News that Jemima Khan’s ex-husband, Imran Khan, has applied to be chancellor of Oxford University will have caused consternation in some quarters, and not all of them, like Mr Khan’s, foreign prison cells.
Imagine if literally the only reason you’d decided not to apply to be elected Oxford’s chancellor was because, like Khan, you once refused to tolerate the presence of Salman Rushdie, and maybe also called him “a blasphemer”, as Khan did. You might have thought, well, in a place like Oxford there’s bound to be someone with a vote who’d hold that against you.
Especially if, like Khan, you’d called Osama bin Laden a “martyr”. And before that, refused to call him a terrorist.
Or maybe, like Khan, you’ve congratulated the Taliban – never considering the possible impact on a UK academic career – for “breaking the shackles of slavery”. And have excused, like him, the Taliban’s ban on women’s education. And still share Khan’s stated belief on rape, that women should remove “temptation”, because “not everyone has willpower”.
Opinions like these, though widely shared, have probably deprived Oxford’s contest of countless male applicants. Fans ambitious for Khan’s popular fellow sportsman, Andrew Tate, must be kicking themselves for worrying about, for example, his “if you put yourself in a position to be raped, you must bare [sic] some responsibility”.
Because Khan, the cricketer turned prime minister of Pakistan, has not just applied, but is being talked up, extravagantly, as a heroically fitting........