The pressure group Alumni For Freedom of Speech (AFFS) circulated a set of questions to the candidates for the Cambridge Chancellorship. Broadly we are supportive of the aims of AFFS.
Based on their replies and any other relevant publicly available information, AFFS scored candidates according to the following, admittedly fairly simple, “Free Speech Ratings”: FS+2, FS+1, FS 0, FS-1, FS-2. FS+2 is the highest, FS-2 is the lowest.
The ranking is above, with Prof Wyn Evans and Dr Ayham Ammora topping the table. Dr Mark Mann is in third place.
The response of the candidates to the questions posed by Alumni for Freedom of Speech are worth reading in full. They are given on the AFFS website, together with some analysis, here. We pay tribute to the care with which this was done and largely agree with their grading.
Curiously, having gone to all the trouble of providing a set of questions and analysing the results, the AFFS end up ignoring their own work & recommending the two wealthiest candidates, Lord Browne of Madingley and Mohamed El-Erian.
Perhaps next time, candidates should just submit their bank statements to AFFS?
Lord Browne has been pictured with numerous oppressors of free speech such as Vladimir Putin (Russia) and Ilham Aliyev (Azerbaijan). He obtained a press injunction (later dismissed by a judge) to prevent embarrassing details of inter alia his running of BP .
This recommendation does enormous damage to the standing of the AFFS.
Credibility, once blown, is rarely recovered.
14 Comments
SPARTACUS · 5 July 2025 at 11:14
I am lost for words! Speechless! If you are speechless freedom of speech is meaningless! But Cambridge upper echelon (VC, Head of Clinical School, Registrary, Head of HR) must me ecstatic! The atmosphere of fear, bullying, toxicity and lack of freedom will be secure under Lord BP!
Cynic · 5 July 2025 at 11:32
If AFFS are really keen on free speech, why don’t they recommend voting for the candidates who actually scored most highly in their own free speech analysis?
AFFS actually carry out some rather basic research & analysis and then they ignore the own results.
If this was a research paper, they’d be facing charges of research misconduct
As it is, they look like phonies.
Wyn Evans · 5 July 2025 at 11:41
The Director of HR, Andrea Hudson, has stated that the HR Department do not have to have any evidence to begin an investigation into someone
Straight out of the KGB playbook.
Three Professors at the Institute of Astronomy were investigated for just under 2 years on the basis of a complaint for which the University finally admitted that there was no evidence and never had been any evidence
Ms Hudson will be delighted with choice of Lord Browne & his backing for dictators.
And, as for the senior management, the Registrary (Emma Rampton), Dr Mike Glover, Prof Deborah Prentice, Prof Kamal Munir, Prof Nigel Peake, Prof Tim Harper and Prof Eilis Ferran all support this disgraceful set of affairs.
They believe it is correct that HR can investigate people with no evidence for long periods of time
Anonymous · 5 July 2025 at 12:14
Then when there is a vast amount of evidence against senior management they do not lift a finger: even after repeated requests from victims to please hear their cries.
Eileen Nugent · 8 July 2025 at 04:09
I don’t think senior management do support the current state of affairs, I think they just don’t know what the right thing to do is in these situations and I think this is something particular to Cambridge that if it cannot determine the exact right thing to in a situation the organisation has a tendency to freeze and do nothing. I raised a neutral set of work-related stress concerns and student safeguarding concerns, but neutral I mean I never raised a grievance against anyone in the organisation and the concerns related solely to organisational processes and not to any individuals handling the situation. Throughout the whole process I retained confidence in the senior management of the day to handle the situation.
I could always understand why senior management weren’t doing anything whilst I was raising concerns, since it was not obvious to me what an individual should do in the situation I made the reciprocal assumption that it was not obvious to those in the senior management what they should do in the situation either and that was why they weren’t doing anything. Having made that assumption the organisational response started to make more sense and it was possible to work out what the problem was. It took years to figure out exactly what an individual should do in this situation & once I figured that out it was then possible to figure out what senior management should do in the situation. I eventually reached the conclusion that an organisational process that needed to exist did not exist & that was why the organisation could never deal with the concerns.
Had I known then what I know now I think I could have gotten an intervention & I think senior management would have been relieved if someone could have rationalised some form of organisational intervention that was likely to bring about an end to that ongoing situation and to ensure the situation was handled correctly by the organisation. I have no way of verifying that conclusion but I think it’s the right one. Having gone through this whole process of working out exactly what the right thing to do in my own situation was, I find it hard to feel aggrieved at senior management as I am unsure how much better my own response to someone to my own situation would have been had I been in a senior management position at the time.
21percent.org · 8 July 2025 at 10:14
I never raised a Grievance.
I made a Whistleblowing disclosure in a health & safety emergency
I was then attacked by the Human Resources Department
Some people “cannot determine the right thing to do”, but there are some actors in HR who are motivated by malice.
Eileen Nugent · 8 July 2025 at 18:37
I think there is an even deeper motivation than malice, the “how can I get this stressful HR case out of my life” motivation.
Eileen Nugent · 9 July 2025 at 13:50
If there is evidence of the Human Resources Department attacking people for raising valid concerns then that is an extremely serious situation because Human Resources personnel owe a safeguarding duty to the university as an organisation. There are two elements to that safeguarding duty, they must act to protect themselves from unnecessary and unregulated work-related stress that is likely to damage their own health & they must also protect others from unnecessary and unregulated work-related stress that is likely to damage the health of others. Evidence of the Human Resources Department unnecessarily attacking people as a method of “getting a stressful HR case out of their life” when there are other more appropriate methods available that could be used for the purposes of “getting stressful HR case out of their life” i.e. developing the understanding necessary to deal with the stressful HR case, fails on both elements – it’s injurious to their own health and injurious to the health of others. This maximises the total organisational safeguarding risk whey they have a safeguarding duty to the organisation to minimise the safeguarding risk.
Eileen Nugent · 9 July 2025 at 14:31
Human Resources Departments that have fallen into a state of dysfunction are a significant risk to an organisation :
https://www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-research-councils-2025-2-ukri-hr-staff-investigated-in-lengthy-bullying-probe/
SPARTACUS · 5 July 2025 at 12:54
The Director of HR, the Registrary, the VC, the Pro-VCs, the Head of the Clinical School and others in positions of power at UCam have a vested interest in keeping the status quo: fear, intimidation, arbitrary decisions, earmarking of some for destruction while others are protected, promotion of mediocrity, protection of academic dictators and despotes because they bring in lots of funding, etc. UCam is rotten to the core and it is going downhill, particularly in the Biomedical sciences and especially in cancer research. Nobody better than Lord BP to keep this mess going! It will take years to realise how damaged the place is. Postal Office style!
PayToPlay · 6 July 2025 at 20:32
As if to underscore your point, El-Erian has just posted a video with some online influencer – and it’s a “paid partnership”. He has literally paid someone to endorse him. God help us.
Tony Booth · 7 July 2025 at 12:59
The biases of AFFS shone through the survey, which I found clumsily worded. It was an attempt at the control of people’s speech rather than freeing it up. I made a choice between refusing to answer the survey and saying why, in which case I would have been placed at the bottom of the list. I achieved the latter. I see myself as amongst those who most encourage freedom of thought and expression. It is facilitated by creating community cultures, organisational cultures in which people feel free to say what they think. Which seems obvious. Authoritarian, controlling communities, departments, including HR departments, colleges or universities are anathema to free speech.
21percent.org · 7 July 2025 at 15:50
In Oxford race, they recommended: William (Lord) Hague — the ex Tory leader !!!
Tony Booth · 7 July 2025 at 16:06
That should have read:: I made a choice between refusing to answer the survey and saying why, in which case I would have been placed at the bottom of the list, or answering the questions truthfully, contesting formulations where I found them unclear, which would place me at the bottom of the list. I achieved the latter.