Search results for ""Author GJ Babb""

Politics calls for men and women of experience - citizens of high repute and sound judgment. Vice-Chancellor Professor Clifford Conquest is a Labour politician in the making who has heard the call. Conquest is invited to become an advisor on the future of university education to Labour MP Marcus Lancing. He soon begins to fear that those defending the bastions of Socialism are being driven to madness by Think Tanks, Specialist Advisors, Chief Future Officers, the Commentariat and the Battle of the Civilisations. The Tory Government, he has no doubt, already has. On his way to a parliamentary seat, Conquest finds himself increasingly immersed in a world of political double-dealing beset by the industry of bad conscience. He skirts scandals aplenty, but he knows how to ride the zeitgeist, and surely

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One year into the task of putting University London Central back on its feet, trouble-shooting Vice-Chancellor Professor Clifford Conquest is battling those who, ‘in dribs and drabs, defraud my students of the education they deserve’. His political star is in the ascendant and the ambition to be an important figure of the Centre Left in a reformed Labour party comes closer. But no! His aim is threatened by the forces of the Rising Left – not least on his governing body – bent on displacing the Centre Left. Both factions regard universities as their intellectual stronghold in danger of becoming a plaything of the Right. When a magnetic couple from the world of cinema attend Graduation Day, Conquest’s ambitions for The New University are given renewed impetus. Complications are rife. A student comes to a sticky end, raising questions about the university’s ability to assess risk. A literary endowment causes strife. The value of arcane research fields is called into question and professors revolt. Can Conquest fight off the doctrinaire forces of the Rising Left determined to derail his ambitions? Like any Public Sector samurai, he dons a fresh suit and takes the fight to his enemies. Will Higher Education be reborn? Can he out-connive the connivers? Do the polemical hardliners out-fox him? Even in his darkest hour there are glimpses of stardust; ideals to guide him onwards. For one driven by the highest motives success is truly glorious, even if threatened by the occasional fumble!

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University London Central, a middling university, finds itself in a scandalous mess. Special measures require the wholesaleremoval of its administration. The new vice-chancellor, Professor Clifford Conquest, is a seasoned public sector enforcer; adedicated organisation man facing multiple challenges. His greatest is a chance encounter with a beautiful pole dancer, JulietteBurton.He is unable to shake off his obsession with her. She is, as misfortune would have it, a student of his university. His conflictingimpulses to manage his university judiciously and further his erotic imaginings put him in danger of becoming the target of thevery machinery of academic disciplining he has set in motion. Schemes designed to rectify the ills of the university begin to crumble:inept academics defy his attempts to discredit them, an insurrection of Chinese students turns ugly and a symbolic dismembermentthreatens his career.At the centre of this whirlwind is the self-possessed Juliette, t

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