A toxic divorce, police called over an air pistol - and a missing cat. GUY ADAMS unravels... The Kafkaesque tale of how the boss of Britain's only anti-woke university, who's famous for attacking cancel culture, has been summarily CANCELLED
To his many fans and friends, who include Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, and a hefty cross-section of the Tory establishment, James Nicholas Tooley is a hero of our times.
The 65-year-old Vice Chancellor of Buckingham University has become one of Britain's most high-profile academics, thanks to his energetic opposition to cancel culture.
An eloquent defender of academic freedom, Tooley has welcomed 'no-platformed' speakers to his lecture halls and tirelessly campaigned (as a talking head on TV and radio) for laws to protect free speech on campus.
Under Tooley, who took office in 2020, Buckingham is unafraid to fight culture wars. In fact, it recently established a new department dedicated to studying the so-called 'woke' movement.
At the opening ceremony, the Vice Chancellor said he felt the university's founder Margaret Thatcher 'at his shoulder,' adding 'nine out of ten social science academics in the UK are Left-leaning. We want to give a voice to conservatism, classical liberalism and libertarianism'.
James Tooley and his wife Cynthia outside No 10 Downing Street. The Vice Chancellor of Buckingham University was the subject of a bizarre police investigation leading to his suspension
His speech also accused Cambridge of 'discriminating' against 'the privately educated, particularly white males', and dubbed efforts to 'decolonise' curriculums 'dangerous' and misguided.
Such remarks are, supporters say, entirely in keeping with the ethos of Buckingham, the most prominent independent university in Britain.
Founded by Royal Charter in the 1970s, it was the brainchild of eminent Tories, determined to provide a privately-run counterweight to the Left-wing orthodoxy they believed was infecting higher education.
Now a registered charity, with around 3,000 students, it's required by constitution to remain fiercely independent and uphold classical liberal ideals.
Yet cancel culture can these days take root at the most unlikely of institutions – even at Britain's only 'anti-woke' university. Just look what happened this week to James Nicholas Tooley.
This Kafkaesque and, at times, utterly surreal tale revolves around fear, loathing, a toxic divorce, and a bizarre police investigation.
There are further side-plots involving a firearm, an abandoned cat and the anti-Islamist writer and campaigner Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
It all kicked off late last Friday, when Tooley was suddenly – and very publicly – suspended from his £229,000-a-year role, due to what the university claimed were 'a number of serious allegations' about his conduct.
The shock news was announced via an email that, for reasons which remain unclear, was sent to staff and students at the peculiar hour of 9pm.
It was signed by Mark St John Qualter, a Liverpudlian 'fin-tech' entrepreneur who chairs Buckingham's governing council.
Qualter did not specify what were the 'serious allegations' he'd decided to suspend Tooley for. Nor did he say who might have made them.
Instead, he told staff and students not to contact the Vice Chancellor, saying the council now intends to 'carry out an independent inquiry to ascertain the veracity of these claims'.
All very peculiar. Tooley, for his part, then denied wrongdoing, responding via his lawyer that 'the allegations made against me are baseless and malicious'.
Six days later, on Thursday, an 'update' was emailed to Buckingham's staff by Harriet Dunbar-Morris, an administrator who, in Tooley's absence, has been promoted to 'interim co-head'.
Her message no longer described the 'allegations' against Tooley as 'serious', but revealed that a supposedly 'thorough and impartial investigation' has now been 'initiated'. It will, she explained, follow 'best practice'.
So what exactly are the mysterious claims? And why was he suspended before they were even investigated? Here is where things take a further, surreal turn.
I can reveal that the principal 'allegation' was actually made by Tooley's estranged wife, Cynthia, with whom he is in the throes of negotiating an acrimonious divorce.
Cynthia, a Nigerian-born entrepreneur, TV personality and mother-of-two who, at 41, is almost a quarter of a century younger than Tooley, married him after a whirlwind relationship in February 2022.
The couple parted over the summer. He asked her to move out of Ondaatje Hall, the Vice Chancellor's stunning grace-and-favour residence on the banks of the River Ouse. She blocked him on social media. They now communicate via lawyers.
On Friday morning last week, things escalated and Tooley was called into an 'urgent' meeting by Qualter. There followed an Orwellian discussion in which he was told he'd been accused of something 'serious' but not informed who by, or what the alleged misdemeanour was.
Tooley was then told to vacate Ondaatje Hall within two hours, leave the campus, and not to return without permission.
Tooley is famous for his free speech campaigning and anti-woke views
Shortly afterwards, officers from Thames Valley Police descended on the property and carried out a search. That evening, Tooley's suspension was announced.
So what was going on?
I have since established that the police were called in to investigate a shocking claim that had been made to Buckingham University by Cynthia.
She alleged that her estranged husband was keeping an 'unlicensed firearm' on the premises. As they soon established, no such thing was true: he in fact owned a small bore air pistol, of a type commonly used by children for target shooting. Such devices are legal and do not need to be licensed.
'At around 2.04pm on Friday October 11, we received reports of a suspicious object on Church Street, Buckingham,' confirms Thames Valley Police. 'Officers investigated, and it was deemed no crime had been committed.'
Be that as it may, Qualter, who appears to have been in discussion with Cynthia, for some reason took the view that Tooley ought to be suspended while the whole thing was further investigated. What's more, he decided it was appropriate to make this sanction public, via email, that very night.
Friends and colleagues of Tooley are duly outraged.
'This is a complete perversion of natural justice,' is how a well-known lecturer puts it.
'By immediately suspending James, and choosing to tell everyone about it, the council have given every impression they believe the claims are not only serious and potentially damaging, but also true.
'It's a complete breach of confidence and privacy. As such, the university is actually participating in cancel culture, where due process is suspended and the burden of proof reversed.'
Particularly upsetting to Tooley's supporters is the manner in which he was ejected from his home.
'To kick a 65-year-old man out on a Friday afternoon and then make the whole thing public is just bloody reprehensible', says another friend.
'James is a very sweet man who is devastated at the breakdown of his marriage and in quite a vulnerable place. Treating him like this is revolting.'
A prominent colleague, security expert Professor Anthony Glees, adds: 'It's extraordinary that someone would be asked to vacate their family home under these circumstances. What is also extraordinary is that all this has been made public.'
There has since followed six days in which Tooley has been banned from accessing his own home.
'The university decided to station a security guard outside the front door, giving every impression the place is a crime scene,' says a friend. 'It's grotesque.'
What's more, I am told Tooley has been unable to ascertain the location of his ex-wife's cat, which she had left behind at the property when she moved out. He believes it has been abandoned in a room that no-one has a key for, for a period of several days.
Behind this mess lies a broader disagreement about the direction of Buckingham University under Tooley. On one side sit various other members of Buckingham's governing council, who are believed to have grown increasingly uncomfortable with his ongoing public attacks on cancel culture.
They are thought to be particularly unhappy over a recent proposal to hire Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the whip-smart wife of conservative historian (and Mail columnist) Sir Niall Ferguson, to work in his newly-created department, studying the 'woke' movement.
'The council started off as a body of conservative thinkers, but like all these bodies it has been taken over by local grandees and people from business and the public sector who are steeped in EDI [Equality, diversity and inclusion] woke ideology,' says an ally of Tooley.
'Several of them have been trying for some time to force James out, and are actively trying to block the appointment of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, on the grounds they think her attacks on Islamism will lead to people calling the university racist.
'This ridiculous claim that he was keeping an illegal gun provided them with an excuse to sideline him, and that's exactly what they have done.'
Tooley is, perhaps understandably, now lawyered up. He has hired the noted rottweiler solicitor Donal Blaney to fight his corner.
'James wants his job back, and his home back, a grovelling public apology, and the payment of his already hefty costs,' says a friend. 'Anything short of that, and he will also be looking for a very large amount in compensation.'
Any legal claim will doubtless scrutinise the process via which Tooley was sanctioned.
Under Buckingham's governing charter and ordinances, which are designed to protect academic freedom, Vice Chancellors can only be suspended in specific circumstances. Namely, after a 'consultation with the council' carried out by its secretary, who today is one Sam Weston. This needs to happen before suspension occurs.
Despite that rule, I gather that Buckingham's 20-member council did not meet to discuss the whole thing until Monday this week, some three days after Mr Tooley's punishment had been announced.
No explanation for this discrepancy has been offered, despite the Mail raising it with several high profile members of the body, including the Tory peer Lord Peter Lilley and the retired former police chief Sir Francis Habgood. Mr Weston did not respond to emails, and the university's PR department refused to comment.
Buckingham students outside St Peter and St Paul Church on graduation day in 2009
Colleagues believe that if Tooley is eventually exonerated, several members of the body will be forced to resign.
'James is generally very popular among teaching staff, and many of us think this stinks', observed one senior don. 'It seems to me that a group that disagrees with his high-profile campaigns on freedom of speech and academic freedom have for some time been looking for reasons to get rid of him and have decided to grab this chance.
'If it later turns out that an injustice has been done – and many of us believe it might have – those responsible will have to pay a heavy price.'
There are also growing concerns about the quality of Buckingham's 'investigation' into the affair. I understand that, although the police ruled no crime had been committed, the university saw fit to hire a firearms expert to go to the house to examine it.
'He took one look at the air pistol and laughed in their face,' I am told. 'The whole thing is a car crash.'
Complicating the political picture is the fact that Cynthia Tooley regards Buckingham's honorary Chancellor, Dame Mary Archer as a close friend, while James has a host of allies among senior Tory grandees.
Mrs Tooley is an interesting character. Originally from Nigeria, she came to the UK in 2004 to study, and has told interviewers of initially struggling to find work and experiencing severe financial hardship that forced her to survive off just £10 a week.
Her life changed in 2009 when, after having a first child, she decided to earn extra cash by making cakes. That led to her founding a successful business, The Pretty Gorgeous Cake Company.
A TV career ensued, with spots as a cookery judge on The Food Network and the BBC's The Sweet Makers when she was introduced as Cynthia Stroud, seemingly her surname from a previous failed marriage. She also popped up on Kirstie Allsop's Handmade Christmas in 2017, and launched a YouTube channel named The Sugar Free Baker.
Then Covid struck, and the market for her £600-plus wedding cakes collapsed. Cynthia, who was by now based in Buckingham, instead devoted herself to charitable work, co-founding a Christian organisation called Jedidiah Pantry, which runs food banks.
Around this time she also met Tooley. They married in 2022, and also that year Cynthia was awarded an MBE for services to Business, Mentoring and Charity.
She would frequently post affectionate pictures of James on social media, but he last graced her feeds in February, when she uploaded images of them entertaining politicians at Ondaatje House, including Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Arlene Foster. She did not comment on this week's events.
The new crisis completes a messy few years for the university.
Previous VC Anthony Seldon left it in a serious financial hole, after striking a disastrous deal to open a campus in Crewe. There was £17 million deficit in his final year.
Buckingham, the country's oldest private university, was founded in 1976 and granted university status seven years later. It has recently navigated a financial hole and a drop in league tables
Tooley, an educationalist who made his name founding low-cost private schools in the developing world, arrived at Buckingham in 2020, and was required to navigate the financial mess while also dealing with the effects of Covid.
The process has been choppy (Buckingham has dropped in the league tables and was fined £37,000 by the Office of Students for filing its 2019 accounts late) but its finances have now been regularised and student numbers have risen. The very last thing it now needs is a messy scandal.
'James Tooley has been an outstanding Vice Chancellor, turning round a big deficit and putting Buckingham firmly on the map,' says one of its best-known lecturers, Lord (Dan) Hannan.
'If there are allegations against him, they need to be dealt with immediately. It is not in anyone's interest, least of all that of the students, to have this hanging over the university. By immediately, I mean within days. Otherwise, the process becomes its own punishment.'
Or, to put things another way, this surreal affair means the university Thatcher built is now in real danger of cancelling itself.
