A year on from the first round of the election of the new Chancellor, its victor, William Hague, took to the Cheltenham Literature Festival in mid-October to comment on his ideals for the University, the current Starmer Government, and the development of Trump’s Gaza Peace Plan.
Hague laid out that under his Chancellorship, he envisioned Oxford being an institution that would not shy away from allowing people to hear things that “upset and offend them”. He, in fact, stressed the importance of this feature of universities, and that students should “arrive at university expecting they will hear things that will upset them”. Beyond this, he declared that there would be no “safe spaces” at the university, based on the idea that in an increasingly unstable world, “there is no point trying to look for a safe space” when the world that students will enter after university does not contain these safe spaces.
The Chancellor’s remarks came after Oxford Union President-Elect, George Abaraonye, faced great criticism in the weeks leading up to Michaelmas term for comments he made in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s death. Hague did not directly address the situation surrounding the President-Elect, however he did stress that “freedom of speech is not the freedom just to scream your views at somebody”. The remarks came in the context of Hague encouraging greater debate beyond social media, which he described as a “stream”, and that it was broadly unhelpful for the free speech cause.
On the idea that free speech allows “crazy” views to become prolific, the Chancellor argued that it is free speech that not only allows for rebuttal to those views at the time, but also that free speech enables hindsight to show us which views were “crazy”. He acknowledged that “clearly we’ve been through phases where we were quite wrong in what we thought”, under the context of Oxford University formerly only admitting students from the Church of England, and also opined that inevitably in another 50 years there will be things that people think now that will be considered “crazy”. He argued that free speech is the only way to come to this realisation.
The Chancellor went beyond Oxford in his remarks and also discussed the ongoing peace settlement in the Israel-Gaza war. The Chancellor praised President Trump for his efforts, and also stated that he believed Tony Blair was a great choice for involvement in the rebuilding of Gaza. Blair, who was Prime Minister during Hague’s tenure as Leader of the Opposition, is a man that Hague claimed had been “utterly preoccupied with the Palestinian issue” since he left office in 2007. Blair’s involvement in the plan has been the subject of great controversy due to the Blair government’s invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Beyond the praise of President Trump, strong criticism was also present in the Chancellor’s remarks, with him taking a strong stand against what he believed to be a lack of action in Ukraine. Hague stated that he believed the effort put in by President Trump in Israel should be reflected in conflict resolution between Ukraine and Russia. President Trump met with President Putin in Alaska in August, a meeting that Hague described as a “nice chat” that was “no more productive” than having “a cup of tea with the leaders of Hamas”.
These views are not unsurprising from the Chancellor; in his campaign to become Chancellor this time last year, he made free speech issues a key point of his campaign. He defeated long-standing Principal of St Hugh’s College and former Lord Advocate of Scotland, Elish Angiolini, 53% to 47% in the final round of voting, leading all five rounds of the vote. Hague will serve a term of 10 years, the first Chancellor to have a set term under new rules of the office. Prior to this, Chancellors of the University have, in recent times, served terms of upwards of 20 years; Harold Macmillan became Chancellor during his tenure as Prime Minister in 1960 and would serve in the role for 27 years. Oxford and Cambridge both instituted this term-limiting change in 2024, with Cambridge explicitly stating that they were making the change in an effort to “help to encourage equality, diversity, and inclusion.”
Hague, now approaching a year since he emerged victorious as the next Chancellor, and just eight months since his term began, is clearly demonstrating he will not just be a symbolic figurehead that sits quietly, but wants to make his views heard. The Chancellor’s role remains largely ceremonial, and the Chancellor themself does not have the power to change this.