Latest news with #SandiToksvig
Telegraph
5 days ago
- Business
- Telegraph
‘Academics are fleeing Trump's anti-intellectual America. We should take advantage'
The University of Cambridge should take in academics fleeing Donald Trump's America, a candidate to become the institution's new figurehead has said. Gina Miller, a prominent anti-Brexit campaigner running to become the next Cambridge chancellor, said UK universities must cash in on a US brain drain sparked by the president's assault on academia. In an interview with The Telegraph, Mrs Miller also urged Cambridge to divest from arms companies and to be more transparent about its financial arrangements. She vowed to uphold free speech on campus if elected as chancellor, but criticised the 'politicised' debate on the topic and said she would not invite people such as Andrew Tate, the controversial influencer, to speak to students. Mrs Miller rose to prominence for two successful legal challenges to the former government's Brexit dealings, and now aims to take her 'fight for democracy' to the world's third-oldest university. The businesswoman, who is undergoing treatment for breast cancer, will go head-to-head with nine other candidates in the hopes of becoming Cambridge's 109th chancellor – and the first female leader in the role's 800-year history. Her rivals include Sandi Toksvig, the comedian and ex-presenter of the Great British Bake Off, and Lord Browne of Madingley, the former chief executive of BP. Speaking to The Telegraph, Mrs Miller said she threw her hat in the ring after her cancer diagnosis, for which she underwent a double mastectomy earlier this year, prompted her to 'reassess' life. 'It's been incredibly difficult, but I don't want to look over my shoulder for the rest of my life, thinking 'what if',' she said. Born in British Guiana, now Guyana, the entrepreneur was sent by her parents to an English boarding school aged 10 after her father's career as the country's attorney general put the family's life in danger. 'My father was always obsessed with Cambridge. He started as a petrol pump assistant – you know, very poor – and his dream was to become a Cambridge blue for cricket. I mean, that's how far the reach of the reputation of that university is,' she said. She said Cambridge now had an opportunity to enhance that influence by offering a safe haven for students and academics deserting the US. Canada and Germany have both offered 'exile campuses', but UK universities are yet to do the same – with sources suggesting vice-chancellors were cautious not to appear too 'anti-American'. 'This last year we've seen the biggest uptick in US students looking for universities outside the US. And the same goes for the academics. So why is Cambridge not making the most of that?' said Mrs Miller. 'Intellectual jealousy by Trump' Mr Trump has attacked elite US universities in recent months, accusing them of fostering anti-Semitism on campus and adopting biased admissions policies against white students. The US leader has also frozen around $3.2 billion in federal grants to Harvard, and on Tuesday ramped up his campaign by ordering embassies to halt all new international student visa applications. Mrs Miller claimed the attack stemmed from a sense of 'intellectual jealousy' in Mr Trump, which she suggested was why the president had surrounded himself 'with the tech bros – because they're not wearing the clothes of traditional academia'. She warned that the rise of 'authoritarianism and anti-intellectualism' would sharpen the need to protect free speech at universities. However, she said she would not extend a campus invite to figures such as Mr Tate, the social media influencer who was charged with rape and human trafficking by UK prosecutors earlier this week. 'Free speech is one thing, but if it crosses the line into promoting hate and misogyny and behaviours that are actually damaging, I would say, no, absolutely not,' Mrs Miller said. The businesswoman became a target of misogyny and abuse after winning two Supreme Court challenges in 2017 and 2019 against the then government's handling of exiting the EU, which many saw as attempts to frustrate Brexit. She received death threats. Nine years on from the referendum, Mrs Miller views the 'old Right and Left, those old Overton Window classifications' to have gone as Reform UK continues to cleave open the traditional two-party system. 'Political parties need to up their game' The financier, once a Labour party member, founded her own True and Fair political party in 2021, based on her campaign of the same name calling for greater transparency in the City. The party was dissolved last year after Mrs Miller stood as its candidate for Epsom and Ewell at the general election and came sixth. She criticised recent comments by Lord Hermer as 'crass' after the Attorney General compared calls to leave the European Convention on Human Rights to the rise of Nazism. 'I wish all the parties would up their game,' she said. 'I don't see a leader. And I think that's the thing that's very worrying for us, as the 2030s will be a transformative decade.' Mrs Miller promised to bring her campaigning for greater transparency to Cambridge, and said it was 'right' that the university's King's College earlier this month announced it would cut its financial ties with arms firms. The founder of wealth manager SCM Direct vowed to do the same to Cambridge's £4 billion endowment fund, adding: 'I think the university has to have ethics, an ethical sense has to go through everything it does.' 'Cambridge can be an ambassador' Pitching herself as 'someone from outside the university's inner circle', she also criticised previous Cambridge chancellors for not speaking out about important matters or attempting to boost UK universities on the world stage. 'Why is Cambridge not at Davos, for example? Cambridge has the opportunity to be an ambassador for not just itself, but actually for the sector,' she said. 'I think that's where I'd be critical of the chancellorships in the past, in that I'd say they haven't utilised that platform enough in the service of our nation, and I think that's a real shame.' Lord Sainsbury of Turville, who was elected Cambridge chancellor in 2011, stepped down last year. He had succeeded Prince Philip, the late Duke of Edinburgh, who held the position for 35 years. The role was not on Mrs Miller's radar until a group of Cambridge professors approached her earlier this year and urged her to apply, despite her not being an alumna of the university. 'And actually, weirdly, there was another connection. The cancer that I have is a very rare genetic mutation which was discovered by a team at Cambridge five or six years ago, so I had been in contact with that team and become really close to them,' she said. 'One of the missions of Cambridge is to be able to help the progression of humanity and society. We need to get it off the page into the real world. And I would argue that having a chancellor who is actually from the world can speak and become almost a translator and storyteller of what Cambridge is doing and how that connects to the real world.'
Yahoo
6 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Surely Cambridge can do better than Gina Miller?
The opportunity not to vote for Sandi Toksvig should never be lightly passed over, so I shall be casting a ballot in the elections for the chancellor of Cambridge. Excitingly, you can do so online, though I'd prefer to be obliged to turn up in person. Browsing through the manifestos is a dispiriting experience. It's not just Sandi whose mission is to further diversity and inclusion; everyone is determined to engage in outreach and brag about being at a state school. But the former host of the News Quiz also makes quite a thing about being a woman: 'The first known chancellor of Cambridge was Richard of Wetheringsett who served sometime between 1215 and 1232. After that we have had a plethora of other Richards, many Johns and an awful lot of Stephens. After over 800 years I wonder if it isn't time for a change?' No, Sandi. Not if it means having a really annoying broadcaster representing the university. Another candidate not to vote for is Gina Miller. She'll go down well in some bits of Cambridge on account of Brexit, but the notion of having someone at the helm who says 'I have spent my life speaking truth to power' is not inviting. I mean, one previous chancellor who really did speak truth to power was Bishop John Fisher and he had his head chopped off. His successor, Thomas Cromwell, was a good fundraiser (another big issue), though unfortunately at other people's expense; he too was quite a name to reckon with. But that's the thing. The list is gloomily unimpressive, from the bloke who wants to 'champion inclusive excellence' (which is either meaningless or contradictory) to the one who declares that 'the university's powerful brand enables it to generate significant income, which ought to be reinvested into its core mission'. Brand? Mission? It's a university, not a business; at least, not wholly, not yet. Or there's the candidate who wants 'flourishment'. Is flourishment a thing? What, exactly, is it? Or how about the one who declares: 'Cambridge is more than a university – it is a living idea. It speaks through the rustle of books in dawn-lit libraries, in the quiet authority of our porters, the resilience of our cleaners and caterers, the curiosity of our students'. Dawn-lit libraries? No undergraduate I know has ever seen a library at dawn. The 'quiet authority' of the porters is funny, and I remember when half had been in the military. Lord (John) Browne, ex-BP, tells us about being a closet homosexual. Do we really need to know? If this selection is indicative of the quality of our public life, let alone our academic life, we have a problem. Hardly anyone on the list is an individual of real substance. I remember when the chancellor was Prince Philip (he was very good at it) and the vice-chancellor was a formidable scientist, Rosemary Murray (who would have been a brilliant chancellor herself). That was more like it. By comparison with past chancellors, from Prince Albert to Stanley Baldwin, our lot are dire. In fact, the Cambridge chancellorship is quite a good way of estimating the kind of establishment we have, and it looks to me like a collection of unfascinating technocrats or media showoffs. It looks then like I shall have to vote for Chris Smith, who pushed it a bit when he said that as Culture Secretary he made all the national galleries and museums free (quite a few were free already) but at least he cared about culture and can write English. But it's a single transferable vote system…Lord knows whom I should pick for the rest of the selection. At least I know whom I'm not voting for; that's a start. Looking at the competition, I have to ask stopped me throwing my hat in the ring? Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
6 days ago
- General
- Telegraph
Surely Cambridge can do better than Gina Miller?
The opportunity not to vote for Sandi Toksvig should never be lightly passed over, so I shall be casting a ballot in the elections for the chancellor of Cambridge. Excitingly, you can do so online, though I'd prefer to be obliged to turn up in person. Browsing through the manifestos is a dispiriting experience. It's not just Sandi whose mission is to further diversity and inclusion; everyone is determined to engage in outreach and brag about being at a state school. But the former host of the News Quiz also makes quite a thing about being a woman: 'The first known chancellor of Cambridge was Richard of Wetheringsett who served sometime between 1215 and 1232. After that we have had a plethora of other Richards, many Johns and an awful lot of Stephens. After over 800 years I wonder if it isn't time for a change?' No, Sandi. Not if it means having a really annoying broadcaster representing the university. Another candidate not to vote for is Gina Miller. She'll go down well in some bits of Cambridge on account of Brexit, but the notion of having someone at the helm who says 'I have spent my life speaking truth to power' is not inviting. I mean, one previous chancellor who really did speak truth to power was Bishop John Fisher and he had his head chopped off. His successor, Thomas Cromwell, was a good fundraiser (another big issue), though unfortunately at other people's expense; he too was quite a name to reckon with. But that's the thing. The list is gloomily unimpressive, from the bloke who wants to 'champion inclusive excellence' (which is either meaningless or contradictory) to the one who declares that 'the university's powerful brand enables it to generate significant income, which ought to be reinvested into its core mission'. Brand? Mission? It's a university, not a business; at least, not wholly, not yet. Or there's the candidate who wants 'flourishment'. Is flourishment a thing? What, exactly, is it? Or how about the one who declares: 'Cambridge is more than a university – it is a living idea. It speaks through the rustle of books in dawn-lit libraries, in the quiet authority of our porters, the resilience of our cleaners and caterers, the curiosity of our students'. Dawn-lit libraries? No undergraduate I know has ever seen a library at dawn. The 'quiet authority' of the porters is funny, and I remember when half had been in the military. Lord (John) Browne, ex-BP, tells us about being a closet homosexual. Do we really need to know? If this selection is indicative of the quality of our public life, let alone our academic life, we have a problem. Hardly anyone on the list is an individual of real substance. I remember when the chancellor was Prince Philip (he was very good at it) and the vice-chancellor was a formidable scientist, Rosemary Murray (who would have been a brilliant chancellor herself). That was more like it. By comparison with past chancellors, from Prince Albert to Stanley Baldwin, our lot are dire. In fact, the Cambridge chancellorship is quite a good way of estimating the kind of establishment we have, and it looks to me like a collection of unfascinating technocrats or media showoffs. It looks then like I shall have to vote for Chris Smith, who pushed it a bit when he said that as Culture Secretary he made all the national galleries and museums free (quite a few were free already) but at least he cared about culture and can write English. But it's a single transferable vote system…Lord knows whom I should pick for the rest of the selection. At least I know whom I'm not voting for; that's a start. Looking at the competition, I have to ask stopped me throwing my hat in the ring?
Daily Mail
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
QI host Sandi Toksvig and anti-Brexit firebrand Gina Miller make Cambridge University Chancellor shortlist
Bake Off and QI star Sandi Toksvig and anti-Brexit firebrand Gina Miller are on the shortlist to be the next chancellor of Cambridge University. Both are hoping to become the first woman to hold the ceremonial position in its 800-year history. But fellow candidate Wyn Evans, an astrophysics professor at the university, warned they may lower the tone at the highbrow institution. 'If Cambridge needs a high-profile or celebrity chancellor to be noticed, we might as well give up and rebrand the university as a reality TV show - Keeping Up with the Cantabrigians,' he said. Ms Toksvig, 67, who studied law, archaeology and anthropology at Cambridge, questioned whether it was 'time for a change'. She said: 'The first known chancellor of Cambridge was Richard of Wetheringsett who served sometime between 1215 and 1232. 'After that we have had a plethora of other Richards, many Johns and an awful lot of Stephens - after over 800 years I wonder if it isn't time for a change?' The comedian and TV host once told how she was almost kicked out of the university for having a girlfriend sleep over, and was only allowed to stay because of her 'excellent academic record'. 'If you are going to be gay, at least be clever,' she joked. 'What [they] don't want is gay stupid people.' Gina Miller, 60, who successfully challenged the government in court over the implementation of Brexit, said she would champion 'civil discourse, fairness, and democratic principles' at Cambridge. 'Electing the first woman to the role - while not essential - would be powerful and symbolic, affirming Cambridge's commitment to modernity and equality,' she said. In 2017, Ms Miller won a Supreme Court ruling that MPs should have a say over triggering Article 50, which took the UK out of the EU. She also successfully challenged Boris Johnson's decision to suspend Parliament in 2019 as a Brexit debate was looming. The other eight people on the shortlist for chancellor are all men. They include Cambridge college presidents Lord Smith and Dr El-Erian, former BP chief executive Lord Browne, professors Tony Booth and Wyn Evans, and Cambridge alumni Ayham Ammora, Ali Azeem and Mark Mann.
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Sandi Toksvig on shortlist to be Cambridge chancellor
Sandi Toksvig is among the final 10 candidates in the race to become the next chancellor of the University of Cambridge. The comedian and former host of the Great British Bake Off is on the shortlist alongside an anti-Brexit campaigner and the former chief of BP to replace Lord Sainsbury of Turville. Toksvig and Gina Miller, a business owner who led two successful legal challenges against the Government relating to Brexit, are the only two women on the shortlist. Success for either of them would result in Cambridge's first female chancellor in the role's 800-year history. Toksvig said in her candidate statement: 'The first known chancellor of Cambridge was Richard of Wetheringsett, who served sometime between 1215 and 1232. After that, we have had a plethora of other Richards, many Johns and an awful lot of Stephens. 'After over 800 years, I wonder if it isn't time for a change?' The chancellorship is a largely ceremonial position at the head of the university, representing the institution at events and fundraising initiatives. The role is unpaid, but its extensive foreign travel is paid for by the university. Lord Sainsbury, the former chairman of the supermarket chain established by his great-grandfather, will step down next month after 14 years as chancellor. His successor will inherit Cambridge's figurehead position at a difficult time for the university sector as it grapples with a worsening financial crisis and increasingly polarised debate over free speech issues. While Cambridge University's £4 billion endowment fund and global reputation mean it is largely shielded from financial woes, it has attracted disruptive student protests recently over the war in Gaza. All 10 nominees spoke about the importance of defending free speech or academic freedom in their candidate statements, with Toksvig saying 'the politicisation of free speech' was one of a number of threats facing academia. Lord Browne of Madingley, the former chief executive of BP and a crossbench peer, said he would 'sustain our long-held values, particularly of free speech, intellectual freedom, and fact-based analysis'. The Cambridge physics graduate stepped down from the company in 2007 over speculation about his private life, later writing about the pressures of being a closet homosexual in the world of business. Lord Smith of Finsbury, a former Labour Cabinet minister who is also on the shortlist and is the current master of Pembroke College, said his own experience as the first openly gay MP showed his commitment to 'diversity, openness and ethics'. Mrs Miller also promised to champion academic freedom and open debate at Cambridge 'when trust in institutions is eroding and authoritarianism and anti-intellectualism are on the rise'. The businesswoman became a prominent public figure by bringing a court case against the UK Government in 2016 over its ability to implement Brexit without parliamentary approval, and successfully challenging Boris Johnson's decision to prorogue Parliament in 2019 to push through his Brexit plans. But fellow candidate Prof Wyn Evans, an astrophysics professor at Cambridge, warned that if 'Cambridge needs a high-profile or celebrity chancellor to be noticed, we might as well give up and rebrand the university as a reality TV show.' The other five candidates include a former oil industry executive, an Egyptian-American economist, two consultants and a former Cambridge education professor who has pledged to fight the university's ties to the arms and fossil fuels industries if successful. Voting is open to members of the University Senate, which includes all alumni or former members of staff who hold a qualifying Cambridge degree. More than 34,500 people have registered to vote online when the ballot opens on July 9, with several thousand more expected to cast their vote in person. The winner will be announced in the week beginning July 21 and will serve at least 10 years. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
