'Boycott Willetts' is a fairly new student led campaign (also endorsed by some staff), with an aim to reverse my university's decision- Kings College London- in their decision of employing David Willetts, former University Minister, as a visiting professor in the department of Political Economy. He has also been hired to work with the universities policy institute.
In 2010 David Willetts was one of key people in cooking up the educational elitist storm which is other wise known as the tripling of tuition fees. Hiring the man who passed such an unpopular policy and quickened the transition of turning universities into businesses and students into customers, is possibly one of the most offensive, hypocritical, and unsympathetic moves a university could make.
To unravel the elitist beliefs and the detrimental effects that Willetts has had on this country, lets first of all set the scene of his political life:
Willetts is very much a career politician and has very little understanding of what life is actually like for the majority of society. After graduating from Oxford with a first class honours degree in PPE (an atypical quality of an elite Tory) he became a private researcher for Nigel Lawson before moving over to Margaret Thatchers policy unit. In 1992, Willets became an MP and quickly established himself as an aspirational, loyal member of the party which led to becoming pay master general. He was actually forced to resign from this position in 1996 as a result of giving misleading evidence (he lied) in an investigating committee into Neil Hamilton's part in the cash for questions scandal.
However, Willets soon made a return to high rankings of the conservative party and was nicknamed "Two Brains"among his Tory chums. Despite supposedly being clever enough to have two brains in his head, it transpired that David Willetts is really really bad with money as he was involved with yet another scandal in 2009. The infamous expenses scandal of course! Willetts exhausted his expenses claim limit on numerous occasions as a result of submitting invoices of £330 for a dog kennel, paying workmen £115 to replace 25 light bulbs (he might be clever, but he can't climb step ladders), and spending almost £9000 on bathroom maintenance. Between 2001 and 2008, David Willetts claimed £143,764 of taxpayers money for his second home allowance. He quite frankly took the piss.
This man, someone who actively ripped off the people who voted him into power, had the mordacity to support policies in parliament that decreased living standards for the countries most desperate, and effectively laid the blame of Britain's financial problems with the poorest in society. Labelling people who are reliant on the welfare state as scroungers, spongers, or cheats simply makes an easy scapegoat and deters attention away from the much larger problem of tax avoidance and fiddling the system at a much higher, costly level- something that Willetts is clearly guilty of.
During his time in power David Willetts has supported cuts to disabled benefits and voted against taxations to bankers bonuses. Clearly a man with elitist priorities. Willetts also voted very strongly for the Iraq war, against equal gay rights, he supported the bedroom tax, voted for an overall reduction in spending on welfare benefits, supported the selling of state owned woodland to private companies, he voted against spending public money to create jobs for young people in long term unemployment, and very strongly for a reduction of corporation tax.... David Willetts provides the most help to the people who need it the least, and attacks the people who need the most the help. He is not the kind of person that Kings College London should be advocating.
In defending themselves, Kings is most likely going to suggest that universities are a space for people with differing and sometimes controversial opinions. However, I dispute this argument as a defence for employing David Willetts because KCL should not have space for opinions that are morally unacceptable. As well as being a man with distorted social priorities Willetts is also a raving misogynist. In 2011 David Willets claimed that feminism was a hindrance to society and blamed a stagnation of social mobility between classes on women taking up university places and jobs that could have otherwise been given to ambitious working class men. A racist professor would not be accepted at Kings College, and nor should one who believes that half the students studying there are simply occupying places that would be better off being taken by their male counter parts.
The selection of Willetts is a massive slap in the face for the students. It was summed up quite nicely on a facebook thread on which someone said that hiring David Willetts as a professor in a university is like employing the owner of an abattoir as an animal rights campaigner.
But as controversial as this appointment is, it's not surprised me. I've only been a student at Kings for a few months and already they've repeatedly proved themselves to be an elitist money making institution; The Boycott Willetts campaign is just one of numerous that are working in reversing the principles of our university. For instance, the Affordable Accommodation campaign is currently petitioning the principle to guarantee like for like affordable accommodation when they close them down. Instead, they're shutting the cheapest accommodation, which costs £119 a week (although this is the cheapest, the student loan still isn't enough to cover the rent), and have replaced it with another that costs almost £200 a week. The university is also under criticism from students for it's investment of £8million a year in fossil fuels. The student satisfaction statistics are pretty bloody awful, being among the worst in the country, and it's hardly surprising when the business side of the university seems to go against what is best for the students.
Although it's not surprising, this campaign is still certainly worth a shot. Especially in a case that is so abhorrently elitist. In an article released by Kings the prinicple Ed Byrne is quoted to have said that he is "looking forward to be working closely with David Willetts" which should certainly get alarm bells ringing..... it's extremely unusual for a professor to work 'very closely' with the prinicple of the university. David Willetts was hired as a result of nepotism and students are expected to be willing to be taught politics, by the man who put them in three times the amount of debt for the exact same education. His policy has had a monumentally negative impact on so many young peoples lives and those same people are expected to take him seriously. This shouldn't happen. And it's pretty obvious that Willetts is going to be paid a hefty sum if he does eventually assume his new post, and meanwhile other members of staff much lower down the hierarchy that Willets has helped reenforce, are being laid off.
The least we can do is try and make Kings College London take the students opinions seriously. Lets hope they listen to us this time, and lets not surrender to elitism.
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Voting pattern knowledge taken from YouGov.
