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Sally

@sallyapiacere.bsky.social
586 followers 516 following 582 posts

Musician, reader, big sister, Old Labour. I live just below the windswept moral highground. It's densely populated here and, despite its messy ambiguities, it's warmer and more friendly.

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Sally @sallyapiacere.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
"Don’t be silly. I can hear you. I just can’t hear exactly what word you’re saying," said my 90yo mum just now. #hearingaids #mum
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Sally @sallyapiacere.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
I agree: music is too important to be a privilege of the few. And I think the private graded exam system is problematic on many levels, from pedagogical to the outrageous social injustice of how it earns ucas tariff points: an advantage to uni entrance *only* available to those who can afford it.
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Sally @sallyapiacere.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
I feel like I'm living in a massive, seething, violent Hieronymus Bosch painting, and somewhere far away Andy Burnham is singing 'Always Look On The Bright Side of Life' and strumming 4 chords on his guitar.
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Sally @sallyapiacere.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
So many tiny moments, though, to choose from. I can't forget Orr's patrician wave of the hand as he drawled how useless the Electoral Commission is.
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Sally @sallyapiacere.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
I'm intensely curious to know what kind of conversations are going on at #bbcnews and #Newsnight following #c4news expose of Reform / James Orr.
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Sally @sallyapiacere.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
An even more interesting question for @cam.ac.uk following #c4news expose of Reform, and James Orr's special role in it.
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Sally @sallyapiacere.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
I wonder if he's eyeing up Cambridge. The Tories can't win it, so no fear of splitting the vote. UK students newly politicised due to Gaza (but being roused to vote is another q.). High turnout. And a huge swathe of alienated Labour voters. Tony Juniper got 7.6% here, but in 2010.
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Sally @sallyapiacere.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Yes. I think it was hiding in plain sight all along. What a surprise, given his previous record. Although I don't know if it's right-wingers who really run Labour so much as extremely right-wing media owners.
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William Shakespeare @shakespeare.lol · 25/08/2026
[Exit Queen.]
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Sally @sallyapiacere.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
@bylinetimes.bsky.social Just got yr email about this event. I'm still trying to understand how and why this happened to Jason Arday. But is this in-person only – no way to watch a livestream/be in a zoom audience? Can you live-post? Publish a transcript? www.thecockpit.org.uk/show/the_lur...
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Sally @sallyapiacere.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Here's a neat illustration of 'will' vs 'would' from @theguardian.com .
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Sally @sallyapiacere.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Same. It's very restful, actually, to not care at all about something in the news. I like it.
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Sally @sallyapiacere.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
You can sense the mainstream media trying to deflect the focus over onto Cambridge University. Not that the uni is likely to be blameless, but it was the media coverage that killed a man.
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Sally @sallyapiacere.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
I am glad that @lucympowell.bsky.social broadened this curiously narrow question about the culpability of Cambridge University to include the media coverage. #c4news
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Sally @sallyapiacere.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
I'm waiting to see how the "serious broadsheets" re-draw their defensive lines now that the real story about Jason Arday comes - hopefully - into clearer focus with the suspension of Nathan Cofnas, the racist.
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Sally @sallyapiacere.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
This just gets worse and worse.
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Sally @sallyapiacere.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Yes - this started with David Cameron but I forgot the names, so this is helpful. Just 1 thing: I think Alison Fuller Pedley died in 2025 - and she was active from the 1980s, when she worked with Jonathan Dimbleby. Perhaps he commended her to his brother.
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Sally @sallyapiacere.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
The personal/political disintegration towards the end of that book often comes to my mind now.
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Sally @sallyapiacere.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
That's my point. I think you could count on one hand the "TV dons" who count as public figures - Mary Beard, Brian Cox, perhaps, although even then, 'promiment' is a bit much – but Jason Arday was obscure.
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Sally @sallyapiacere.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Yes, journalists must 'report what they find, in a way that is considered [&] proportionate'. The Guardian coverage was neither. Its defensive lines - this statement, Hugh Muir calling Jason Arday a "prominent public figure" & promising to focus on the 'institutions involved' - don't erase that.
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Sally @sallyapiacere.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Which other academics – or "prominent figures" as Hugh Muir calls Jason Arday – have @theguardian.com's "professional, responsible, empathetic journalists" scrutinized in this way?
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elia ayoub @ayoub.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
friend showed me this: The Sun's racist attack against Benjamin Zephaniah in 1987 when he went to.... Cambridge 39 years before Jason Arday
"would you let this man near your daughter?"
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Sally @sallyapiacere.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
This is defensive and disappointing. He was not a "prominent figure". Your relentless [news] coverage didn't merely "seek the truth": it pursued the man, with cruelty. You flayed him. As for the attempt to divert attention away to the 'institutions involved': you're one of them.
theguardian.com
A rightwing witch-hunt focused on Jason Arday – but so did legitimate journalism | Hugh Muir
Amid the grief and rage at a tragic loss, it’s right to differentiate between those who fought a culture war and others who just sought the truth, says Hugh Muir, executive editor, Opinion
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Sally @sallyapiacere.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
I'm glad the Guardian's complicity is being addressed. The lack of accuracy of its news reporting, its extraordinary, sustained cruelty, was shocking. Now, having read about these attempts at mitigation, its editorial decisions beggar belief. bsky.app/profile/sall...
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pmamtraveller.bsky.social @pmamtraveller.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Each circle has a different story.
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Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
NEW: It was a digital lynching. And the media is never going to hold itself to account for the role it played in Jason Arday’s death. But there are things we can do. This is a practical guide based on my own experience. broligarchy.substack.com/p/a-digital-...
broligarchy.substack.com
A Digital Lynching
A practical guide for individuals and organisations when the mobs gather
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Sally @sallyapiacere.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Yes, even if one believed every one-sided, un-contextualised detail, it just seemed peculiar as a news story in itself. Then there was the unremitting nature of the coverage. It was the cruellest thing I've ever seen.
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Dr Mary McAuliffe @drmarymcauliffe.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
‘Cruelty has become more than an individual failing. It has become a political language, a cultural spectacle, and increasingly a governing principle. It is within this poisoned landscape that authoritarian and fascist subjectivities flourish ..’ www.counterpunch.org/2026/08/17/j...
counterpunch.org
Jason Arday and the Machinery of Cruelty
I am sickened and deeply saddened by the death of Jason Arday. He was only 41, a young man whose life was cut short following a period of intense public controversy and scrutiny, much of it shaped by ...
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Sally @sallyapiacere.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
I think @theguardian.com's complicity is disproportionately significant because it was the 1 place Jason Arday might have hoped to find fair reporting. Imagine feeling there was no place of refuge; the isolation & despair. They ran him as their top online story for 2 DAYS while the planet burned.
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Sally @sallyapiacere.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
I think the Guardian's role in Jason Arday's suicide is disproportionately significant precisely because the one place he might have expected to find fair treatment was (past tense) the Guardian. I can't know, but I can imagine the isolation of feeling that there was no refuge, no safe space.
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Sally @sallyapiacere.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Yes, once, the Guardian's reporting would have provided some context and fairness - some comfort for him. But he must have felt that there was no refuge or respite.
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Sally @sallyapiacere.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Thank you. I think there's a vigil in Cambridge (Market Square) today as well, at 6.30pm.
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elia ayoub @ayoub.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Trafalgar Square today www.instagram.com/p/DcCbpUGCGS...
Vigil for Jason Arday
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Sally @sallyapiacere.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
I hope his family know that complete strangers are moved by - in pain for - him and were horrified, day after day, by what was done to him, including by the Guardian. I keep looking for some kind of public memorial service somewhere. www.jesus.cam.ac.uk/articles/jas...
jesus.cam.ac.uk
Jason Arday
People across our community are experiencing shock and disbelief following the tragic and untimely death of Jason Arday.What people won't necessarily know from
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Corinne Fowler @corinnefowler.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
#JasonArday phoned me a few days ago to talk to someone who knows what media abuse feels like. His untimely death shows why we need part 2 of the Leveson enquiry into media conduct
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James Ball @jamesrball.com · 16/08/2026
A former director of BBC News speaks:
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Sinan Kose @thesinankose.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
I think it's bad that the UK press can escalate what is essentially a workplace matter into national news ahead of the fucking country being on fire and then get away with hounding their victim until they die.
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Sally @sallyapiacere.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
"Nigel *adores* democracy" – Richard Tice radiating glibness and insincerity. #Newsnight
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Sally @sallyapiacere.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
What a shame that #Newsnight only managed to find interviewees like these - people able to provide context and an alternative view backed up by fact - after Jason Arday died.
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Sally @sallyapiacere.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
'at this moment of maximum grief' - stop being so patronising, ffs. She's just made an entirely cogent and lucid point. #Newsnight
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Sally @sallyapiacere.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Repeating what's in the public domain isn't a defence if it's wrong. #Newsnight
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Sally @sallyapiacere.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Yes @theguardian.com has a lot to answer for. They run this man as their top story for 48 hours.
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Sally @sallyapiacere.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Isn’t it awful. He had two children.
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Sally @sallyapiacere.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Jason Arday has committed suicide. He was never the story. Proud of yourselves, @theguardian.com ?
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Sally @sallyapiacere.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
My sister and I doing a spot of late-night sanding and diy. Those are Prada sunglasses I’m wearing. 💪
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Sally @sallyapiacere.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
The colour is Climate Change Pink and Apocalypse Yellow. Farrow & Ball also bringing out a sophisticated Parched Lawn and Enshittification Brown in their new End Times range.
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James Ball @jamesrball.com · 09/08/2026
This chart does sort of summarise the Starmer government. Just not really in the way it was intended.
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Sally @sallyapiacere.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
This is incredibly sad.
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Sally @sallyapiacere.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
Yes, very sad. I wonder if we could ever have a Mamdani here, or a Pedro Sanchez. And actually, whether they would have taken down John Smith, who seemed pretty decent.
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Sally @sallyapiacere.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
I guess, "Posh Uni messes up its generally rigorous recruitment process in unseemly haste to redress a lack of diversity in academe, the root causes of which lie outside of academe," isn't as exciting as: Jason Arday is a fabulist! Heyyyy, look at our clicks! Update our ad sales dept! #JasonArday
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