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Lend me your Xs or you’ll get Boris
Magnus Linklater
Columnist, The Times
This article,
which was originally published in The TIMES on 1st February 2006,
is reproduced on Land-Care with the kind permission of
the author and the newspaper
Filed 08 Feb 06
©Magnus Linklater
Forced to attend lectures?
Make me Rector of Edinburgh and I'll resist that awful threat
THIS COLUMN is a naked abuse of editorial freedom,
a clear conflict of interest and an unashamed exercise in self-promotion.
But if I am to beat Boris Johnson, then I say, to hell with it,
anything goes.
I am standing as a candidate for the rectorship
of Edinburgh university, and just now Boris is the front-runner.
His posters are everywhere, that foppish blond hair and self-deprecating
grin stare out at you wherever you go around the campus. He's been
out clubbing with the students and had beer poured over his head,
which must be worth a couple of hundred votes. He's been on Have
I Got News for You? and claims to be a Shadow spokesman for higher
education. So I need to get my message out, using every means, fair
or foul, at my disposal.
My pitch goes something like this. Students these
days need all the help they can get. When I think back to the carefree,
easy-going days I spent at university, it strikes me that modern
undergraduates are on a permanent treadmill. Faced with tuition
fees (in England) or graduate taxes (in Scotland), taking part-time
jobs to support themselves, and subject to relentless exam pressure
from the moment they arrive, it is hardly surprising that as many
as one in ten drops out before completed degree courses. Top-up
fees, introduced in England, have been resisted so far in Scotland,
but may be creeping in via the back door, with medical students
from south of the border being charged £1,500 more a year
than their Scottish counterparts. As a consequence, the average
graduate goes down from university clutching not just a hard-won
degree but also debts as large as £15,000.
On top of all this, the insidious idea of student
contracts appears to be gaining ground. As The Times reported yesterday,
Oxford is proposing to introduce legally binding agreements that
would require undergraduates to attend lectures and tutorials, complete
written work and generally behave as if they were serious about
their studies. It seems that, following the introduction of top-up
fees, students have been getting more litigious, demanding value
for money in the form of a good degree, and threatening to sue for
compensation if they don't get it. To protect itself, Oxford will
insist on all students signing a contract "to pursue such studies
as are required of you by any tutor, fellow or lecturer, or other
person assigned by the College to teach you".
Now I don't know what Boris thinks of this, but
I find the whole idea repellent. Universities are, or should be,
places where the mind is allowed to broaden, the intellect to flower,
and the soul is given room for manoeuvre. They are not places for
box-ticking or benchmarking. The university that requires performance-related
behaviour from its undergraduates is one that has already lost their
trust.
And so, as your rectorial candidate (my notional
address will say) I pledge myself to resist this creeping bureaucracy
and ensure that Edinburgh remains a contract-free zone. The rector
(a post unknown in England but as old as time in Scotland) is in
a unique position to make the case. Because he (from William Gladstone
in 1859 to Tam Dalyell in 2003, only one rector - Muriel Gray -
has been a woman) represents not only the students but also the
staff, and because he presides over the University Court, its governing
body, he is well placed to monitor developments in higher education.
At the slightest rustle of a contract I will gather up my robes
and rise to protest.
I have, however, another pledge to make - and
here, I think I am rather better placed than Boris. The Scottish
Executive has set its face against top-up fees, a decision that
I applaud. But it has yet to guarantee that it will produce the
funding to bridge the gap and ensure that Edinburgh maintains its
position as a world-class university, respected for the quality
of its research as well as the standard of its teaching. I will
buttonhole ministers at every opportunity to make the case for Edinburgh,
because without the top-up income, and without any earmarked government
money to compensate for it, the university could gradually find
itself falling behind its rivals - particularly those in England.
I have underlined that last sentence, and am practising
a Tony Blair-style "look, you guys, this is serious" expression
to go with it. I have no intention of playing the Scottish card,
of course, but it will not have escaped the electorate's attention
that Boris is, among other things, irredeemably English. This, and
the fact that I live in Edinburgh, while he is usually in a television
studio in London, should stand me in good stead.
I am, at this moment, undecided about whether
my campaigning style should be modelled on that of Tony Blair or
David Cameron, but I am beginning to feel that I cannot quite match
Mr Blair's mateyness, or Mr Cameron's lop-sided grin. Instead I
am warming to the idea of Kenneth Clarke, and have begun to down-grade
my wardrobe.
I should add that there are two other runners
in this race, but I consider them both single-issue candidates,
and therefore not to be taken seriously. One is John Pilger, the
left-wing polemicist, and the other is Mark Ballard, a Green member
of the Scottish Parliament. That is probably most unfair on both
of them, but since when did politics have anything to do with fairness?
Meanwhile, you can find me at my campaign headquarters - the Blind
Poet pub in West Nicolson Street - where pledges of support will
be rewarded in the usual way. My website is magnus4rector.com. Vote
for me. Or else you'll get Boris.
©Magnus Linklater
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