One little ray of light at a time when universities, especially in America, are being traduced and threatened with huge financial penalties on purely political and ideological grounds, by far Right governments like that of Donald Trump. (I see that Columbia is the latest to capitulate. Harvard, I think, is fighting, through the courts.) Often the excuse given for targeting universities is Faculty or student ‘anti-semitism’; but I wonder whether this isn’t deliberately conflating that sickening prejudice with opposition to Israeli army atrocities in Gaza? Can anyone tell me of any significant genuine anti-semitism, at Columbia, Harvard or anywhere else? We know how that false accusation has been very effectively ‘weaponised’ in Britain.

My ‘ray of light’ is a message I received this morning from my old university, Cambridge, informing me that a new Chancellor has been appointed, after a vote of members (like me). He is (Lord) Chris Smith; a former Labour minister, and a thoroughly good (by which I mean liberal) egg. He is also openly gay; not especially significant in itself, but it may indicate that we Cambridge graduate voters are mainly liberal too.

Incidentally: ‘Chancellor’ in this context seem to be a merely ceremonial role, the real work being done by the Vice-Chancellor. But it must give Lord Smith some influence, and even ‘pull’.