WHO PUT THIS LOT IN CHARGE OF OUR FINEST COLLEGES?

IN MARCH this year, the heads of nearly all of the University of Oxford’s colleges and halls wrote to The Times demanding that Parliament force an amendment to the Bill starting our withdrawal from the EU. They complained that their dons could face uncertainty about residency rights in Britain.

The letter was signed by the likes of Will Hutton, a Blairite journalist (and, inter alia, one of the dullest chisellers of prose in the English language) who has washed up as Principal of Hertford College.

Others included political scientist Sir Ivor Crewe (University College), long sceptical of the need for Labour to heed the workingclasses; Alan Rusbridger, Guardian editor turned Principal of Lady Margaret Hall; Oriel’s Moira Wallace, a former Whitehall permanent secretary, who was paid half a million pounds when she quit the Energy Department; Wadham’s Lord Macdonald, a former Matrix Chambers barrister friend of Cherie Blair; Brasenose’s John Bowers QC, a race relations hottrotter who is described by Brasenose as ‘an employment law rock star’; and New College’s Miles Young, formerly in the advertising business.

The more one looked at the list on the Oxford letter, the less one worried about post-Brexit residency rights. All I could think was, they seem to appoint any old dobbin an Oxford college chief these days.