Censorious universities are a bigger problem than Stepford students

Have you heard the one about the students who said clapping could cause anxiety? Or the students who banned sombreros? Of course you have. You can’t move these days for tales of Britain’s blue-haired belligerents and their campus war on free speech, ‘fascist’ tabloids and fancy dress. Student leaders have become a national embarrassment – and with good reason. They’ve turned everything that was good about being a student – broadening your mind, having fun, being free – upside down.

But it’s become a little too easy to bash students, to pretend that a new generation of so-called ‘snowflakes’ are single-handedly destroying Enlightenment values. Student union politicos are, after all, entirely unrepresentative. Turnout in SU elections is tiny. And they like it that way. At its conference last year the National Union of Students rejected a motion – put forward by a reformist slate – to introduce ‘one member, one vote’ for its presidential election.