That’s not what we paid you £1.7m for!
Taxpayer-funded LSE chief fought for Remain (and backs Corbyn bid to nationalise railways)
A UNIVERSITY boss who was paid almost £1.7million over four years campaigned against immigration curbs and Brexit and even spoke in support of Jeremy Corbyn – before quitting his post and leaving the country.
American professor Craig Calhoun, 65, voiced admiration for the Labour leader’s rail nationalisation plans and publicly backed Remain while leading the London School of Economics (LSE).
The vice- chancellor also led an impassioned campaign against Prime Minister Theresa May’s efforts to curb immigration, criticising what he called ‘ Government attacks on foreign students’.
Yesterday, the Daily Mail revealed how he earned £1,654,000 during his four years leading the LSE and, despite the university being ranked 155th in the country for student satisfaction, was handed £50,000 in performance-related bonuses.
Yet despite his stated concern for the wellbeing of the country, Professor Calhoun left the university a year earlier than planned in September last year to take up a post at a proEU think-tank in California.
Within months of Professor Calhoun leaving, the university – which receives substantial funds from the taxpayer and student fees – was awarded the lowest possible mark in the Government’s Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF).
Peter Bone, Tory MP for Wellingborough, said: ‘ People will be amazed at the amount of money he got while at LSE. These astronomic payments, which are partly being funded by students, are wrong.
‘Furthermore, if you are heading up a university, you should not be politically campaigning. Vice- chancellors should be largely neutral. What you should be doing is encouraging every point of view, and I would very much not want to go and speak at the LSE if I knew the vicechancellor was a mad europhile. I’m glad he’s in California now.’
Professor Calhoun, who campaigned against Brexit in the run-up to last year’s vote, was a vocal critic of Mrs May’s efforts to curb immigration, and in an interview in August he said: ‘The UK is as much a global leader in higher education as in sports. But Government attacks on foreign students could end this.’
He gave a similar interview when he was appointed in 2012, warning: ‘People are worried about the possibility the Government might suddenly and without notice revoke visas.’
Professor Calhoun now heads the Berggruen Institute based in Los Angeles, which runs the Council for the Future of Europe that aims to ‘research and debate ways forward for a united Europe’.
In June 2016 he signed a letter to the Evening Standard alongside other vice- chancellors in which he warned of the ‘damaging effect’ of Brexit. University heads were criticised for being self-centred in the run-up to the Brexit vote after complaining that leaving the EU would lose them money.
In October 2016 – a month after his departure from LSE – Professor Calhoun wrote a post on his official Facebook page, which was open to the public, criticising what he called the ‘Right-wing UK Government’.
Responding to claims that foreign academics had been barred from advising the Government on Brexit, he accused Theresa May of ‘utter madness’ and ‘stoking popular xenophobia’.
And in September 2015 he tweeted a link to a Guardian article about Mr Corbyn’s rail nationalisation plan, stating: ‘Corbyn would renationalise Britain’s railroads: hard, but would reverse one of the least successful privatisations.’
Yesterday the Daily Mail reported that on top of his enormous pay package, Professor Calhoun lived in a grace-andfavour flat overlooking the Thames with a market rent of £120,000 a year, provided by LSE.
Robert Halfon, Conservative MP for Harlow and the new chairman of the education select committee, said of Professor Calhoun’s pay yesterday: ‘This is not social justice for students.’
He later added: ‘There needs to be a lot more scrutiny on what vice-chancellors and senior managers at universities are being paid. This pay should be performance- related and entirely linked to not just the quality of teaching, but also the destination data in terms of employment for the students.’