Toby Young will help lead the new university watchdog – our favourite 22 furious responses
The government has appointed Toby Young to the board of a new university watchdog and people aren’t happy about it.
Maybe it’s something to do with his book in which he said ‘stains’ (or working-class students as you and I know them) had changed Oxford and were ‘universally unattractive’ and ‘small, vaguely deformed undergraduates’.
Here’s the pick of our favourite comments online.
1.
I’d have much more respect for those saying universities can be better run by Toby Young and other non-experts if they let themselves be operated on by non-expert surgeons.
— David Schneider (@davidschneider) January 1, 2018
2.
Is that Toby Young who said I was wrong to criticise Oxbridge for failing to improve access? The Toby Young who only got into Oxford University because his Dad rang the tutor up? Toby Young who slated working class students? I thought it was New Year’s Day not April Fool’s Day. https://t.co/SeoQs7okDM
— David Lammy (@DavidLammy) January 1, 2018
3.
The Toby Young news broke at 00:01. Imagine being so unpopular they try to bury your appointment at THE noisiest point of the whole year.
— Kevin (@rascalblog) January 1, 2018
4.
Appointing Toby Young to the board of the Office for Students makes as much sense as appointing me to the board of the RSPB.
— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) January 1, 2018
5.
@chunkymark this is the ‘man’ the Tories have put in charge of regulating our universities… pic.twitter.com/KH556RP9xe
— Louie Richards (@LouieRichardss) January 2, 2018
6.
since Toad has deleted the tweet now, it would be a shame if it keeps going around pic.twitter.com/QnRT7DYpVI
— Sjoerd Levelt (@SLevelt) January 2, 2018
7.
8.
Toby Young regulating universities. Fuck me, we're living in the opposite of a meritocracy. A posh thick potato apocalypse.
— Scriblit (@Scriblit) January 1, 2018
9.
Personally, I'm not sure how much fitness for public life should be judged by old tweets, but I'm absolutely certain that people from the hard right are held to much lower standards by the Mail etc than the rest of us would be. See also his Guardian piece about enjoying cocaine. https://t.co/AZsv4foUwB
— James O'Brien (@mrjamesob) January 2, 2018
10.
Finding out all the things @toadmeister has written is like watching Spiceworld: you cannot believe it can get any worse. But it does. https://t.co/hfLI4KHT8B
— John Niven (@NivenJ1) January 2, 2018
11.
.@JoJohnsonUK Having just been alerted to this piece on “progressive eugenics” by #TobyYoung, I am calling on you to reverse your decision re: his OfS board memebership. This is entirely unacceptable ⬇️ 1/ pic.twitter.com/7bZofXdQs3
— Prof Tanja Bueltmann (@cliodiaspora) January 1, 2018
