Thrifty doth protest too much, methinks

Nigel Thrift and his incongruous surname has been the subject of much lampooning, debate and scapegoating for all the time I’ve been at Warwick University. For some reason, however, all of the people who profess to care deeply about Professor Thrift’s pay completely neglected to find the data online before the Coventry Telegraph published an article about the Warwick vice chancellor’s most recent pay rise. The recent furore amongst the overzealous left distracts from real issues.

It reminds me so much of the pointless list of boycotts that plagued Students’ Union (SU) politics in 2011-12, the reversal of which wasted a lot of energy in All Student Meetings last year. The Coventry Telegraph ran a story on Prof Thrift’s pay rise on the seventh of January. The Boar reiterated that original article within two days, albeit neglecting to mention from where the £332,000 figure came and with an ambiguous declaration that Professor Thrift had a “£16,000 increase on his salary for last year” – the Vice-Chancellor was paid £332,000 for the year ending 31 July 2013, as listed in the statutory accounts of Warwick University, which were made freely available online on 19 December.

Student political voices are obsessed with jumping on every bandwagon that happens to seem “liberal”

The sabbatical officers at Warwick SU didn’t make any blog posts until 10 January, but I’m perplexed by neither the Boar’s oversight regarding the accounts nor the SU’s lack of a statement before the Coventry Telegraph article went viral. The former is understandable: a pay rise that already happened is something of a non-story, the University was quiet about the accounts being published and very few writers are active outside term-time. I’d be surprised if the sabbatical officers weren’t aware of the pay rise before the Coventry Telegraph, given that it’s their job to know about Warwick University, unlike Boar writers. I simply trust that the sabbatical officers have more sense than the “Protect the Public University” types who seem to think the number one way to solve a problem is to kick up a stink.

Indeed, the “Protect the Public University” group’s latest demonstration was organised in an impressive time, but with a turnout of only about fifty people, it sadly joins a long list of ineffective displays of disgruntlement. Very few students have seemed vocal at all beyond a Facebook comment or a verbal declaration no more insightful than “I agree with PPU.” I’ve no doubt that Thrift’s latest and all previous pay rises are unnecessary. Although the Jim Broadbent lookalike presumably has responsibilities, I have no idea what they might be. I know he gives speeches to new students and wears a silly ceremonial dress as he shakes the hand of graduates, but neither act warrants a six-figure salary.

Although the Jim Broadbent lookalike presumably has responsibilities, I have no idea what they might be.

I know he’s a big shot in geography, but that surely gains little credit at a university which lacks a geography department. Taking a pay-freeze in 2009 and 2010 was a nice gesture, but complaining that you don’t have as high a pay as vice-chancellors at other top ten universities resounds much like a childish tantrum. The “Protect the Public University” rally has also thrown tantrums, having locked themselves in several buildings and shouted from a bench. If they really cared, they’d have read the accounts of Warwick University before the Coventry Telegraph did. They’d have gauged student opinion in a real way. They’d not have blown everything out of all proportion in an instant.

It doesn’t bother me that Nigel and his pals have decided that Warwick’s number one geographer is worth £332,000; perhaps whatever job it is that he does when he’s not being unflatteringly photographed is worth his extreme pay. What annoys me more is a student population whose only active political voices are obsessed with jumping on every bandwagon that happens to seem “liberal,” to bang a drum because it’s there. A drum is just noise, after all.

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Photo: flickr/centregcs