Proud to support the bid of my landlord and editor Richard Heller to become the first Anti-Chancellor of Oxford University MM
My Manifesto For Oxford’s Anti-Chancellorship by Richard Heller MA (Oxon)
“The people have spoken, curse them”. A disparate, even desperate, electorate has saddled Oxford University with Peter Mandelson as its public face and voice as Chancellor for the next ten years. With characteristic impertinence he thinks that he can combine this role with being the UK ambassador to the United States. If standards still mean anything in the Foreign Office he would be forbidden to serve any private interest as ambassador and to fulfil any of his promises to the University. If nonetheless he used his position to solicit funds for it he would not only raise justifiable outrage from other British academic institutions but also make influential enemies of those in America seeking to wheedle the same funds.
Trumptruckling (the prime purpose of our diplomatic mission next year) is a consuming occupation and Mandelson would simply have no time for the interests of our University. Instead he will open the sluice gates of sycophancy not only to the President but also to any member of his dismal entourage. We would have to endure the ensuing slush not just in the name of our government but also in that of our University.
Keir Starmer may yet come to his remaining senses. He may realize that for all the truckling skills he polished on Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and a host of lesser despots, Mandelson is more likely to offend the Trump administration than any other candidate, and we would be lucky if his embassy ended with anything short of a repeat of the war of 1812.
But even if Mandelson were after all to become a full-time Chancellor I believe that the electors made a serious error in choosing him to defend and project the fundamental values of the University. I argued before the election that he was the wrong choice to represent its commitment to truth, in a world swamped with fakery and set to be dominated next year by three liars without conscience.
I was unable to persuade enough Oxford electors to agree with me (curse them again) but I believe that many share my depression at his choice, for this and other powerful reasons. They, and the University itself, deserve a Great Schism and I therefore offer myself as Oxford’s first Anti-Chancellor with a rival court at some Oxford equivalent of Avignon.
By purchase fifty years ago, on a false rumour that it was to be converted into a real degree, I am a Master of the Arts of the University. I am a master of many arts besides. But my prime qualification (as with an overlong cricket career) is availability. After years of writing novels nobody reads and screenplays nobody screens and selections on the racecourse that could be overtaken by a rocking horse, I live in indigent obscurity.
I am delighted to announce that my lodger has agreed to support me in this new post. Mortimer Mouse is the world’s leading optimistic philosopher, author of an inspiring
collection of motivational maxims “Keep Squeaking Through”. Samples of his work appear elsewhere on www.mortimermouse.co.uk He will give a special course of Anti-Chancellor’s lectures and possibly online tutorials and seminars. Thank you. MM
The prime duties of a Chancellor appear to be processing, speechifying and mortarboard doffing. I would be up for all of these, although the processing might be hard on a decrepit pair of knees. I speechify a great deal better than the new Chancellor, although in 2010 he made the colourful claim that “the economy is on the road to recovery but the Tories would pull the rug from under it.”
The key difference is in the doffing. I will not doff to despots or their representatives, nor to any other of the over-mighty people or interests with a malign influence in the world. (My list is already too long to publish but further suggestions always welcome). I would strive to support any peaceful protests against them within the University (although please keep the processing down) especially those of a witty and mocking character.
I will try to encourage the University’s rich tradition of satire and raillery. I will seek funding for an Anti-Chancellor’s Prize for Satirical Prose or Poetry (I have already piloted such an award at my old College, Balliol, chosen by caprice).
I will institute a ceremony to award Dishonorary Degrees each year, selected by the University community. However, I would reserve the right to nominate Donald Trump to the first. It will provide an outlet for the following sonnet about him available here https://richardheller.net/blog/page/2/ with an associated collection of zingers, apophthegms, exordia and songs offered to the Democratic party and others during the recent election campaign. Unfortunately, they failed to carry any states against him but it would be a shame to let them go to waste.
Like Peter Cook before me, I never had the Latin to pass the rigorous judging exam, and would be unable to compose a suitable oration in the language for each ceremony. But I hope that a new generation of Latin Orators would enjoy creating philippics in place of panegyrics. I would compose a new acrostic sonnet, like that for Trump, for each recipient. I can assure those who doubt my ability to achieve this for Xi Jinping that his is already in preparation:
Xerxes of Asia, with a fawning court,
Inky bore now ruling a huge nation
Jamming its minds with enforced adulation
Implanted through his daily dreary Thought.
During my time at my old College, it took money from the fat fraudster Robert Maxwell. As Anti-Chancellor, I would consider my duty to run a sceptical eye over any intending donor to the University, especially one schmoozed by the new Chancellor, and inveigh against any I thought intending to launder a well-deserved reputation or advance any dubious cause. I would provide the same service on request for any intending College donor.
I would be especially vigilant against any outside attempt to influence the content of any of Oxford University’s curricula or scholarship or to impinge on the right of its members to write or say anything lawful. For any Oxford author threatened with a SLAPP action (a blot on the law which remains although I have given several solutions to Keir Starmer) I would seek a friendly MP or peer to present his or her entire work as a petition to Parliament, which would have absolute privilege and could be freely published and distributed without penalty.
I would in principle resist any formal relationship between the University and any totalitarian state (and on request any such relationship by a College). As Anti-Chancellor I would do what I could to support any member of the University under any kind of duress from such a state. I would apply this policy especially to communist China whose attempts to advance its influence and power in academic life internationally are copiously documented. If there is a Confucius Society at Oxford, a creature of the régime, I would riposte with the formation of a Confusion Society, a place where anyone (clandestinely if necessary) could express his or her opinion of the régime and its ruler.
The new Society would hold a festival of readings from Xi Jinping Thought, which is even more banal and empty than that of Mao Tse-Tung, so fatuously fashionable in my time at Oxford. To give attendees a choice of entertainment I will stage this concurrently with the Paintdrying World Cup Final.
As the King says to Parliament when he opens it and hands out its worksheet, “Other measures will be laid before you.” However, I hope that those above would suggest the value of an Anti-Chancellor for Oxford University, not only for the tenure of Peter Mandelson but for all time. I remain available for such a post but would yield readily to a worthier candidate, especially one with better knees for all the processing.
Richard Heller (Matriculated Balliol College 1966, BA (PPE) 1969, MA 1974)
Richard's sonnet against Donald Trump and see also https://richardheller.net/blog/
A sonnet for DJT
Drunker on ego than the strongest booze
On clouds of lies he floats in toxic air
No “fact” that isn’t faker than his hair:
Acknowledging the “crowd” he soon will lose.
Lips alternating words and grins at random,
Desolate wastes of fantasy and lie,
Junkyards of hate where truth and honor die,
Tempting the dark desires of his fandom.
Running without a program or a plan
Unless to hear the chanting of his name:
Mount Rushmore is too small to house his fame.
President to prove himself a man.
For God’s sake, shut your mouth and let us breathe.
Off-switch, you lardmouth: find some place to seethe.
Portrait by Amina Art Ansari
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