Voting for 2024’s most important election, that of Chancellor of the University of Oxford, will begin in late October (Week 3 of Michaelmas). The complete list of approved candidates will not be released until early October, but many have already launched their campaigns. Who are the men and women running for Britain’s most prestigious unpaid sinecure? Let’s have a look.

 

The Big Names

 

Lady Elish Angiolini (Principal, St Hugh’s)

Formerly a Scottish law officer, Lady Elish has managed to survive the treacherousness of Scottish public life without being covered in mud. This fact alone makes her a leading contender for the crown (well, mortarboard). Her whole campaign can be illustrated by her answer to the question, posed by the student rag Cherwell, “What do you think is a right balance of modernity and tradition at Oxford?” “The status quo.”

 

William, Lord Hague of Richmond (BA PPE, Magdalen)

He is a former president of the Oxford Union and of the Oxford University Conservative Association (which has endorsed him), but William Hague has qualities as well.

Famous for being good at everything in politics except beating Tony Blair, Hague is attached to his old university and visits periodically. As a slightly right-of-centre Tory grandee, he is the closest the race has to a Patten continuity candidate. Will this be enough for him to swap the baseball cap for the mortarboard?

 

Imran Khan (BA PPE, Keble)

A resident of Central Jail, Rawalpindi, where his domestic staff has been reduced to a mere two servants, Jemima Khan’s ex-husband is a dark horse contestant for the chancellorship. This said, he does have the endorsement of the famously well-adjusted Peter Oborne (BA, Fen Polytechnic) who wrote that “Imran Khan must become Oxford University’s next chancellor” (must!)

Boringly, like almost every other candidate, Khan promises to champion Oxford’s values of “diversity, equality and inclusion”—even the Taliban’s friends have gone woke.

 

Peter, Lord Mandelson (BA PPE, St Catz)

New Labour’s Prince of Darkness reportedly enjoys the support of Oxford’s Labour club, which is filled with the sort of people who think that being called ‘Prince of Darkness’ for being good at lying to journalists is cool. He is being touted by his promoters as the man who could become Oxford’s first Labour chancellor (the turncoat Roy Jenkins having been unperson-ed).

But one cannot do better than this oration for his imminent installation, which I found in The Times’ comments section: “Ave, Petre Mandelsone, medice propagandae, inimice veritatis, amice Galfridi Epsteini, servitor Putini et Tyranni Sinarum, amator pecuniae et potentiae, fecunde auctor scandalorum”.

 

Janet, Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Principal, Somerville)

A Labour stalwart since the days of Neil Kinnock, Jan Royall, a former Leader of the House of Lords, is the candidate of the diversity lanyard class. As head of house at Somerville, she has banned octopus from dinners (because it could scare off working-class students) and mandated that all students must not only take, but achieve 100%, on an unconscious bias training course.

On being challenged about the latter, she was happy to confirm that getting below 100% will merely “be seen as the opportunity for a chat” and not lead to disciplinary action. Chancellor Mandelson doesn’t sound so bad now, does it?

 

The Second XI

 

Major-General Alastair Bruce of Crionaich (None)

A courtier of the old school and a favourite of the late Queen, Bruce is the only one of the candidates so far who does not have the right to vote for himself, having gone to Sandhurst instead.

Most recently Governor of Edinburgh Castle (despite a curious military record), Bruce is fond of elaborate ceremonials and uniforms (he is also a part-time herald, sorry, pursuivant of arms), which is no doubt part of the reason he is applying for the post. Frankly, liking fancy dress is a far better reason for wanting the job than that of most other candidates.

 

Margaret Casely-Hayford (BA Jurisprudence, Somerville)

A barrister by training, Casely-Hayford has the sort of honour-laden Wikipedia profile which provides no clue whatsoever as to why she gets appointed, say, a CBE, or Chancellor of Coventry University, or to the board of Shakespeare’s Globe.

Other snippets from Wikipedia: “She is in the forefront of working to create diversity on boards” and “The [Casely-Hayford] family is one of Ghana’s most prominent families, and in recent times, its members have also risen to positions of influence in the Black British elite.”

 

Dominic Grieve (BA Modern History, Magdalen)

Another former OUCA president, Grieve does not have a good record of winning university elections, having reportedly failed to get elected to the Union’s standing committee, the nursery of all Oxford hacks. His campaign is so low-profile as to be invisible. But can the former attorney-general pull an October surprise? Probably not.

 

Professor Simon Kay (BA Animal Physiology BM Bch, Christ Church)

A distinguished hand surgeon, Kay is running as an apolitical candidate, promising to be an “unifying figure” for the university. What is this, Cambridge? Next thing you know, we’ll have to choose among candidates on merit?

 

The Chancers

 

Ankur Shiv Bhandari (None)

The former mayor of Bracknell Forest (or as his LinkedIn puts it, “its First Citizen”), Bhandari’s online profile also lists “CourseEra” [sic] certificates from Yale and Edinburgh.

 

The Rev Matthew Firth (BTh, Wycliffe Hall)

Can you imagine Calvin Robinson as Chancellor of Oxford? No? Now, imagine a white and less famous version of Calvin Robinson instead? Still no? Running as the “publicly anti-woke” candidate, Rev Firth has received the prized endorsement (retweet) of Allison Pearson.

 

Onyeka Nwelue (hard to say)

He was a professor at both Oxford and Cambridge. Well, he had an Oxford academic visitor Bod card at some point. Maybe. It was later revoked. What is more shameful: being caught lying about being a professor or being caught lying as a Cambridge professor?

A recent tweet: “By all means, avoid close relationships with the poor. When you dine with the devil, use a long spoon. To avoid regrets.” Deep, deep stuff.

 

Maxim Parr-Reid (BA History and Politics, Trinity)

“[I]f Elizabeth II could be Queen at 26, then I can be @UniofOxford Chancellor at 27”, reads one the campaign tweets by Parr-Reid, the owner of a tutoring company. Yes, but her dad was king-emperor. Parr-Reid was a member of his college’s University Challenge team in 2017 –18, in which they were beaten by Bristol (Polytechnic? Vocational Institute? Borstal?) in the second round.

 

Harry Stratton (BCL, Magdalen)

Endorsed by John McDonnell, Harry Stratton is running on becoming Oxford’s “first progressive, campaigning Chancellor”, with a platform that includes hot student concerns such as abolishing 100% final exams and oppose increases in tuition fees. But his campaign material is coy about his day job, merely describing him as a “lawyer and union activist”.

Could he be the same Harry Stratton who is a junior barrister at One Essex Court, and whose chambers profile brags about “acting for a Ukrainian oligarch in a US$4.2 billion fraud claim” and “acting in the Tax Tribunal for a subsidiary of the Vroon Shipping Group in a dispute concerning anti-avoidance provisions”?