The 38 candidates to be Oxford’s chancellor

Being Cambridge, I thank God that we have no nonsense about electing our chancellor. We have had a blameless, unchallenged succession of eminent persons. Since 1900, three prime ministers (Balfour, Baldwin and Smuts), two military commanders, one royal Duke (Prince Philip), two great scientists (Lords Rayleigh and Adrian) and now that prince of commerce and philanthropy, Lord Sainsbury of Turville. Their presence has passed almost unnoticed, rightly so: a chancellor’s role is to be, not to do. Poor Oxford, however, has a form of democracy to choose its chancellor, and now has insanely extended its effective franchise by online voting. So there are 38 candidates, and pressure that they should stand for something or other, know how the university works and play a part in academic politics. If I had a vote, I would seek the candidate who stands for nothing at all. My eye would alight on probably the best-known, Lord Mandelson. He is brilliantly well-connected and therefore good at fund-raising, astute, tall enough to wear the robes with dignity and a connoisseur of la comédie humaine. There is an insuperable objection, however, which is that if Mandelson believes in anything, it is advancing the power of China. The Chinese Communist party is by far the richest and most corrupting single foreign contributor to our academic life – as Lord Patten, the outgoing Chancellor, has often warned. If you want China in charge, why not cut out the middle Mandelson and vote in Xi Jinping himself? He read chemical engineering at Tsinghua University as ‘a worker-peasant-soldier student’ and holds honorary degrees from King Saud University, St Petersburg University and the University of Johannesburg.