- The government continued its impressive record for evidence-based policy last week by banning khat, a herbal stimulant popular in the Somali, Yemeni and Ethiopian communities, in defiance of scientific opinion. Guidance from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs said there was insufficient evidence that khat caused health or wider social problems, 罢丑别听骋耻补谤诲颈补苍 reported on 4聽July. But the Home Office declared prohibition necessary to prevent the UK becoming a trafficking hub for the drug, which is banned in many other European countries. This is not the first time that the ACMD has been sidelined. David Nutt, former chairman of the body and academic at Imperial College London, was famously sacked after suggesting that taking ecstasy might not be the most harmful activity in the world. Professor Nutt said the khat ban showed 鈥渃ontempt for reason and evidence鈥.
- If there is a group of people who cop more flak for their pay packets than vice-chancellors, it is BBC executives. Bestriding the two worlds like a deep-pocketed colossus is Patrick Loughrey, warden of Goldsmiths, University of London and former BBC head of nations and regions. He left the BBC in 2009 with an 拢866,000 settlement before finding 鈥渁nother highly paid public sector job鈥 at Goldsmiths, the 顿补颈濒测听惭补颈濒 reported on 5聽July. The BBC awarded him 12 months鈥 salary 鈥渋n lieu of notice鈥 even though he had 鈥渁greed his exit 14聽months earlier and worked out his notice period鈥, the newspaper said. Mr Loughrey replied that any sums received were 鈥渋n fulfilment of long-standing contractual entitlements鈥. Even the best-paid vice-chancellor must be awed by Mr聽Loughrey, acknowledging that the man has an impressive set of contractual entitlements.
- Employers that recruit only graduates with first- or upper second-class degrees are requiring undergraduates to do 鈥渟o much work that only obsessive weirdos or the already privileged can make the grade鈥, believes a Spectator columnist. Rory Sutherland, vice-chairman of marketing and communications agency Ogilvy Group聽UK, writing in his Wiki Man column on 6聽July, suggested that innovative employers should hire only those with lesser degrees to avoid making their talent pool 鈥渄angerously homogeneous鈥. With this in mind, Mr Sutherland offered readers a proposal: if they would send him a bottle of gin, he would vouch that their children had undertaken a 鈥渕agnificent鈥 four-week internship at his firm 鈥 鈥淢eanwhile your kids can all go off to Goa and spend the summer smoking drugs on the beach as God intended.鈥 Exactly the sort of future Spectator readers envisage for their graduate offspring.
- Vince Cable, the business secretary, has continued to criticise the government for the headaches its immigration policy is causing universities. In an interview published in Scotland on Sunday on 7聽July, the senior Liberal Democrat said: 鈥淭he problem is more about the rhetoric and the language which is off-putting and which has fed through to countries like India.鈥 He added that the Home Office was 鈥渘ot treating with proper respect one of our big export industries鈥. If Theresa May, the home secretary, really is a聽Dalek, as one vice-chancellor proclaimed in these very pages, Mr聽Cable might want to position himself near a set of stairs.
- Boris Johnson was accused of being 鈥減athetically archaic, unacceptably sexist and hopelessly out of touch鈥 after a joke about female university students in Malaysia. The mayor of London 鈥 no stranger to the sector, having been shadow minister for higher education 鈥 made the remark at the London launch of the World Islamic Economic Forum, where he appeared alongside Najib Razak, Malaysia鈥檚 prime minister. According to a Guardian report on 8聽July, Mr聽Razak said: 鈥淏efore coming here, my officials鈥old me that [in] the latest university intake in Malaysia鈥68聽per cent will be women entering our universities.鈥 Whereupon Mr聽Johnson butted in to suggest that the women went to university because they 鈥渉ave got to find men to marry鈥. The quip incurred strong criticism from the Everyday Sexism campaign. But as everyone knows, the mayor is quite capable of handling unexpected press coverage, a result of having more skeletons in his cupboard than a medical school.
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