Dreaming spires

There was an interesting article in today's Times magazine by Sathnam Sanghera about access to Oxbridge. Sanghera, the child of immigrant parents and a state school boy from Wolverhampton, went to Cambridge, and has written an excoriating portrait of the barriers to entry for students from poorer, less privileged backgrounds. Oxford and Cambridge have, he avers, a long way to go, and he points to the much greater diversity achieved by Ivy League institutions in the States.

First, a mea culpa. I attended Oxford for a year, before a precipitate academic downfall, and I progressed there from a public school which knew how to prepare its pupils for the application process. So far, so white privilege. Consider it 'checked'. I know I enjoyed advantages that others did not; while very far from a scion of the aristocracy, I had university-educated parents who paid for me to get a good schooling and therefore be admitted, not only to Oxford, but to Christ Church, the grandest of grand colleges. So let's get that out there.

There will be people who will argue that all of the above doesn't just qualify my response to Sanghera's article but actively disbars me from any comment. How can I possibly know what it's like for an underprivileged child, maybe caring for a sick lone parent while desperately trying to study for A-levels, to look at the forbidding obstacles even to any university, let alone Oxbridge? The answer is twofold: first, I can't know what it's like. I can't know anything outside my own direct experience. But I flatter myself I am intelligent enough that I can imagine. And it must be bloody hard.

So, yes, the poor and the underprivileged have the deck stacked against them. That's true of every walk of life. In the great lottery of existence, there are winners and - I don't mean this in a derogatory fashion - losers. Some will drown under the obstacles put in their way, a lucky and talented few will flourish and prosper despite their disadvantages. Whatever your opinion of grammar schools (and I have my own), they did for a while provide an almost-miraculous ladder of academic success to people who would otherwise have been left floundering. Alan Bennett springs immediately to mind.

I hope all of the above is relatively uncontroversial. What sent my teeth slightly on edge, though, was Sanghera's willingness to pile the responsibility on Oxbridge itself. Are our two greatest and oldest universities diverse enough, in terms of race, social class and school background? No. Of course not. He includes a piece by a black student at Lady Margaret Hall, who reported that she was only one of 35 black people in her year of 3,000 entrants, and one of only three at LMH. That, clearly, indicates a problem. And I have no doubt that the stats for other measures of diversity are not much better.

When I went up to Oxford nearly 25 years ago, I was the (I think) penultimate year which could opt to take an entrance exam plus interview rather than rely on A-level results, which I did (thank God!). The masters at my (day) school drilled us pretty mercilessly, and were themselves largely the products of Oxbridge, and, I imagine (though I don't know), public schools. Elites breed elites. They are self-perpetuating. At our school, the Second Master (deputy head, basically) coached each Oxbridge applicant through the process, and the Headmaster read everyone's UCCA personal statement and discussed it with them. That with an upper sixth of 150-odd pupils. So we had a hand on the small of our backs, pushing us towards the finishing line.

What's my beef? Oxbridge can only do so much. Even Sanghera admits that Cambridge spends five million pounds a year on access programmes and that Oxford expects to spend seven million on outreach in the next financial year. They are not blind to the problem. Sanghera thinks the interview process should be dropped and admissions run centrally rather than by colleges. I think I disagree. Oxford and Cambridge are two of the best universities in the world, and should be looking for the most extraordinary minds (they were wrong about thinking mine was one of them). His LMH interviewee relates a story about a tutor showing her a coin and asking what one could infer about society by looking at it. That, it seems to me, is exactly the sort of lateral, inquisitive, almost outside-the-box thinking they should be looking for.

I also don't hold with the comparison with the Ivy League. Yes, Oxford and Cambridge colleges are wealthy - I remember reading somewhere that it used to be possible to walk from Trinity College, Cambridge, to London without ever leaving college land - but the big American universities dwarf them in terms of endowments. Harvard, to take an example, has billions to spend on means-blind applications and affirmative action, and there is a wholly different culture of lifelong giving to your alma mater in the US. By their own standards, Oxford and Cambridge are devoting substantial resources to outreach and access.

A final gripe, if it's not too tiresome. Sanghera characterises - I would say stereotypes - the clannish nature of Oxford colleges. You're supposed to act in a certain way, come from a certain background, speak in a certain way. He talks about "bops", and "ents", and "plodges". Well, in my year at Christ Church I never heard anyone use the word "plodge", and "bops" and "ents" were common currency at St Andrews, where I ended up (OK, OK, not the best advert for student diversity, but still).

The point is that there is an extent to which institutions are what you make them in your head. If you see them as shuttered and forbidding and clannish, then that's what they'll be. If you see them as vibrant centres of learning with an intellectual culture that seems to make the very air hum, then they can be that too.

I'm not saying Oxbridge is faultless. It has work to do, but it is doing at least some of it. Progress is being made. And change needs to come from other places too; from our school system, from parents, from communities. That there is a problem is not in doubt, nor do I think even the crustiest old don would deny it. (I am reminded of Enoch Powell, the most brilliant scholar of his generation at school at Birmingham, writing out a list of the Greek texts he had read and being told by his tutor, "This is a rather thin list for a Trinity man".) But simply to heap opprobrium on the heads of Oxford and Cambridge won't do.

I could say a lot more, but I think I've said enough, for the moment. We must all work harder to make sure that these two jewels of British academia, and, indeed, world academia, attract the very best and brightest brains it possibly can. But the shoulders on which that responsibility must fall need to be broad.

Howdy, neighbour

Well. Last night was quite an event. I watched the penultimate episode of MasterChef, and, for all the frustrations (documented elsewhere), felt a bit hungry, having had a late lunch but no dinner. So, weak as I am, I ordered a Chinese takeaway (Szechuan hot and sour soup, and duck chow mein, if you're interested). Now, the building in which I live is currently undergoing what seems like interminable restoration, so I've schooled myself to go and collect takeaways from the delivery people at the front door rather than buzz them up and expect them to find me, especially as I live in Flat 2/L but it's on the first floor.

It arrived early than billed, as these things tend to, as I was halfway through a Bettany Hughes (swoon) documentary on the cult of Bacchus. Still, I paused the iPlayer and grabbed my keys, then set off for the lift. Big mistake. The keys I grabbed were those to my mother's house in Sunderland (where I'd been till Wednesday), and emphatically not the keys to my flat. As is always the way with these things, I realised with a cold sense of dread in the pit of my stomach as soon as the door swung shut and locked. And, as is also always the way with these things, I had no phone with me, no shoes on, no wallet. Merely the clothes I stood up in, and THE WRONG DAMNED KEYS.

There was a period of lighting up the sky with obscenities as I made my way to the front door to collect my takeaway. OK, I thought, do that, then think, think, think. So my little plastic-shrouded parcel was handed over and I trudged back up to my firmly-shut door. My first thought was that I should shoulder-barge it down and worry about it in the morning. A couple of runs at it and a large purple bruise on my shoulder today indicates this was not the way to go.

Right. So. I'd borrow a neighbour's phone and ring the 24-hour maintenance line. The two nearest neighbours - I rarely see other people in my building and I don't know any of them - yielded no answer. Either out or in bed. By now it was around 10.30 pm. Number three (that is, the third I tried, not literally Number Three) produced a tremulous female voice saying "Yes? Who is it?" I apologised for disturbing her at this hour and explained my predicament, and asked if there was a phone I could borrow to contact the property management company.

"No, sorry, there isn't," came the response.

I won't pretend that this flummoxed me slightly. I don't think I sound like a rapist or a murderer, and she might at least have opened the door, even if on the chain (I have one on my door, I assume she does on hers). But no, it was clear that there was nothing doing.

Maybe it's the anonymity of a big building; I live in a converted old school with (maybe?) 40 flats, so there is little sense of community compared to the terraces and semis I've been used to which had three or four flats at most. Still, it struck me, nursing a sore shoulder and a cooling Chinese takeaway, as uncharitable.

Onwards and (literally) upwards. I climbed a half-flight of stairs to the next flat I could find, knocked in my most non-rapist way on the door, and it was opened by a Middle Eastern man about my age, maybe younger. I once again explained my plight, asked him if I could borrow a phone just for a minute to try to get me back into my flat. (At this point I was beginning to imagine sleeping curled up on my doormat.)

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure," he replied, handing over his iPhone and accompanying me down to the notice board where the details of the property management company were pinned. I apologised and thanked him in equally profuse measure, but he swatted it away, and said he dreaded something like this happening to him. I think his name was Yusuf, but he mumbled a bit, and I was distracted.

So far, so good. There's a weird set-up in my building; the flat I rent was let by a local estate agent, but is run, to all intents and purposes, by a separate property company, who, in turn, sub-contract maintenance to another firm. Anyway, I rang the 24-hour helpline and once again recited my tale of woe.

"Oh no," the woman on the other end averred, "you'll need to sort out your own locksmith. We don't deal with that."

I fumed inwardly for a moment, while Yusuf nodded sympathetically and said "That's a bit shit."

Back to his iPhone, and a Google search for "locksmiths in your area". By now it was 11.00 pm. Fortunately, I found one which was still open, explained (again!) the situation, and texted my address. I was told that someone would be with me within the hour. Not great, as I'd hoped for an early night after Bettany Hughes and Chinese food, but not the end of the world. Of course, there was the complicating factor of how they would contact me on arrival, as I wasn't in my flat (so no buzzer), and the phone I was using was someone else's, so no number to ring. Well, I moved down to the lobby and perched by the front door so I would see any obvious tradesmen wanting to get in. I thanked Yusuf again, and he asked if I wanted a glass of water or anything. I declined politely - I had my Szechuan soup after all - but could have kissed him (not that I think he would have welcomed that).

As it happens, I hadn't checked my pigeon hole, and there were two Henry Jackson Society reports lurking in there, so I leafed through them and waited for my second saviour of the night. Now, I'm fatalistic in some ways; I tend to think that "within the hour" means "in 59 minutes". It ended up closer to 40, and I let the locksmith in with barely-concealed glee. He was a very cheery bloke, especially for someone who, as he told me, had been on call since 5.00 am, and he lugged his tool set up in the lift to assess the situation.

I had my fears. That he'd need to drill the lock out and replace it, or somehow do another sort of damage. Reader, I needn't have fretted. He produced from his case a sort of extendable arm with a claw on the end, which he was able to feed through the letter-box and catch the latch of the lock. I was back within two minutes. I could have cried with relief. It being late, he wanted cash payment - fair enough - and I explained that there was a cash machine at the end of the road, so if he gave me five minutes I'd go and get the readies and come back.

"Nah, mate, it's OK, I'll run you there."

That struck me as charitable, if also self-interested, but I accepted with alacrity. Funds withdrawn, and handed over, I made to bid him a good night and to thank him warmly.

"Hop in, I'll run you back."

Now that was above and beyond. He must have been dog-tired, but those tiny kindnesses transformed my evening. It left me thinking about how different our interactions with other human beings can be, depending on how we approach them. Neighbours, contractors, clients. The littlest things can mean the most.

Also, polystyrene. When I finally shut the door behind me (from the inside!), my Szechuan soup was still warm.

Due process

I begin this with caution and trepidation. I am a white, middle-class, middle-aged male, and I am going to write about rape and sexual assault. There will be people who will regard me as automatically disqualified to commentate on such subjects, because of my status; that it will be 'mansplaining' (how I hate that word), that I don't know what it's like. It is true that, in my 40 years, I have never been subject to any kind of unwanted sexual advances. (If I were being frivolous, I would say I'v been subject to precious few wanted advances, but I won't say that. Whoops. Oh.)

I was prompted to think about this after the acquittal of Ulster rugby players Stuart Olding and Paddy Jackson on charges of rape. A jury found them not guilty of non-consensual sexual intercourse. Olding's barrister, Frank O'Donoghue QC, summarised the case by saying "Perhaps a matter of regret now to all parties but such is life."

It got me thinking. Now, let me say right at the outset that OF COURSE rape is a despicable crime and there should be no tolerance for it or its outliers in a decent society, as the post-Harvey Weinstein world is proving. A man who forces himself on a woman is no man at all, and likewise the much rarer, but real, occasions of women who force themselves on men. Sexual violence is abhorrent to me, though I think it is important to remember that it's not really about sex, it's about power and control.

But. Yes, I'm afraid there has to be a but. Why is it that we have elevated this crime, among all the enormities that people commit against each other, to an almost-religious level? If a woman cries rape, she is assumed to be telling the truth, which flies in the face of one of our most prized principles of justice, the presumption of innocence. Now, I confess that it would take a very poorly mind - or an avaricious one - to make a false allegation of rape. But there is an insidious public belief which stems from this, that a man who is acquitted of rape has "got away with it". And that has to be wrong.

I was interested to read yesterday that Cressida Dick, the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis and Britain's most senior police officer, has now said that her force should no longer automatically believe people who come forward with allegations of rape or sexual assault, and that they should be dispassionate investigators into alleged crimes. That must, surely, be right. A claim is made, the police investigate - under the presumption of innocence - and a decision is made on whether to charge or not, based on the evidence. If you boil it down, nothing else makes sense.

The insidious belief that the acquitted "got away with it" is very real. Nigel Evans MP, whom I know a bit, was accused of sexual assault a few years ago, and it cost him his job as a Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons. I will say now that when I first heard the allegations, I thought them deeply unlikely. A clumsy lunge which was rebuffed, perhaps. But that's life, as Mr O'Donoghue QC said. But physical, sexual assault? No way. Thankfully, and I say this because I like Nigel, the jury agreed. Not guilty. He didn't "get away with it", he was NOT GUILTY. Nigel has spent a great deal of his time subsequently campaigning for anonymity for those accused of rape or sexual assault. I know he went through the wringer and is passionate that others falsely accused should not do so.

It seems to me that anonymity is no bad thing, given that we continue to afford rape this special status whereby the victims are prima facie believed. Because the stigma will linger on the accused. One need look no further than the seemingly never-ending historical child abuse inquiry. The lazy reader probably thinks that Cliff Richard or Sir Edward Heath was likely a paedophile, simply without the evidence to convict. Mud, unfortunately, sticks.

I come back to the original question. Why do we privilege this crime over all others? It is a terrible offence, of course (it depresses me that I have to keep saying that). But there is some magic dust sprinkled over it, which virtually has the judge's gavel banging as soon as the accusation is made. We need to change this.

One final thought. The #MeToo campaign is noble and virtuous in its inspiration, but, taken to extremes, it risks weaponising the relationships between men and women. I have had relationships with junior colleagues at work. That they happened indicated they were welcomed, but, had initial advances been rebuffed, was I guilty of something? If I ask a pretty girl in a bar if she'd like a drink, am I a sexual predator? Those who know me would say obviously not. But that is where we are headed. We need to sit down and have a long, hard think about relations between the sexes. Clearly, there are disgusting excuses for human beings like Weinstein who prey on the less powerful and use their influence. No-one is excusing that. But there is a baby-and-bathwater danger.

Here endeth the lesson.