Why Howard Davies had to resign

The London School of Economics once had a global reputation. The Libyan revolution wiped it away as easily as if it was mist on a window.
 
I cannot find precedent for the collapse in liberal and academic standards Howard Davies, the LSE’s director, presided over. The Cambridge spies met at Cambridge University, as their name suggests. They did not, however, work for Stalin with the blessing of the university’s chancellor, vice chancellor, senate and masters of its colleges.

The LSE’s hierarchy sold itself to a tyrant for a handful of silver. If you doubt me, watch this video of Alia Brahimi, a research fellow at its Gaddafi-funded Global Governance Centre, simpering and gurning  as she introduces Gaddafi to her students by reading a welcome message from Davies worthy of Malvolio or Uriah Heep:

Davies resigned tonight, and good riddance. He was warned by the late LSE academic Fred Halliday, one of the most intelligent and principled writers on the Middle East, about the nature of his new business partner, but chose to ignore a wiser and better man.

Davies’ successors will need to open all the windows and let fresh air blast in if they are to remove the sweet smell of corruption that hangs over what was — until only yesterday — one of Europe’s great universities.