The University of Oxford’s Chancellor election has descended into farce — a graceless tumble from the upper reaches of prestige into a spectacle of sheer gimmickry. Once a title reserved for figures of unshakeable gravitas, the position now attracts candidates of low cunning and base electioneering. 

International business school moguls solely courting a Global South caucus, minor College heads surfing Susie Dent’s social currency, and a mere former Foreign Secretary collaborating with TikTok influencers. Imagine Macmillan or Jenkins’ reaction if they’d had to perform in this rat race today. They would rather be stripped of their ceremonial lace than deign to dance this tawdry jig of lib-populism.

I am no man of great rank — I’ve attained only a lowly Bachelors — and I’m writing for The Critic so expect the classic au contraire lamentations. But it is over. The age of the Oxford Man and Woman is finished. 

Modernisation, yes, has taken Oxford by storm, bulldozing tradition in its wake. Although even if you have been listening to Marcus Walker lamenting the online-been of the process, it’s all secondary. The real issue is how cheapened the talent pool has become in the first place.

The fiasco isn’t about Oxford’s lack of Borisian “world-beating” alumni; it’s about a misuse of them. Think of the icons; May, Khan (the title alone grants gravitas), Blair, Johnson. Moral qualms aside, it’s baffling how the chancellorship is no longer the juiciest of all titled golden gooses around. 

Or better yet, how many more donors would be attracted by these figures at the helm? Imagine — if you have the stomach — Blair wielding Oxford as a sanctuary for his global institute of policy wonks, raising funds from middle-eastern dictators galore. With the Chancellor’s honorific remit of defending academic debate and raising cash, who better than some figure with an army of minions and sultans in their rolodex?

But let’s abandon my Bond villain fantasies for a second and deal with the sorry lot who have actually contended: a failed Leader of the Opposition, an Edinburgh Castle keeper, Principals of the far-flung Banbury Road Colleges, and, Lord help us, a Twitter Priest. Are we truly expected to applaud? 

From Prime Ministers and imperial viceroys to the occasional Archbishop, past Chancellors wore their laurels with weight. Hell, even Cromwell and son — if we count them as legitimate heads of state — counted for more.

Now let me use that saturated term, polarisation, for a second. It couldn’t be a truer term to describe why many are not putting their hat in the ring. The first round of alternative voting last week gave ample reason. 

Oxford graduates used to be bound by a common ethos. Now, we’re a jumbled diaspora

Oxonians tweeted in droves to profess their Anglo-intuition for first-past-the-post and vote for a sole candidate instead. A true Hagueite would never dream of sullying their ballot with an Angiolini preference. The Royall faithful view a Willetts preference as anathema. Oxford graduates used to be bound by a common ethos. Now, we’re a jumbled diaspora with no shared rallying point.

Is it no wonder when the tactics used by these busy bees in the past month — or year in Hague’s case — are so confusing. Mandelson is an acute case. Once having a distinctive hatred of the Oxford Union – replying to my two page invitation a couple years ago with a curt “no” — this proud hater of Oxford’s white-tie fashionistas now grits his teeth and charms the same circles he once snubbed.

Only, the students have been sceptical. The Union President, one of the few interviewers with the gall to probe, asked Mandelson if his stay at Epstein’s mansion (while Epstein was in prison, mind you) might taint his capacity to “lend dignity to the University”. A cautious “I certainly regret ever meeting him” was all he could muster. 

But when the list is packed with candidates who tiptoe around academic freedom, openly dub themselves the “Labour candidate,” and discard introspection into whether they are actually right for the job, then students are bound to take up the torch and shine it into this moral murk.

Anyway, enough Mandy-bashing, lets deal with the other candidate phenotype. Principal Royall of Somerville’s tidy Brownite CV has been besmirched by her lack of campaigning decorum. Her use of a current student’s failed Union presidential campaign instagram account is what we have come to expect.

To see her pledges in a hack social formerly called “#revive” is almost too on the nose considering how her supporters seem to think her chances are already six feet under. Recently, I noticed “jan_royall_for_chancellor” “like” my picture with Peter Hitchens. Although it does not seem very Royallpilled I guess we all have to compromise for power and play student politics for a non-student role if self-respect is out of the question.

This article may seem a bit slanted against one particular camp, rest assured — Hague’s camp is equally, if not more, frivolous. He’s roped in a TikToker from his old College, doling out “hard-hitting” content like “Former Union President Wears Flamboyant Suit” and “I Know Angelina Jolie.”

It’s the sort of PR that suggests his campaign team was recruited from CCHQ’s lost-property bin. The institution’s electoral tradition has been plundered by one-nation SpAds who treat the Chancellor’s composure as on the same footing to a commoner gown-wearing fresher.

Honestly? This is sad! Why isn’t “Re-Open Nominations” (RON) an option here? Let’s send the whole lot packing, like that BBC PhD student who was rejected over her fumbled Shakespeare or something. To the candidates, I say this: you’ve degraded the dignity of the University with your pandering and shed every scrap of virtue for ambition. You’ve clung to low-energy tactics for a high-energy office, and so — by all that is good, in the name of God — go.