Quote of the day

In this Guardian story which begins “Students and academics at Oxford are angry that their university has accepted more than £3m from a foundation established by a founder of the controversial oil trading company Trafigura”:

Adam Bouyamourn, a second-year politics, philosophy and economics student at Worcester College, said: “Surely it is socially, if not globally, irresponsible to provide this tacit endorsement of Trafigura’s business practices?”

Tim Worstall comments:

Cash the cheque and use it to educate people. It’s the education that counts, not where the money came from. . . For example, a philosophy student should know that the correct answer to any question which begins “surely” is “no”. An economics student should know that the source of funding is irrelevant, it’s the use to which it will be put that is important. And a politics student should already know that posturing, while being the very essence of politics, does require not checking the dentures of gift horses too closely.

Monitor: Penny Wise