The Vice Chancellor of Buckingham University — whose friends include Boris Johnson , Liz Truss and half the Tory Establishment — has devoted recent years to combating the wokery that infests other corners of the sprawling sector. This high-profile stewardship led to an extraordinary turnaround in fortunes for the small private university, which educates 3,odd students via intensive two-year degree courses.
Success often attracts critics, however. Especially when you take on the forces of political correctness. James Tooley pictured with his now ex-wife Cynthia Tooley. An ensuing media frenzy not only saw the year-old publicly shamed, but also led to him being briefly barred from his home, the grace-and-favour Ondaatje Hall on the banks of the River Ouse. The findings have come as no surprise to friends of Tooley, a mild-mannered and kindly character who devoted most of his adult life prior to joining Buckingham to establishing low-cost private schools in the developing world.
Those who know the man say he has been deeply traumatised by the events of recent months. They believe that the attempted putsch was part of an orchestrated Left-wing witch hunt designed to unjustly push him out of a job.
It remains unclear how much the affair, and its fallout, will end up costing. James Tooley is pictured here with his wife Cynthia at a Downing Street event, shared by her on Instagram. As a result, friends say, heads must now roll. To understand how this shambles came to pass, one must appreciate the truly surreal circumstances in which Tooley was originally suspended back in October. Only now can this story be properly told. At its centre are two curious facts. The group appear to have become particularly concerned about his forays into the culture wars.
Cynthia, a Nigerian-born entrepreneur, TV personality and mother-of-two — who, at 41, is almost a quarter of a century younger than Tooley — had married him after a whirlwind relationship in February Relations became strained last summer and by the time the autumn term started, Tooley was speaking to a divorce lawyer. Her first complaint involved a firearm: she claimed that Tooley was illegally keeping an unlicensed weapon at his grace-and-favour home.
