After Donald Trump’s victory, concern has been expressed in liberal circles that democracy is under existential threat. But next week that ancient Greek ideal of people power has the opportunity to reestablish its credentials in the more rarefied setting of the University of Oxford, where a new chancellor will be elected.
Although Trumpists might scream “woke elitism!”, the man himself, who is a sucker for pomp and ceremony, would doubtless be impressed by the role’s long history. The American presidency, after all, only dates back 235 years, whereas the chancellor of Oxford is a position that has existed for 800 years.
The first known chancellor Robert Grosseteste assumed office in 1224 (though some historians suggest there may have been an earlier one), and his successors have included Richard of Chichester (a canonised saint, no less), Oliver Cromwell (Lord Protector of England’s brief republic), Lord North (who was prime minister when the US threw off the colonial chains) and the Duke of Wellington (Napoleon’s nemesis).
Those are some notable figures to match yourself against, but that did not deter the applicants who put themselves up for judgment by 26,000 registered alumni voters and a further 5,000 staff and former staff. The job is in fact open to almost anyone. No connection to Oxford is required, and you don’t have to be British. The only excluded groups are current Oxford studentsand elected politicians.
The former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan, imprisoned for corruption, was disqualified on the grounds that he was not “a fit and proper person” to serve as a charity trustee. But among the 38 first-round contestants were a Zumba teacher who rescues animals and a Cambridge University student with an eye for crowd-pleasing who promised to “give you anything you want”.
Thirty-three candidates were eliminated, though their vote share has not been released by the university, leading one applicant, Matthew Firth, an evangelical Anglican minister and former astrophysicist who promised to fight “woke ideology”, to complain of an “unacceptable lack of transparency”.
The Rev Firth’s protests notwithstanding, there are now five remaining runners: Elish Angiolini, principal of St Hugh’s College who led the inquiry into Sarah Everard’s murder, Dominic Grieve, former attorney general, William Hague, former leader of the Conservative party, Peter Mandelson, a key figure in New Labour, and Jan Royall, principal of Somerville College.
It’s fair to say that the feeling among students on an archetypically grey autumn day varied between a studied indifference and total ignorance. Some claimed that they had friends that were interested, but Gaurav, studying at Hague’s alma mater Magdalen College, spoke for many when he said that he was more concerned with mundane lifestyle issues.
“They’ve taken fridges out of some of the rooms in college, which is just very unfair. We need fridges to keep our groceries in. It doesn’t really affect you whoever is chancellor. With all the work I have to do, I haven’t got the headspace for this kind of thing, but I think it’s much more about the values of the university that they represent.”
If diversity is a value that all universities, not least Oxford, emphasise, the awkward fact is that every chancellor at the university for the past eight centuries has been male and, unsurprisingly, white. If Angiolini or Royall triumph they will be the first females in the office.
While both women boast formidable CVs, the key thing to remember is that the post doesn’t call upon a particular skill set, because it isn’t really a job. It’s more of a title – one that is unpaid and ceremonial but which confers membership of that mysterious sector of society known as “the great and the good”.
The retiring chancellor, Chris Patten (Baron Patten of Barnes) is something of a specialist in acquiring great and good positions as former chairman of the Conservative party, the last governor of Hong Kong, and also a former chair of the BBC. He has been chancellor for 21 years and, with the exception of briefly defending the legacy of Cecil Rhodes against Rhodes Must Fall campaigners, has maintained a public profile of near blameless invisibility.
What, then, does a chancellor actually do? Patten’s immediate predecessor, Roy Jenkins, former chancellor of the exchequer and president of the European Commission, once described the office as “impotence assuaged by magnificence”.
The impotence didn’t stop him desperately wanting the magnificence. He managed to beat former prime minister Edward Heath to the job partly by getting his minions to lend out gowns, back when the vote was conducted at a ceremony in the Sheldonian Theatre and a donning a gown was necessary to cast a vote.
The holder of the office is essentially an ambassador for the university, although increasingly the most important role is fundraising. Last year Oxford raised £222m in donations, sharply down from 2021’s £369m. It’s competing internationally with the likes of Harvard, which raised $1.17bn in 2023.
Then there are endowments. Harvard’s is $53.2bn compared with Oxford’s £3.6bn. So whoever is victorious will be expected to cosy up to the 3,356 alumni who in 2022 were estimated to be ultra high net worth individuals (ie, have more than $30m – £23m – in assets).
Academically Oxford has long vied for the position of Britain’s leading university with Cambridge but more recently the likes of Imperial College London and the LSE have also been having a say. What helps keep Oxford among the elite is its mythology as much as its money, the whole “dreaming spires” and Harry Potter aesthetic.
Yet the election is a self-conscious strike at modernity. It’s not just that gowns and a ceremony are no longer part of the show, but the voting is done online and with an alternative vote system, in which voters can rank the candidates in order of preference.
Ilse, another Magdalen student, says her preference, if she had a vote, would be “for candidates who have actually served as presidents of a college and have a closer tie to the operation of the university, rather than these politicians who the role traditionally goes to. But I don’t think it really matters at all.”
Hague and Mandelson are thought to be the front runners, for the reasons Ilse identifies. As a student Hague, like a number of future Tory leaders, was president of the Oxford Union. By contrast Mandelson, as the 24-year-old chair of the British Youth Council, visited the Soviet Union-organised World Festival of Youth and Students in Cuba.
Their paths have subsequently converged somewhat, with Mandelson located on the centre right of the Labour party and Hague now seen, in current Conservative party terms, as a flaming liberal. Neither man needs the job – Mandelson has been touted as the next ambassador to the US, with the apparent backing of Nigel Farage – which is probably why one of them will get it.
They are recognisable, well connected, and have long experience in fighting elections. Mandelson has said he regrets his notorious admission that he was “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich (as long as they pay their taxes)”, but it’s the filthy rich who will demand his fundraising attention, should he be chosen for the role.
Ultimately Ilse is right: it doesn’t really matter who wins. The victory will be symbolic as befits an office that started to lose its worldly power after the Reformation. In the long run, perhaps the mark of greater equality and diversity won’t be seen in the identity of Oxford’s chancellor, but instead when there is media speculation about the next chancellors of the University of Reading or Leicester or Bangor.
Unlikely? Who’s to say what will happen in another 800 years?
• This article was amended on 12 November 2024 to note that when Peter Mandelson originally remarked about being “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich” he then added “as long as they pay their taxes”.
