Mandelson email to voters in Oxford university chancellor contest draws criticism

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Rivals jostling to become the next chancellor of Oxford university have complained about Lord Peter Mandelson emailing his campaign material to thousands of potential voters.

The university will next week name its first new chancellor in two decades after a fiercely-contested election that has been marred by criticism from both candidates and voters.

Participants have raised concerns about unclear rules, different levels of resources spent by the candidates, limited transparency and inadequate efforts to inform and enrol those eligible to vote.

Mandelson — who is also in contention to be the UK’s next ambassador to the US — got hold of email lists and sent material to thousands of voters, who include university alumni and staff.

Baroness Jan Royall, the current principal of Somerville College and a candidate, told the FT it was never made clear whether participants could use university email lists.

“As an insider I am sure that I could have accessed many of the emails but chose not to do so because I thought it would have been unfair,” she said.

Asked if there had been dirty tricks she replied: “Not dirty tricks, different value judgments.”

Mandelson, a former Labour cabinet minister, said he had been “guided by legal advice” and registered himself with the Information Commissioner’s Office before he sent out an email to the “publicly available” email addresses of members of Oxford’s congregation.

Online ballots close on Friday in the second round of voting by university staff and graduates.

They are choosing between Labour peers Mandelson and Royall, Conservative former cabinet ministers Dominic Grieve and Lord William Hague, and Lady Elish Angiolini, principal of St Hugh’s College Oxford.

The contest for the largely ceremonial role triggered by the retirement of Lord Chris Patten after 21 years was the most competitive to date, and the first to use electronic voting at the nearly 1,000-year-old institution.

Grieve, the former attorney-general for England and Wales, criticised the process, telling the FT: “I think the election process for the future should be looked at again. It has been unpredictable and slightly chaotic.”

He stressed his support for Oxford’s role as a centre for “research and teaching excellence . . . upholding academic freedom, [and] embracing diversity in all its forms”.

Royall, a former leader of the House of Lords, expressed concern that only 31,000 people had voted, about a tenth of the alumni, senior staff and faculty who were eligible.

“It’s been such a strange election,” she said: “There were no hard and fast rules. It’s very difficult when you don’t quite know what you should do. Next time, we have to ensure more alumni are aware of their ability to register to vote.”

After initial criticism, Oxford scrapped a requirement for internal approval of candidates, leading to 38 standing in the first round of voting this autumn. It has not published the votes for each, but identified the five it said received most support for this week’s run-off.

One of the candidates said “dozens of alumni” had been in touch to complain that they had been given inadequate notice to register in time, and that while nominations were required by August, the university only confirmed who would participate in October.

“Two participants have spent a lot of money,” the candidate added.

Grieve said he had spent £120 for a website, and Angiolini £100 for a social media post plus “two pizzas and a bottle of wine”. Royall said she had spent £10,000 on consultants. Hague was unavailable to comment.

Despite the suggestions of high spending, no figures for Mandelson’s and Hague’s campaign have been revealed.

Mandelson told the FT he was the only candidate with the experience of having been a university chancellor, as he is approaching the end of his eight-year term at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Royall said she wanted a reflection on “how to bring a more equitable system” to compensate for the different levels of support for academics and students at colleges with variable levels of wealth.

Hague has stressed the importance at Oxford of freedom of speech, strengthening research and finding new approaches to state funding of universities in his campaign.

He has criticised Mandelson because of the possibility of him also becoming ambassador to the US, arguing that taking on the two roles would be “incompatible”.

Nick Hillman, head of the Higher Education Policy Institute, said there are “valid questions about whether you can appropriately balance those [two] jobs”.

Mandelson, who has previously said he believed the roles were not incompatible, told the FT “there is no offer of an ambassadorial job in America or anywhere else”.