The campus backlash

The Telegraph reports:

Students are joining university Conservative societies in growing numbers in reaction to the activities of left-wing activists on campus, it has been claimed.

Several Conservative student groups at Britain’s leading universities doubled in size last year, new figures show – with membership at the Cambridge University Conservative Association swelling by more than 40 per cent.

The number of new members at Brunel University’s student Conservative society has surged by more than 400 per cent, while the Conservative and Unionist Association at Edinburgh University has almost tripled in size.

All good news, but why?

Conservative student leaders say the influx of new members is in response to what they say are attacks on free speech by left- wing student groups.

They claim the Rhodes Must Fall campaign for the removal of a statue of colonialist Cecil Rhodes from the grounds of Oriel College led to hundreds of students joining Oxford University’s student Conservative society.

The best outcome from it.

Alastair Ward-Booth, chairman of Cambridge’s Conservative Association, said membership had surged because students were seeking “respite” from the “insane and exclusionary” politics of left-wing groups.

That would explain it.

Eliot Smith, President of Reading Conservatives, said  the breaking point for many students took place last year, when left-wing students attempted to boycott Jeremy Paxman from speaking on campus because he had allegedly made “sexist comments” on University Challenge.

He added that many members were exasperated by so-called “special snowflakes” and found their actions to be “quite silly”.

Go the snowflakes.