“A.C. Grayling offered to talk to protesters to explain his views but was not given the opportunity.”

How constructive of them. Not exactly the best advert for freedom of thought and debate.

Incidentally the UK already has a private university, namely the University of Buckingham, albeit it doesn’t charge 18K fees.

Personally, I agree with Spiked‘s analysis of the whole affair (http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/10583/):

“What the reaction really reveals is the insecurity that is keenly felt both by those who work and study in the traditional world of higher education and those in the media who support such HE as a Good Thing. Faced with government cuts to various departments and the introduction of a new system of tuition fees for students, but unable to challenge these trends effectively by outlining why the humanities are important or why free education is a morally good idea, HE practitioners and supporters instead lash out against a small group of people who propose doing things differently, who propose launching an experiment in how to deliver an apparently excellent humanities education to fee-paying students.”

This sounds like SWP brownshirts in action. I’m surprised they didn’t take advantage of the location to burn a few books.

It amazes and depresses me that some on the mainstream left (hello Sunny) still treat the SWP as a semi-respectable ally rather than the thuggish totalitarian cult it is.

Do you have a view on this Sunny?

Someone needs to explain to these morons what a “debate” is.

As the new college will be additional to, not a replacement for, existing higher education institutions, and there already is a private University (which this won’t be), I really don’t see why people are getting so worked up about it.

@3

I can see your commitment to debate highlighted beautifully – calling people Nazis is the first step in open and rational debate!

@1

This is really the only possible response to AC Grayling and his revolting plans to allow the rich and the thick to buy themselves a degree. It’s barely worth debating.

@6

No it won’t – it will use existing University of London premises – this is not an extension of access to university, it’s jamming more people into the same space.

“This is really the only possible response to AC Grayling and his revolting plans to allow the rich and the thick to buy themselves a degree. It’s barely worth debating.”

That’s a ridiculous comment, which will just alienate people from your cause.

Perhaps some people will be discouraged from going to such debates in case the same thing happens again. Which would be a great shame and deny the opportunity for people to get involved in politics.

The Left needs to be careful its stunts don’t drive away ordinary people who support their cause.

@3 Yeah those bloody SWP huh? I mean it must be them.

It says he didnt get to talk, but there are videos by Bloomsbury Fightback! where people are asking questions and he is replying. Usually that comes after his talk in a debate right?

At the end of the day, a debate is worth having but it isnt going to change his mind. Letting off a smokebomb wont either, but if it makes him a little bit more worried about the opposition he will face then good.

Letting off a smokebomb wont either, but if it makes him a little bit more worried about the opposition he will face then good.

So, basically you’d like to intimidate him? Well, I’m sure rank thuggishness will get the message over. What that message is, however, might be beyond you.

@11 im not advocating violence. Im advocating resistance to what he is doing. Debates are all fine and well, but they are not going to have an effect.

Intimidation, yes. But the same way UKuncut intimidates, by the way of peaceful, direct action.

Poeple who believe that simply having a dicsussion will solve things are the reason the world is in the situation it is.

@ 12 lentileatinglefty

“im not advocating violence. Im advocating resistance to what he is doing. Debates are all fine and well, but they are not going to have an effect. ”

Except you obviously DON’T believe debates are “all fine and well”, because you advocate action that shuts down debate.

“Poeple who believe that simply having a dicsussion will solve things are the reason the world is in the situation it is.”

You sure the world’s not the way it is because of people who like to intimidate those who disagree with them?

Poeple who believe that simply having a dicsussion will solve things are the reason the world is in the situation it is.

I’ve no idea what this means.

The happy truth is that Grayling Hall will be a miserable failure; not because of lefties trying to put the fear of God (well, not God, but – y’know) in him but because anyone with a lick of sense will realise it’s a preposterous waste of money that will achieve nothing more than swallowing up the posher Oxbridge rejects who’d otherwise mope about Durham, Warwick and the rest bemoaning their misfortune.

All someone achieves with a stunt like this is making people they’re an, er – stunt.

@ Bensix

I doubt this private university will be a failure, though i have no idea why the left are so against it. given it won’t be using public funds, surely it will free up funds for other poorer people to go to university?

that you want it to be a failure says more about you and your jealous green eyes than anything else though.

Tyler, you don’t need green eyes to see that it’s a bad idea; you only need them open…

The New College of the Humanities should be opposed because it is simply a sham.

Careful attention reveals it to be just a branding exercise with purchased celebrity endorsements and a PR-driven website. The College has no degree giving powers, nor any influence over any syllabus for any of the offered degrees. The degrees that its students will study for are normal University of London degrees, which for external students can undertake at a fraction of the proposed £18,000. The College will seek access to University of London facilities, which it will presumably have to pay for at a commercial rate.

So what will the student get for their £18,000? It will hardly be “face time” with the celebrity “professoriate”. Almost all of them are attached to foreign universities and have numerous other responsibilities and appointments. Indeed, in respect of the two listed law academics, neither of them are authorities in any of the seven core subjects of a standard law degree. The students will, it seems, have a course on science literacy, though such students would probably be better off going to their local “Skeptics in the Pub” branch and paying a couple of quid each month.

The humanities really deserve better than this.

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/david-allen-green/2011/06/college-humanities-students

(Should have had blockquotes there. From “open…” it’s somebody else’s prose.)

I expect a fair number of the fascists “protesting” this new university are a product of recent British higher education and therefore serve as a good example why probably fewer, and more exclusive, universities would be a jolly good thing. And I presume that the noisome likes of Terry Eagleton and Richard Seymour would refuse out of principle an offer to teach at an American Ivy League college (yeah, right).

And I presume that the noisome likes of Terry Eagleton and Richard Seymour would refuse out of principle an offer to teach at an American Ivy League college (yeah, right).

Oh, but what am I saying — despite the bile displayed by Eagleton in the Guardian towards the very idea of private universities, his bio reveals that he accepted a position at Notre Dame, not only a rather elite private university, but one very closely identified with that famous champion of progressive values, the Catholic Church. Quelle surprise!

I don’t know about the rest of it but the smoke bomb was irresponsible. At the start of the video, I can hear what sounds like somebody having difficulty breathing. Couldn’t they have pied him instead?

Typical and disappointing behaviour by this sort of protesters. Liberal Youth Autumn Conference was invaded by a similar group whilst a guest speaker (an MP) was talking. We asked them not to interrupt and showed them out but the MP offered to speak to them after he had finished giving his talk. Surprise, surprise, they didn’t wait around to speak to him.

I despise this kind of protest, it’s cowardly and the only point of it is to get attention, not to try and change anything.

“This is really the only possible response to AC Grayling and his revolting plans to allow the rich and the thick to buy themselves a degree. It’s barely worth debating.”

Er, this seems to me to be pretty much what a university education is these days anyway. Most people I met at University were thick as two short planks but there by dint of their parents’ fairly nice lifestyle and a few bob in the pocket. Fortunately, we now have the internet and bright people can easily educate themselves, have an interesting life, and save a fortune while doing it.