ALUMNOTS
If it was possible to bring Screaming Lord Sutch back to life - and then, perhaps with even more difficulty, to Oxford - he would have fitted in perfectly.
Nowhere else would the erstwhile leader of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party have felt more at home. In no other town are there so many people who share a desperate desire to assume the trappings of aristocracy, despite lacking any natural qualifications. Sutch, of course, changed his name by deed poll from the simple 'David Sutch', to 'Screaming Lord Sutch, the fifth Earl of Harrow'.
Most of the University would doubtless rush to the banner of the Oxford branch of the Monster Raving Loony Party, with the bizarre policies and pranks that it would represent. Stunts such as putting cones on the heads at the top of the pillars outside the Sheldonian would be eclipsed by those who sought to climb onto the Rad Cam roof and raise the official Party flag over Oxford.
OUCA and the Labour Club would be left devoid of members by this fundamental reorientation of student politics.
Lord Sutch's policies would need to be really loony to seem crazy in Oxford - merely making people wear silly hats, gowns and carnations would fail to cause much of a stir; they do so with scant coercion as it is. He could make playing The Crystal Maze compulsory for all undergraduates, with the Bodleian zone, the Cowley zone, the Union zone and the Isis zone; change all the road signs into Albanian; or even - the biggest joke of all - make lectures compulsory.
The fifth Earl of Harrow was not merely the longest-serving leader of any political party of the 20th century; he was also a crooner of some repute. Sutch would have made a welcome addition to the ranks of the tramps on Cornmarket Street that attempt to entertain passers by with laughable attempts at 'music'. Indeed, he would have had the significant and decisive advantage of being able to sing.
Sutch would have satisfied the needs of all students at Oxford, both by imparting political wisdom and insight, and also by existing as a 'benchmark' against which they could judge the college lunatic: a service nobody else provides.
18th Nov 2004