Congratulations to William Hague, who has today triumphed in the race to succeed Chris Patten and become the 168th Chancellor of Oxford. Hague, who topped the ballot at every stage, won the final run-off against Elish Angiolini by a margin of 1,600 votes. Former cabinet ministers Peter Mandelson and Dominic Grieve were both eliminated in the earlier rounds of voting. Jan Royall, the outgoing principal of Somerville College, finished third.
The result represents a belated victory for the ex-Tory leader over New Labour, 23 years after his landslide defeat at the hands of Tony Blair. Some commentators viewed the race as a straight party political fight between Mandelson and Hague. Yet even left-leaning dons confess to preferring a former foreign secretary to a Labour peer who twice had to resign from government.
In spite of the efforts of the university Labour club and Mandelson’s own impressive media game, he appears to boast more fans in Westminster than Oxford.
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