{"id":2341,"date":"2025-07-05T09:29:23","date_gmt":"2025-07-05T08:29:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/?p=2341"},"modified":"2025-07-05T12:34:22","modified_gmt":"2025-07-05T11:34:22","slug":"affs-caught-sight-of-their-bank-balances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/?p=2341","title":{"rendered":"AFFS caught sight of their bank balances &#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"289\" src=\"https:\/\/21percent.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Screenshot-2025-07-05-at-10.42.11-1024x289.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2346\" srcset=\"https:\/\/21percent.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Screenshot-2025-07-05-at-10.42.11-1024x289.png 1024w, https:\/\/21percent.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Screenshot-2025-07-05-at-10.42.11-300x85.png 300w, https:\/\/21percent.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Screenshot-2025-07-05-at-10.42.11-768x217.png 768w, https:\/\/21percent.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Screenshot-2025-07-05-at-10.42.11.png 1496w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The pressure group <a href=\"https:\/\/affs.uk\/voting-cambridge-chancellor-election\" title=\"Alumni For Freedom of Speech\">Alumni For Freedom of Speech<\/a> (AFFS) circulated a set of questions to the candidates for the Cambridge Chancellorship. Broadly we are supportive of the aims of AFFS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Based on their replies and any other relevant publicly available information, AFFS scored candidates according to the following, admittedly fairly simple, \u201cFree Speech Ratings\u201d: FS+2, FS+1, FS 0, FS-1, FS-2.  FS+2 is the highest, FS-2 is the lowest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The ranking is above, with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cam.ac.uk\/about-the-university\/how-the-university-and-colleges-work\/people\/chancellor\/election-of-the-next-chancellor\/the-candidates\/statement-from-professor-wyn-evans\" title=\"Prof Wyn Evans\">Prof Wyn Evans<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cam.ac.uk\/about-the-university\/how-the-university-and-colleges-work\/people\/chancellor\/election-of-the-next-chancellor\/the-candidates\/statement-from-dr-ayham-ammora\" title=\"Dr Ayham Ammora\">Dr Ayham Ammora<\/a> topping the table. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cam.ac.uk\/about-the-university\/how-the-university-and-colleges-work\/people\/chancellor\/election-of-the-next-chancellor\/the-candidates\/statement-from-dr-mark-mann\" title=\"Dr Mark Mann\">Dr Mark Mann<\/a> is in third place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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, <a href=\"https:\/\/affs.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/AFFS-Camb-Chanc-stmt-5.7.25-FINAL.pdf\" title=\"here\">here<\/a>. We pay tribute to the care with which this was done and largely agree with their grading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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 &amp; recommending the two wealthiest candidates, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cam.ac.uk\/about-the-university\/how-the-university-and-colleges-work\/people\/chancellor\/election-of-the-next-chancellor\/the-candidates\/statement-from-lord-john-browne\" title=\"Lord Browne of Madingley \">Lord Browne of Madingley <\/a>and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cam.ac.uk\/about-the-university\/how-the-university-and-colleges-work\/people\/chancellor\/election-of-the-next-chancellor\/the-candidates\/statement-from-dr-mohamed-el-erian\" title=\"ohamed El-Erian.\">Mohamed El-Erian.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Perhaps next time, candidates should just submit their bank statements to AFFS?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lord Browne has been pictured with numerous oppressors of free speech such as Vladimir Putin (Russia) and&nbsp;Ilham Aliyev (Azerbaijan). He obtained a press injunction (later dismissed by a judge) to prevent embarrassing  details of  <em>inter alia<\/em> his running of BP . <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>This recommendation does enormous damage to the standing of the AFFS.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p> Credibility, once blown, is rarely recovered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2341"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2341\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2349,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2341\/revisions\/2349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}