Name a college after Thatcher? She might have been good but she does not trump Jesus, says Oxford uni Lord Patten
The Chancellor of Oxford University has rejected calls to endow a college in honour of Margaret Thatcher – suggesting she cannot compete with Jesus.
Lord Patten dismissed demands for the university to make good its snub to Lady Thatcher three decades after it refused her an honorary degree.
He backed plans to set up a Thatcher scholarship at Somerville College, where Lady Thatcher earned her degree.
But in a speech to journalists in Westminster, Lord Patten – a Cabinet minister under Mrs Thatcher – rejected calls by London Mayor Boris Johnson to name a college at Oxford University after her.
He said: ‘You would either have to start a new college, which would be more expensive, or you would have to persuade Jesus [College] or Corpus Christi or Christ Church to change their name.’
Lord Patten then issued a barbed comment, saying: ‘It may be thought – however admirable she was – slightly pushing it to persuade Jesus to change its name.’
Campaigners have been demanding recognition for Lady Thatcher since her death in April.
They also want her bestowed with a posthumous honorary degree after she was snubbed in 1985 by embittered academics protesting against cuts in university funding.
It means Lady Thatcher is the only Oxford-educated prime minister not to have been given an honorary degree, a move that entrenched divisions between the Thatcher government and the Left-wing educational establishment.
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In another snide boast, Lord Patten said Oxford’s Bodleian Library had secured the official papers of Lord Howe, the former deputy prime minister whose resignation from the Thatcher Cabinet in 1990 precipitated her downfall.
Lord Patten dismissed demands for the university to make good its snub to Lady Thatcher three decades after it refused her an honorary degree. They are pictured in 1997 when he was governor of Hong Kong Boris Johnson suggested the idea of a Thatcher College to make amends for Oxford not awarding her an honorary doctorate‘It’s absolutely true that Margaret Thatcher has left her papers to Churchill College.
'It’s also true that Geoffrey Howe has left his papers to the Bodleian.
'The Conservative Party archive is also held in Oxford.
'At present the most important issue in Oxford about Margaret Thatcher’s legacy is a campaign starting at her old college Somerville to start Thatcher scholarships.
‘I hope that will be a lasting memorial to an extraordinary woman who changed the way this country is governed.’
Asked if Lady Margaret Hall – an Oxford college set up in honour of Lady Margaret Beaufort, founder of the Tudor dynasty – might also honour Lady Thatcher, he said: ‘That Lady Margaret was the mother of kings and I’m not sure that’s yet on the [cards].’
Lord Patten seemed unaware that Christ Church has already changed its name once.
Originally called Cardinal College after Henry VIII’s chief minister Cardinal Wolsey, it was renamed when he fell from grace.
Mr Johnson said last month: ‘I’m still waiting for the Oxford dons to accept the gravity of their error, and in the spirit of magnanimity to award Baroness Thatcher not only a posthumous doctorate, but why not endow a college?’
