The current row about how Oxford University should be governed illustrates two problems of our culture. The first is about how institutions work. The modernisers want organisations to work more purposefully, and they are right. But the traditionalists are suspicious of reforms which separate the people who know about the content of their institution from those who run it, and they are right too. Thus, it may well be true that hospitals should be more efficient, but they have not become more so now that doctors can be ordered around by non-medical managers. In the case of universities, their oligarchic and diffused form of authority (not to mention endemic pettiness — think of the Oxford fools who denied Mrs Thatcher her honorary degree) can be a terrible block on financial improvements. On the other hand, a board of control dominated by people who do not themselves share Oxford’s academic life will surely not be respected by those they seek to govern. My second point is that these troubles seem to beset Oxford more than any other university. It has the misfortune to be a ‘brand’ too famous for its own good. While poor John Hood struggles to impose his will on Oxford, Alison Richard has quietly got her way at Cambridge.
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Tom Bower’s new book about Lord Black, the former owner of this paper (Conrad and Lady Black, HarperCollins, £20), is the case for the prosecution. This is a pity, since that case will be made by lawyers in a Chicago court next year. A biography should surely try to stand on both sides of the courtroom. I think Bower misunderstands Conrad’s dealings with journalists. It is true that he delivered many insulting remarks about our trade, and is paying for these now that he is in disgrace. But he did not, in practice, despise all journalism.
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