I had the rather subversive idea of offering a six-figure sum to Oriel College, Oxford. On one condition: that the college immediately withdraw the Rhodes scholarship from the South African Ntokozo Qwabe, the hypocrite who led the campaign to remove the statue of Cecil Rhodes, as well as any other recipients of Cecil’s munificence who are blackening his name a century later. It is the least these hypocrites deserve. Oxbridge has become a joke in the way it tries to emulate the LSE in radicalism and other such ludicrous poses. The group that called Jihadi John ‘a beautiful young man’ should be allowed to speak at Oxford, according to the jerk that is the warden of Wadham College, Oxford, yet Germaine Greer is banned.
This illustrates the perversity of our universities. I debated four times at the Oxford Union and won three out of the four. My only defeat was because of a politically incorrect remark I made when an extremely obese black female student complained about almost starving to death following Hurricane Katrina. (‘You could use a bit of a diet, honey.’) I have never been invited back and am rather glad about that. It takes too long to get there, the black-tie dinner is sloppy and the wine quite poor. What’s more, the students are not very respectful — and dim. PC reigns supreme. The only good that ever came out of those trips is that three times out of the four I brought some girl students back to London with me. Mind you, that was long ago.
This is an extract from Taki’s High Life column, available in this week’s issue from Thursday.
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