountability in a situation.
PressWatch · 25 July 2026 at 06:05
The Daily Mail have their piece out
https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-16003587/Plagiarism-jealousy-youngest-black-professor-Cambridge-life-story.html
You can also view it here
https://archive.is/7lvL5#selection-1527.0-1555.121
Daily Mail comments section will now explode, as these people are barely sane. Intereting to see if the G touches this story, my guess no
And the FT are busy with another Cambridge academic
TheResearcher · 25 July 2026 at 07:00
“FT are busy with another Cambridge academic”
Not very hard to know who the Cambridge academic is; we do not need BreakerMorant for this one! 😂
But will FT update and apologize for their pathetic ranking? Is UCam still the “UK’s Best Employer”?
BreakerMorant · 25 July 2026 at 07:22
**** BREAKING ****
The pieces are moving behind the scenes. Keep watching. Not everything will surface all at once.
The scandal is building. We haven’t yet seen the rotten core.
The Breaker is always at work. There’s always much more to break.
TheResearcher · 25 July 2026 at 07:42
I know! But please, do not forget POLIS! 😂
I have been waiting for an article in the Guardian on it since July 2025 and nothing… I even asked the Head of Department about that article and they I got investigated!
EtonMess · 26 July 2026 at 07:18
Does anyone know who these people are? FT I mean.
Xerxes · 26 July 2026 at 08:04
FT = Financial Times
A number of newspapers are investigating activities of James Orr, Associate Professor of Philosophy of Religion at the Faculty of Divinity,
Cambridge are battling multiple firestorms.
TheResearcher · 26 July 2026 at 08:23
Orr and others 😉
Ssssssssssh for now!
https://21percent.org/?p=3433
EtonMess · 26 July 2026 at 17:21
Thanks, Xerxes
Was curious if it was same journalist/journalists who wrote about another Cambridge academic a while back
Probably not.
Eileen Nugent · 2 August 2026 at 02:43
“The author himself was less impressed. In an email to Dr Harris, he wrote: ‘Instead of spending your time trying to dismantle racism and ableism, you have spent what I assume is hours combing through my work looking for mistakes and then reporting them to various institutions.”
Is it not possible to make a valid contribution to an academics aim – whatever that aim happens to be – by putting the academics work through the same set of academic error correction processes that academic work relating to all other subjects is now being put through to improve the overall accuracy of academic work in different subjects?
Doesn’t academic work aimed at anything – e.g. curing a medical condition – have a higher probability of fulfilling its intended aim if the academic work is more accurate? If a person checks academic work aimed at curing a medical condition for accuracy is the person not making a valid contribution to the aim of that academic work?
Sad · 25 July 2026 at 06:14
The attacks are broadening. The Daily Mail has more material than just the Cofnas piece. The press are now starting to dig.
Which brings us back to the criticism of Dave Harris, an expert and published author on ‘critical race theory’, the deeply divisive ideology that sees blackness as victimhood and whiteness as oppression and which has taken root in so many British educational establishments, including Cambridge.
Three years ago, he wrote to Professor Arday about some of his papers, admitting to ‘confusion’ over data he provides.
He was particularly struck by a 2022 paper about mental health among students in which Arday quotes a 38-year-old Latin-American academic talking about her struggles learning English.
According to Dr Harris, she uses many of the same words attributed to an Asian undergraduate he quotes in a 2018 study. Both talk about their fear of being ‘heavily medicated’.
Elsewhere, Dr Harris notes ‘several unorthodox spelling and grammatical constructions’, such as ‘boarder’ for ‘border’ and ‘curricula’ for ‘curricular’.
He acknowledges that some of these inconsistencies can arise through speech recognition software, but suggests Arday has been ‘let down badly’ by his peer referees who failed to pick them up.
After having these ‘oddities’ pointed out, several journal administrators issued corrections to some of Arday’s material.
Also the Mail are looking at more of his life story claims
Nonetheless, the claims have also triggered questions about other aspects of Professor Arday’s life.
One was his assertion in an interview in 2023 with The Guardian newspaper – one of his biggest cheerleaders – that ‘he has barely slept over the past 15 years’ because he was ‘working through most nights, often on his academic and charity work, but sometimes just to make ends meet’.
All the more remarkable, you might think, when you consider that period must have included his endurance marathon running.
To that end, last night it emerged that Arday’s profile page at Anglia Ruskin University appears to have been quietly edited. On February 28, the page seemingly claimed he had run ‘600 miles in six days for charity’. By yesterday, this had been amended to achieving the same distance ‘in 12 days’.
As if pre-empting the criticism coming his way, Arday writes in his book that ‘the suggestion that I somehow wasn’t worthy of my success would be levied against me time and again’.
MyPennies · 25 July 2026 at 06:40
Alice — AQ : Mad Hatter – AH: March Hare – BV: Dormouse – MG
Sad · 25 July 2026 at 06:45
Also on yahoo news; from Prof David Harris.
“I am mentioned in this article. Profs Cremin and Morgan of Cambridge ignored my (polite and tentative) identification of problems with some articles in May 2025. Prof Morgan said it was just not his concern because the articles were published before Arday took post They have not contacted me since so I had no idea they carried out any further investigation. I would like details of what they actually did.
My email, to LJMU, with some details of problems in the PhD, was also dismissed.I understand a full dossier of the ‘similarities’ between the theses was sent to them in 2025 and contained examples that ran to 80 pages.
Finally, I hope there is no suggestion that I am part of a ‘vile campaign’ or a racist attack on Prof Arday. My views on racism in Britain have been published recently and long extracts are available for all to read on Amazon: Harris D (2024) Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Social Science: a Critique”
VCwatch · 25 July 2026 at 06:48
Right, it seems like Prentice and her Gang have a major news story about to overwhelm them.
I’ve every confidence in them.
Has someone told Debs yet?
PressWatch · 25 July 2026 at 06:52
This almost reads as if Cambridge have been pranked. If so, it’s up there with the Sokal hoax.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair
TheResearcher · 25 July 2026 at 07:17
On 30 December 2025, the 21 Group wrote:
“Universities are brand-driven institutions. Brand-dependent organizations unravel quickly when misconduct and corruption is exposed. The 21 Group predicts in ten years time, there will be Harvard Business School MBA course on “The Decline and Fall of Consigliere University”.”
https://21percent.org/?p=3097
Do we really need to wait 10 years for this course? The first 7 months of 2026 were brutal for Consigliere University, and some of its biggest scandals are not even out yet!
Judge BS · 25 July 2026 at 08:14
Perhaps now that Munir is returning to teaching he can propose this course at Judge. I am sure he has plenty of knowledge of the case study material!!!
Eileen Nugent · 3 August 2026 at 13:08
Becoming a brand-driven organisation is a risk for any organisation that becomes conscious the fact it has a brand and that the brand of an organisation is something an organisation can put to use for its own organisational ends
If an organisation becomes conscious of the fact it has a brand and that building/maintaining a brand could be useful for an organisation it might then start to couple to the purpose of building/maintaining a brand. The coupling of the organisation to a new purpose – building/maintaining a brand – could be done in ways the reduce the coupling of the organisation to its main purpose as an organisation. This can then start a process in an organisation where the organisation is increasingly coupling to the purpose of building/maintaining a brand while it is in tandem increasingly decoupling from its main purpose as an organisation i.e. building/maintaining the substance of the organisation.
An example of this is an organisation running aggressive marketing campaigns in the public domain coupled to aggressive suppression of negative feedback in the public domain and a general unwillingness to accept and address any negative feedback in relation to what is being marketed. There is then no functional feedback loop operating to act on the substance of what is being aggressively marketed and bring it to a state where the substance of what is being marketed is continuously matching the marketing that is being done in relation to that substance.
The brand is then being built up in ways that are either not improving the substance of the brand or are hollowing out the substance of the brand i.e. there is a loss of brand accuracy and of brand sustainability. Brand should rise in tandem with the substance of the brand rising and not have brand kinetics where the brand is rising in tandem with the substance of the brand either staying static or falling. Eventually the organisation can become a brand driven organisation where the main purpose of the organisation is to build/maintain its brand and where the original main purpose of the organisation is sidelined to a secondary purpose of the organisation. The brand is then continuously being built on hollowing out the substance of the organisation. In this case there is a significant risk both of there being misconduct and corruption in the organisation and of an organisation unravelling quickly when misconduct and corruption is exposed.
Building/maintain a brand could be done in ways that consciously acknowledge the fact the purpose of building/maintaining a brand is to put a brand to use in service of the main purpose of the organisation. This would put constraints on the ways in which a brand could be built/maintained and ensure due consideration is given to the need to maintain both brand accuracy and brand sustainability. This would continuously keep organisational focus on the main purpose of the organisation and organisational effort on the substance the brand is being built around.
EtonMess · 26 July 2026 at 06:54
Another great post.
Learning a lot from this blog and people in the comments section.
Calamity as a bringing opportunity is 100% the approach of this university. Unless they hate the academic being targeted and side with the bullies.
Sight_v2 · 26 July 2026 at 10:44
Just read your post linked here:
https://21percent.org/?p=3097
It is fucking surreal that 21 Group forecast at the start of the year exactly what was about to happen, and then, it all happened exactly as foretold.
TheResearcher · 26 July 2026 at 11:06
Consigliere University became very predictable 😂
Note that we are only in July. We still have a few months left of news!
Anon · 26 July 2026 at 12:20
I suspect that a lot of these scandals, as well as the press interest, were already widely known within the university by that point. The 21 Group had merely alluded to what many had already heard from dabbles of rumour and hearsay going around. At that point it was all containable, I would imagine, but in the nine months since, we have seen a catastrophic failure of management not to use that intervening period to defuse the situation (especially given Rampton’s departure). I am sadly not surprised that Pro VCs are resigning or considering their options.
TheResearcher · 26 July 2026 at 12:53
Many people knew about this, including the gagging of journalists, and the University decided to cover it up. It was just a question of time until this would become public. The same will happen with the other scandals that are not yet public.
This situation does not result from a single individual, Rampton or any other. But from a culture of secrecy and cover up of misconduct that puts reputation management as the top priority, and a group of senior leaders who do have very poor morals. Which ProVC do you think has what it takes for changing the situation? If they are leaving, is because they know what is coming and their involvement in it.
Eileen Nugent · 3 August 2026 at 11:25
The problems encountered here are systemic problems. In the early stages of a systemic problem it may be enough to change the positions people occupy in the system and/or to change the people in positions of power in the system to address the systemic problem but if repeatedly doing that does not address the systemic problem then the systemic problem deepens and eventually it becomes necessary to work out how to support people to change in whatever position they happen occupy in the system in order to deal with the systemic problem and prevent the same systemic problem from emerging again.
Jay · 26 July 2026 at 14:04
This is true.
If the 21 Group could see what was going to happen, why could not the senior leadership team?
the_doctor_is_in · 26 July 2026 at 13:36
The defining features of narcissistic personality disorder are inflated self-image, the failure to take responsibility, and the projection of blame on to others.
This is a case of institutional NPD – an entire public institution that seems incapable of acknowledging fault or making amends. It is sustained by a groupthink culture that feeds on flattery and deafness to criticism, and systematically ignores reports of astonishing abuses.
TheResearcher · 26 July 2026 at 14:28
Is retaliatory behaviour a common feature of a narcissistic personality? If yes, then UCam nails it.
Eileen Nugent · 3 August 2026 at 10:52
If people are given access to substantial organisational funds to pay to not acknowledge fault and to not make amends there is then never any need to go through the organisational pain of acknowledging fault or making amends. These are the conditions in which organisational self image can continuously inflate, in which organisational responsibility never needs to be taken, in which blame can be projected onto anyone who criticises the organisation who is then offered a pay out to stop them criticising the organisation.
EtonMess · 26 July 2026 at 17:29
Dangerous for the victims if they must bring their complaints to an uncontrolled Narcissist.