Thursday 28 April 2011

Official: Middlesex University isn’t crap.


Middlesex University has been awarded the prestigious Queen’s Award for Enterprise. According to the Barnet Times, the award was given for “outstanding achievement in international trade and is a reflection of the university’s commercial success”.

In 2004, rent-a-gob Tory councillor Brian Coleman described Middlesex University as “crap”. Middlesex had applied for permission to expand the Trent Park campus in Southgate, leading Coleman to remark: “Why should the people of north London suffer in order to attract hundreds of foreign students? They are such a crap university they only attract foreign ones.”

Four years later, Middlesex awarded Coleman an honorary degree, apparently for his ‘outstanding’ commitment to the community. One can only assume that the University was being ironic. Nevertheless Coleman accepted the award, despite the obvious hypocrisy in so doing. But whilst he is renowned for being obnoxious and outspoken, he is not known for turning down a reception where free canapés are on offer.

Hopefully, Middlesex will continue to win many more such awards in the coming years, proving once again how detached Brian Coleman is from reality.