Galloway to stand for Edinburgh uni rectorship

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Here's a list of previous Rectors - some quite outstanding names for sure...

* 1859 William Gladstone
* 1865 Thomas Carlyle
* 1868 James Moncreiff, 1st Baron Moncreiff
* 1871 Sir William Stirling-Maxwell
* 1874 Edward Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby
* 1877 Spencer Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington
* 1880 Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery
* 1883 Sir Stafford Northcote (from 1885 Earl of Iddesleigh)
* 1887 Schomberg Kerr, 9th Marquess of Lothian
* 1890 George Goschen
* 1893 James Robertson
* 1896 Alexander Bruce, 6th Lord Balfour of Burleigh
* 1899 Frederick Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 1st Marquess of Dufferin and Ava
* 1902 Sir Robert Finlay
* 1905 Richard Haldane
* 1908 George Wyndham
* 1911 Gilbert Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, 4th Earl of Minto
* 1914 Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener
* 1917 David Beatty, 1st Earl Beatty
* 1920 David Lloyd George
* 1923 Stanley Baldwin
* 1926 Sir John Gilmour
* 1929 Winston Churchill[2]
* 1932 General Sir Ian Standish Monteith Hamilton
* 1935 Edmund Allenby, 1st Viscount Allenby
* 1936 Sir Herbert John Clifford Grierson
* 1939 Sir J. Donald Pollock
* 1945 Andrew Cunningham, 1st Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope
* 1948 Alastair Sim
* 1951 Sir Alexander Fleming
* 1954 Sir Sydney A. Smith
* 1957 James Robertson Justice
* 1960 Jo Grimond
* 1963 James Robertson Justice
* 1966 Malcolm Muggeridge
* 1969 Kenneth Allsop
* 1972 Jonathon W. G. Wills
* 1973 Gordon Brown
* 1976 Magnús Magnússon
* 1979 Very Rev. Anthony Ross
* 1982 David Steel
* 1985 Archie Macpherson
* 1988 Muriel Gray
* 1991 Donnie Munro
* 1994 Malcolm Macleod
* 1997 John Mark Colquhoun
* 2000 Robin Harper MSP
* 2003 Sir Tam Dalyell
* 2006 Mark Ballard

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What a result in 1985 - Wooof!

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haha yeah, Archie McPherson - what a piece of political dynamite!

Galloway in the running to be next rector of Edinburgh University
BRIAN DONNELLY
January 13 2009
Glasgow Herald

COLOURFUL candidates are expected to battle it out on the hustings for the post of rector of Edinburgh University. George Galloway MP confirmed he will put himself forward against former Hearts chairman Lord Foulkes, while Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson and Herald columnist and broadcaster Iain MacWhirter could also be in the running. A spokesman for the university said last night nominations would not be confirmed until later this week, but both Galloway and Foulkes have said they will apply.
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Mr Galloway, the independent MP who attracted criticism for his performance on Celebrity Big Brother, said the move offered an opportunity to send a message that students do not support top-up fees or international military and political aggression, and want to see "our government take a constructive stance in the Middle East, rather than acting as the poodle of Washington and its alliances in the region".

Mr Galloway, himself a former Labour MP, said: "This is going to be a referendum on peace and war, justice and hypocrisy - a University of Edinburgh that is a beacon of light for students in far more difficult conditions elsewhere in the world, or one that is represented by a cipher for the established party machine.

Lord Foulkes said that his links with the university, which go back to his time as student president 45 years ago, made him an ideal candidate for the post and added that "there is a job to be done and it should not be treated as a gimmicky thing". He was president of the university's Student Representative Council in 1963 and later served as president of the Scottish Union of Students for two years before embarking on a career as a councillor, MP, government minister, life peer and now MSP for the Lothians. He said: "They need someone who is prepared to do a job of work."

Other names floated are Tory MP David Davis and television presenter Clarkson. The current rector is former Lothians Green MSP Mark Ballard, who beat Tory Boris Johnson, now Mayor of London, and Times journalist Magnus Linklater for the post in 2006.

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Galloway in rector bid
18 January 2009
Scotland on Sunday

RESPECT MP George Galloway yesterday launched a campaign to stand for rector of the University of Edinburgh. The firebrand politician accepted his nomination from students and will fight in the election next month.

"I am honoured to have been nominated by students to run for rector of one of the country's elite universities," he said at the official launch in Edinburgh. "I will be running my campaign unambiguously on the issue of Palestine." He added that a vote for him was a "vote for Palestine". He told students he would be an active rector, rather than a symbolic figure.

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I suppose we can read between the lines to much here but does the phrase "He told students he would be an active rector, rather than a symbolic figure." mean that GG will definitely be coming back to Scotland on a permanent basis I wonder. I know the whole standing against Michael Martin thing has been bandied about but I wonder if this ties in? Or not?

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"Be nice to George!" - but how could I not be?
Paris Gourtsoyannis
26 January 2009,
The Journal Issue 17

It’s when you meet George Galloway face to face that you realise he is a figure defined by the battles he’s fought. Though it may be a concession to the cliché that people always look taller on television than they do in real life, the figure at the centre of a smattering of students and supporters in the courtyard of Old College doesn’t do justice to Galloway’s operatic set-piece battles with big business, government, the Labour party, the United States Congress, Jeremy Paxman, and the Celebrity Big Brother viewing public.

Perhaps Galloway’s years in the political arena have finally taken their toll. There is more than a suggestion of a grandfatherly desire to don his housecoat and slippers, pick up his pipe and get cosy by the warming glow of applause on the lecture circuit, rather than picking another scrap in the frosty Edinburgh outdoors. The polite laughter when Galloway dismisses his personal vendetta with rival candidate George Foulkes, saying he has “more powerful enemies” – certainly the truth – is sympathic, like a gentle admonition to watch his knees.

However, Tony Benn he is not – picking fights is what George Galloway does best, as I am to find out. A dozen years of New Labour have often put Galloway out of favour with the media, so perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised to immediately find myself in the crosshairs for asking how he plans to win with student political groups, from EUSA to the Tories, rallying around his opponents.

“You can’t count the ballots before they’re cast – thousands of students will be voting in February, and few of them are going to make their minds up based on the views of a few chairmen. I’ll be seeing you at the count on 12 February,” Galloway says; in case I hadn’t got the message, he later adds, “I bet you’d love it if I won.”

The mark of a master political firebrand is the art of mauling your opponent while remaing utterly disarming – and true to form, its impossible not to be charmed as I’m discreetly disemboweled, laughing along with the rest of the crowd at my own ridicule. The whiskers and spectacles may be grandad’s, but Galloway’s claws are still sharp.

He digs them into his opponents, who are unlikely to be as impressed. Veteran journalist Ian Macwhirter is lucky to get off lightly with a dismissal: “This race is going to be between myself and Lord Foulkes,” pronounces Galloway. The local candidate with more student endorsements than any other isn’t invited to this game of political football, it appears.
When addressing the target of his venom, Lord Foulkes, Galloway goes for the eyes. “George Foulkes spends as much time at Westminster as I do,” he says. “I should know, because I’ve looked at his expenses – and if he doesn’t, then he’s in a bit of trouble.”

I once more dare to tread on the ice – decidedly unbroken in my first encounter with the MP for Bethnal Green & Bow – to ask precisely what meetings Galloway will commit to attending as rector. As with his manifesto, or indeed any policies at all, this is demanding too much for the time being. Then again, given that it appears Galloway was hauled out of bed to appear today, it isn’t surprising he forgot his policy portfolio at home. As the two bemused university security staff confirm – between taking mobile phone pictures of the candidate – no request was put in to have the event staged indoors; an upstart insurgency this may be, but a last minute one, to be sure.

Galloway’s stump speech consists of the same rusting old-left vitriol which brought him fame and infamy in equal measure: “Edinburgh needs more working class students. When George Foulkes attended the University of Edinburgh, he did so for free, using my taxes and those of many other ordinary British people to do so,” he says. “The moment he and New Labour came to power, they took steps to prevent my children from being able to do the same. I’m very bitter about that.”

It’s compelling stuff, but given Galloway’s earlier assertion that “this election is going to be a referendum not only on student rights, but on the issues young people are demonstrating so clearly that they feel passionately about” – read Gaza – one finds it hard to accept his sincerity.

As the huddle follows Galloway off towards Teviot and a public consultation meeting, I stop some of his campaign staff – all of them students, mostly of politics. “Be nice to George! I think he’s great,” one of them says. But I do too, I protest; it’s just that he clearly needs a rest.

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Galloway withdraws from rector race
5th Feb 2009

Controversial MP George Galloway has pulled out of the race to become rector of the University of Edinburgh - and urged students to back journalist Iain McWhirter. The politician said pressures of work meant he would not be able to commit fully to the role.

The Respect MP, who represented Glasgow constituencies for Labour before being expelled from the party in 2003, has been involved in efforts to highlight the plight of Palestinians caught up in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

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It always seemed a bit pie in the sky.

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I read today that there were complaints about MacWhirter because he backs a boycott of Israel, so it's good to hear he was elected.

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Why I wanted to do it
Sunday Herald columnist Iain Macwhirter was announced last week as the 50th rector of Edinburgh University. Here he explains his reasons for making himself a candidate...

THE MOST difficult thing was explaining why I wanted to do it. As the 50th rector of Edinburgh University, following my election last week by students and staff, I will now be chairing the University Court, the governing body of one of Scotland's great cultural institutions. It's clearly an immense honour and a privilege, and - I hope - a lot of fun, since being rector involves associating with some of the brightest and liveliest minds in the country and speaking on the great moral issues of the day.

But as I was trundling around lecture theatres and dinner halls canvassing support, I kept being assailed by the same question. Why? Why did I want the hassle? It became increasingly difficult to give the same pat answer without sounding just a little false. The subtext of the question was clearly that there must be some kind of ulterior motive. People don't just take on these roles for nothing these days (puh-leese), so there must be something in it for me. The students didn't want to condemn me for it; they just wanted to know what it was.

The more I answered the question the more I started questioning my own motives. I'm not a daytime TV celebrity or a full-time politician, so there is no real PR benefit. The job involves no salary or comfy expense account and, so far as I know, there are no lobbying companies seeking rectors for hire. Apart from a lifetime membership of a unique club, which includes Gladstone, Churchill, and Lloyd George, it's not clear what the material rewards really are of being rector of Edinburgh University. Perhaps I should have just said: "Because it's there."
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So, why did I stand? Well, the first reason of course, was that I was asked to - and sometimes that is incentive enough. Call it vanity, but it is very hard not to respond when you're called out of the blue by a group of bright undergraduates, from a wide range of political backgrounds, who seem to think you stand for what they stand for. After 30 years in the tawdry trade of journalism, it's nice to be told you actually stand for anything at all - even if you're not quite sure what it is. When you realise that the students are mainly interested in you because you are not one of the other candidates, the ego boost diminishes just a little. But it was still immensely flattering to be told I could take on, in electoral combat, someone like Lord George Foulkes, a former Cabinet minister, one of the most experienced political operators around. Or that I could beat the Respect MP, George Galloway, one of the greatest parliamentary orators of his generation and the man who faced down the US Congress over those alleged oil dealings with Saddam.

But you rapidly discover that it's not really about the candidate, but the effectiveness of the campaign, which in my case was led by the dynamic Edinburgh undergraduate Devin Dunseath, and devised by the president of the Edinburgh University Students' Association, Adam Ramsay, whose sometimes shambolic appearance disguises one of the sharpest political brains I have come across. Certainly, my campaign worked and delivered one of the largest votes in the history of rectorial politics, something of which I am immensely proud. I haven't stood in a competitive election since I left school, but political inexperience turned out to be an advantage. There is such a depth of cynicism about politics at all levels now, that just being a politician has become an electoral handicap - at least in an election like this.

Of course we had policies on student debt, the accommodation crisis, the quality of teaching and such like, as well as on broader issues like Gaza. But being independent of any party line was very important, as was being remote from parliamentary sleaze. The Lords-for-hire scandal broke just as the campaign got underway, inflicting immense collateral damage on the unfortunate Lord Foulkes.

There was a whole range of issues which made Lord Foulkes's campaign an uphill struggle - not least his record of support for university top-up fees, the Iraq war and identity cards. He fought a very dignified and effective campaign for all that.

But the hyper-cynicism that has afflicted our political culture has left us in a very difficult situation. The way things are going, not being a politician may be the best way of winning elections. Even my uncertain delivery in the hustings debates, where I was no match for my rivals' oratorical skill, added in a curious way to my credibility. I was clearly not comfortable selling myself and I struggled with the stilted discourse of electoral politics, where what you don't say is as important as what you do.

So what now? Well, there will be little opportunity for motivational navel-gazing because universities are heading for difficult times. Budgets are going to be under immense pressure. Graduates, burdened with £20,000 debts, are going to be dumped onto a jobs market that no longer wants them - at least not in the numbers of the last 10 years. Universities are in the front line of the financial crisis, and it is going to require hard lobbying to remind governments that investment in higher education is even more important in an economic downturn. There's a whole range of issues requiring attention. So, once I find out what I'm doing it for, I'll let you know.