What is in Kelvin's Head?

Rectorial Election – Glasgow University

19/02/2014

For the last couple of weeks I’ve been a candidate in the elections to choose a Rector for the University of Glasgow. The position of Rector in the older universities in Scotland is a venerable tradition. The students get to elect the person who chairs the University Court and acts as their representative at the highest level of the University when decisions are being made that affect the future planning of the life of the University.

It is a great idea – the primary users of the University getting a strong say in what happens to it.

I was asked to run by a student, Alan McManus who became my campaign manager for the whole experience. I’m hugely grateful to Alan for all this. His relentless encouragement and good humour were what got me into this and they have never wavered. It has been a joy to be on the university campus (which is close to St Mary’s) and spend some time getting to know it and meeting people up there. I think that in the last few weeks I will have met about 1250 people – some of them wanting to engage me pretty deeply with their concerns and some of them just so that I could give a cheery reminder to them to vote.

In the end, I was placed second and was very pleased at the number of votes that were cast for me. It was the highest turn-out in a student election in many years.

The winner of the election was Edward Snowdon, the former NSA contractor and whistle-blower who is currently on the run from the American authorities.

In many ways the election was decided by the nomination of Mr Snowdon, who won’t be able to take up the post and won’t be able to represent students at all. Once his nomination was in, it was all that the media were interested in.

One of the things I’ve learned is that we must guard the rules which attempt to prevent biased reporting at elections in the UK. Standing in an election and seeing, whenever it is reported, that it is reported as being only about one candidate is dispiriting and makes you realise how hard it must be to campaign in places where the media can do what they like.

I’ve also been reminded of how much I enjoy campaigning and how much life it gives me. It is no coincidence that the sermon that I preached on Sunday, right at the height of the campaign, was one that people have told me will stay in their minds for some time. I come alive in the heat of battle and that rubs off onto other areas of my life.

With regards to the actual result, I’m very pleased that the issues that I raised during the campaign, which were all student issues really, did have a resonance with those who voted. There were three of us who were campaigning to become Rector on a “working Rector” ticket and I was pleased to be placed at the top of the list of those of us who would have turned up to do the job. In the end there was a reasonable vote for all of us. Graeme Obree, the cyclist is obviously a hero to many and was strongly supported by campaigners from the Sports Association. I was surprised in a way that the Yes campaign was not able to muster more votes for Alan Bissett who came fourth – he was a good candidate who was strongly engaged with the students when I met him. The Yes campaign doesn’t seem to me to be doing as well with young people as I’m sure some people think it is, which will make the independence vote later this year all the more interesting.

Any of the three of us who stood on the working Rector ticket would have been willing to turn up and work for the students of the University of Glasgow. Both Graeme Obree and Alan Bissett have been good-hearted candidates and there has been a spirit of very friendly rivalry between us. In that sense it has been a very happy election campaign. I think we were all disappointed though that now the job won’t get done and students won’t be represented in the way they could have been.

Finally, I’ve been interested in the students’ reaction to a priest running in an election on campus. I was expecting a certain amount of negativity about that. In the end only one person ever raised that issue with me in all the campaign – a mature student who is a member of the diocese who told me she didn’t think people would vote for me because I was a member of the clergy. In fact, I think I’ve learned that students are willing to vote for someone who articulates clearly values that they respect and which they think to be good. Gender politics and LGBT issues played strongly in this election. It is clear to me that if churches want to appeal to the vast majority of younger people then they need to articulate and argue very strongly for progressive values and equal rights in both those areas. There will always be a niche for those articulating that women should be less than equal to men and working against gay rights but, thank God, that niche is shrinking quickly as the years go by.

So, I’d like to thank all those who supported me. It has been a lot of fun to run for this post. I hope that the University of Glasgow flourishes and prospers.

I’ve just heard that Edward Snowden has also been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Guess that one isn’t going my way this year either.

#GURector, Edward Snowden, Rector, University of Glasgow

11 responses to “Providence and Vocation for Liberals in Public Life”

David Evans

29/06/2015

I was one of the Lib Dems who did foresee the calamity in 2015 and actively campaigned to get the party to change leader – after 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014 it wasn’t difficult for anyone to see, but it was difficult for many nice Lib Dems to own up to the fact that they had allowed it to happen. I failed, but I don’t think it was part of anyone’s plan that I did (except possibly Ryan Coetzee and a few other true believers).

There’s a lot in your points I can agree with, particularly regarding the naivety of referring to God’s plan, when many Christian’s have a view that his/hers/its plan is to let us get on with it and find our own way to salvation. However, the most interesting question is when you say “The trouble is, these are not side issues, these are my rights.” Do you really mean that you have the right to force someone else to marry you who doesn’t want to and believes it is wrong, even though you have the right to and can get someone else to do the same job for you? Do individuals have the right to insist on being married by the registrar of their choice, or just the right to get married? Are you not perhaps just a bit assuming that your tree is that bit taller than the other guy’s?

Reply
1. Kelvin
  
  29/06/2015
  
  I think that people should be able to expect individual people who represent the state not to discriminate against them in any of the protected categories. I think that the equal rights tree is bigger than my tree and the registrar’s tree.
  
  I don’t claim that individuals should be able to force registrars of their choice to marry them, not least because I don’t think it is a very real question – few people want to be married by someone who doesn’t want them to be married. I do think that local authorities have not simply the right but the duty to remove public officials who can’t serve every member of the public due to their personal prejudices.
  
  Reply
  1. David Evans
    
    30/06/2015
    
    I think you are rather changing your ground here from your original piece. You started with “The trouble is, these are not side issues, these are my rights.”
    
    You have now moved onto “I think that people should be able to expect individual people who represent the state not to discriminate against them in any of the protected categories.” So we now have a right to expect, but only against a person who works in the public sector, and even if it is against that person’s conscience and only if you are in a specially protected category.
    
    It gets even more tenuous then as you accept when you then say “I don’t claim that individuals should be able to force registrars of their choice to marry them.” So the right is not to a person wanting to be married at all.
    
    Finally we get “I do think that local authorities have not simply the right but the duty to remove public officials who can’t serve every member of the public due to their personal prejudices.” So the right is not to an individual at all, so definitely not “your rights” but to a public sector organisation. Hardly a human right, more of an employer’s right by your own statements.
    
    I rather think that your equal rights tree, however high you think it is, has decidedly peculiar roots.
    
    Reply
    1. Graham Evans
      
      05/07/2015
      
      David, I thought most liberals accepted the view that in the provision of services to the general public, whether provided by the public sector or private sector, a policy of non-discrimination was an essential ingredient of a progressive society. I accept that there is a notable exception to this rule in terms of the provision of abortion, but this arises from the broad range of medical procedures undertaken by one type of doctor or another. Surgeons are specialised medical practitioners, as are nurses who assist them, so it is most unlikely then anyone who opposed abortion on conscience grounds would actually be faced with having to refuse to conduct an abortion. The provision of most services to the general public is also a specialist activity, and no-one forces people to engage in any particular activity. The idea that a registrar should be able to opt out of undertaking a civil gay marriage represents the thin edge of a dangerous wedge. If such people wish to opt out of doing so, then they should act as part of a religious community, such as a deacon in Anglican Church, which has the legal power to conduct religious marriages, are still recognised by the State.
      
      Reply
      1. David Evans
        
        18/07/2015
        
        Quite simply Graham I disagree with your view that this is a level of discrimination in the provision of a public service of anything like the scale you imply makes it essential that every individual has to comply with it. The “go with it or get out” philosophy demanded of the state by so many in pursuit of their personal view of their rights is to my mind a greater threat to liberty than the fact that Fred or Freda don’t agree with something and don’t want to do it but George, Georgina, Harry, Harriette etc etc etc etc can do it instead. Ultimately you aren’t stopping someone from exercising their right; you are preventing someone from imposing their requirement on someone else.
        
        However, I note Kelvin hasn’t responded to my substantive point and I await that with interest.
Iain Brodie Browne

02/07/2015

Firstly thank you for your posting.
I have been expressing my concern elsewhere that the main voices we have heard in the debate about Tim’s faith have been firstly from those who think that it wholly a private matter and because his opinions are sincerely held and are derived from his faith the rest of us should back off and secondly those who seem to imply that having a religious faith at all is a negative factor. Until your contribution I am not aware that anyone has directly addressed the issue from different Christian understanding.
I cut my political teeth at the end of the 1960s opposing the all ‘white’ rugby and cricket tours from South Africa. The dominant voices from the churches were from Trevor Huddleston and David Sheppard. They effectively contested the assertions of those who told us (and they did) that apartheid was part of God’s plan.
Earlier in that decade Michael Ramsey spoke up clearly in support of what was then called homosexual law reform. David Steel, who pushed through the 1967 Act did so at a time when he was regularly introducing Songs of Praise.
I regret that equal marriage and the removal of other discriminations against gay people –including the issue you raise about Registrars- have not been as effectively championed by Christians as those earlier reforms. It is fair to say that in the minds of those who you describe as ‘decent people in society’ Christians are seen as opposing these reforms. The priority for the churches appears to be to gain protection for those who oppose such reforms. Imagine if that had been the approach to apartheid.
My own experience gives me hope that things are changing. Our local church got a new vicar who immediately began to pray for the defeat of the Equal Marriage legislation, got up petitions and lobbied. His views on women priests were no more in tune with ‘decent society’. In common with many churches these matters had not really been properly discussed. It was heartening how many members did openly contest his views and a significant portion of the congregation felt so strongly the eventually relocated to other churches. There is a good deal more support for liberal values amongst church goers than is popularly conceived.

My view is much the same as expressed in the Independent’s editorial this morning which endorsed Tim but added the rider that : ‘It will be for Mr Farron to make clear to party members, the public at large, and this newspaper, that his faith can indeed be reconciled with a liberal view on matters of birth, marriage and death.’ If faith is the opposite of certainty then I have enough to believe that can be achieved but if would be of assistance not only to Tim but to others struggling to reconcile their faith with liberal views if more church leaders provide a Christian narrative as effectively as did Michael Ramsey and Trevor Huddleston did in their day.

http://birkdalefocus.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/influencial-divine-former-libdem-ppc.html

Reply
Andy

18/07/2015

Personally, as a non-Christian, I find the attack on Tim Farron’s Christian faith distasteful, even disturbing. With the issue of gay marriage, something I wholly support, it is clear to me that Farron was trying to protect freedom of religious thought whilst also legislating for LGBT equality. There is nothing illiberal about that. Freedom of religion is one of the most fundamental human rights, and something liberals should defend. Any definition of liberalism which does not include freedom of conscience, is one I have no interest in supporting.

Reply
1. Kelvin
  
  18/07/2015
  
  Thanks for commenting, Andy.
  
  I’m not aware of people attacking Tim Farron’s faith. I am aware of people questioning whether someone who apparently has anti-gay views is an appropriate person to represent the Lib Dems as leader.
  
  When it comes to the vote about the registrars, that can either be interpreted as defending religious thought or as defending discrimination. I come to the latter view because if I substitute a couple who are gay for a couple being say mixed race (something many people would once have objected to on religious grounds) then I see clear discrimination at work.
  
  It is a strange day when people are arguing (as some are) that the leader of the Liberal Democrats has the right to hold distasteful views about gay people in private so long as he defends their rights in public. He does have that right but not the right to be taken seriously as well.
  
  Reply
  1. David Evans
    
    18/07/2015
    
    Sadly there have been many who have been attacking Tim’s faith, some directly and some more with disdain. Comments such as listening to his sky fairy are not uncommon. Also portraying his views as apparently anti-gay are without doubt over egging it massively as opposed to the simple fact that as a liberals we should all have views which take into account the “balance of fundamental values of liberty, equality and community” and that this inevitably leads to differences of judgement on lots of individual issues, but do not undermine the fundamental decency and liberalism of many people like Tim, who have proved it over a great many years.
    
    Reply
David Evans

13/11/2015

Kelvin,

It is a great disappointment to me that you have not come back to me with any further reasoning in response to my post on 30 June 02:19. Have you changed your views, reinforced them with new vigour or simply moved on?

Reply
1. Graham Evans
  
  13/11/2015
  
  David, perhaps you could clarify what your substantive point is. Having reread the whole thread it’s certainly not clear to me.
  
  Reply