Academic is ignoring slip in standards
LOUISE Richardson, the vice chancellor of Oxford University, is right to defend her £350,000 pay packet. It is less than that of many successful barristers, senior figures in industry and TV executives and is commensurate with running the country’s most prestigious university. Furthermore she deserves cheering for saying that universities should not shield students from views they do not like.
Yet the professor is wrong when she claims without irony: “One of the most admired facets of the British economy is the quality of our education.”
Has she not talked to any employers recently? Has she never heard of grade inflation and 18 per cent pass marks? Does she really not know that top schools are turning to international qualifications rather than our own worthless bits of paper? Can she really be so closeted within the ivory tower of Oxford that she has no clue what is happening at lesser institutions?
With a salary like that Professor Richardson can surely afford to travel around Britain!
Bike louts are a terrible menace
JEREMY VINE is a Christian and a kindly soul who says he felt sorry for the woman who was sent to jail after he became a victim of her road rage while on his bicycle. He also says that many people posted comments that were supportive of the woman and critical of cyclists in general.
Of course he should not feel guilty that she was sent to prison because she was already serving a suspended sentence. It was the court’s decision not his and road rage can be serious stuff. I do however understand why drivers get frustrated with cyclists because sometimes my heart sinks at their antics, particularly when they ride two abreast, making passing impossible.
Too many ignore red lights, weave in and out of traffic and fail to display lights at night and it is rare that they are called to account but at least the law says they should not do those things whereas it is perfectly legal to cycle side by side on most roads.
Can someone tell me why? CARDINAL Cormac Murphy O’Connor was a wonderful example of how to succeed an illustrious predecessor when he followed Basil Hume as Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster.
Hume was a truly holy man who had brought English Catholicism out of the closet and ET how much has she been remembered in the pages devoted to Diana’s dresses and indiscretions? I have encountered this growing malaise over many years. Recently I was asked to take part in a charitable initiative by dressing up as my favourite rebel. I chose Florence Nightingale, who was not on the list of suggestions which was instead dominated by pop stars.
No pop star knows what rebellion
HUMBLE CARDINAL WHO GOT IT RIGHT
Cardinal O’Connor found himself stepping into huge shoes as had Major after Thatcher. He had the sense not to try to outdo Hume but merely to be himself: humble, easy-going, friendly, devout. In retirement he kept out of his own successor’s mitre.
RIP, Cormac.
really is. In the pop world you conform with nonconformity and the more outrageous you are, the more successful you are likely to be. Florrie Nightingale, a respectable upper-class Victorian, defied and scandalised the entire establishment to take a group of women out to the war zone of Crimea and the nursing profession she founded will still be around when Madonna has long been forgotten.
The second is simply the disproportionality of so much saturation coverage. Day after day, bulletin after bulletin, headline after headline, non-stop.
In 2012 I predicted the Olympics would be a great success for London and they were but I fled to the
THE more the Brexit talks continue in their current vein, the more likely it is that we will leave without a deal so please will Theresa May stop planning her own future in Number 10 and instead assure us that she is working on plan B for Britain’s future when the Brexit talks finally fail?
Mekong to escape what I knew would be non-stop coverage. I kept in touch only with the headlines and the medal count.
This time I fled to the Rhine rather than see yet another picture of poor Diana.
There is, after all, still a war in Syria and a lunatic with his finger on the nuclear button in North Korea.
MARRIAGE WOES SHOULD BE PRIVATE
WAYNE and Coleen Rooney should resolve any issues in their marriage in strict privacy and cut off any “friends” who go blabbing to the media. Rooney’s drink-driving charge is a matter of public interest. The rest is merely a matter of public curiosity, which is different.
The Rooneys have three children and another on the way. If they have any doubt about the effects on kids of their parents’ marital problems becoming public, they might look at the Princes.