The great and good

Doesn't this letter to the Times, from Derek Brewer, a former master of Emmanuel College Cambridge, sum up the sort of thinking by our ruling class that has made this country the place it is?:

Twenty-odd years ago I was a member of a committee in the University of Cambridge whose task was to suggest names for the award of an honorary degree. I thought that it was high time that an important African leader should be recognised by the university but as I had no special knowledge of Africa I discreetly consulted a number of experts.  The day on which I was going to suggest Mr Kenneth Kaunda he clapped all the leading members of his opposition party into jail, so that didn’t work. After more discreet consultation a number of people of knowledge and experience suggested with the highest encomiums Mr Robert Mugabe. As it turned out my proposal was rejected, but had Mr Mugabe been chosen, might his present attitudes have been modified by such a small but not insignificant recognition?

Comments

[jamie]

I read somewhere - I think in a book by Alex Cockburn - that it was seriously suggested around the time of the Russian revolution that Lenin be offered an honour of some kind, since this would clearly have a moderating effect on his attitudes and policies. Ah, the deep, deep sleep of England...

[Tom]

That's far too good to be true - you must have made that up yourself.

[dearieme]

Don't be surprised that a College Master is a plonker, and remember that "Emma" was the college that appointed Norman St John Stevas as Master. I ask you! The lark is that "a number of experts", a "number of people of knowledge and experience" could be found who recommended those two African bozos.
Mind you, that is consistent with my own attitude that I never pay any attention to any argument couched in terms of "a number of...": if the silly sod won't say what the number is, I dismiss his views. This rule of thumb works surprisingly well.

[Ian]

It's a damn good job these African states don't have democracy otherwise you'd be awarding degrees every five minutes as they got a new leader elected.

[dearieme]

Not if they adopted postal voting?

[Robert Schwartz]

IIRC, Fidel Castro had ambitions to be a baseball player. It was speculated that he would never had made the trouble that he did, if he had been signed by a major leauge team.