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LSE Attacked over 'Disastrous' Ties to Gaddafi's Libya
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: A catalogue of failures by senior dons allowed one of Britain’s top universities to establish a “disastrous” relationship with Gaddafi’s Libya, according to a damning report.

The London School of Economics built up increasingly extensive ties to the regime over almost a decade after admitting Muammar Gaddafi's most high-profile son, Saif al-Islam, in 2002.

In a series of blunders, the university allowed Saif Gaddafi to start a PhD despite concerns over his academic ability and accepted a £1.5m donation from his personal charity with limited inquiries into the source of the cash.

Its links to the regime were so extensive that at one point the university was even nicknamed the “Libyan School of Economics”, it was revealed.

The inquiry – carried out by Lord Woolf, the former Lord Chief Justice – found that the relationship was allowed to grow “unchecked and to a degree unnoticed until their effect was overwhelming” when the Gaddafi regime started to crumble this year. Muammar Gaddafi was eventually killed by rebels in October and his son was captured in mid-November.

In a damning conclusion, the report said: “The mistakes and errors of judgment go beyond those that could be expected from an institute of the LSE's distinction." » | Graeme Paton, Education Editor | Wednesday, November 30, 2011

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Gaddafi and Me: Professor Explains Why LSE Took Cash from Libyan Tyrant’s Son
THE INDEPENDENT: The man who helped to elicit a £1.5m donation from Saif al-Islam’s foundation tells his side of the story

A description of how Saif Gaddafi changed into a "frightened" man as the Libyan revolution approached is given today by his informal academic adviser from the London School of Economics.

Professor David Held, professor of political science at the LSE, is expected to face criticism – along with the university hierarchy – when the long-awaited inquiry into its links with the Libyan regime is published today.

In the first interview he has given about the saga – he spoke to reporters from the LSE's student newspaper, The Beaver – Professor Held acknowledges that he knew at the time that a £1.5m donation to the university from the Gaddafi charity would be "controversial". He says that, with hindsight, his behaviour could "give rise to a perception it was mistaken".

The professor also speaks of student Saif Gaddafi as a "young man who was struggling to make sense of the world, struggling to think about issues which obviously were not easy for him to think about".

He adds: "After four years or so, I found him to be much like an American liberal. He used to say there is nothing wrong with American democracy promotion in the Middle East – I'd be horrified by that statement – because Arabs should promote democracy themselves." » | Nicola Alexander, Alex Haigh, Richard Garner | Wednesday, November 30, 2011

LSE Head Quits Over Libya Links
Organisations with links to the Libyan regime have come increasingly under the spotlight. In the UK, Sir Howard Davies , the head of the prestigious London School of Economics has resigned after disclosures the university accepted multi-million dollar donations from former student Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, a son of the Libyan leader.
Al Jazeera's Paul Brennan reports

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LSE Head Quits Over Gaddafi Scandal
THE GUARDIAN: LSE director Howard Davies resigns after fresh allegations over links to Libyan regime as PR firm admits errors over lobbying

A deepening row over the London School of Economics and its dealings with the Gaddafi regime has claimed the career of the university's director.

Sir Howard Davies resigned after fresh revelations that the institution had been involved in a deal worth £2.2m to train hundreds of young Libyans to become part of the country's future elite.

An independent inquiry headed by Lord Woolf, a former lord chief justice, will examine the LSE's relationship with Libya and with Muammar Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam. It will also establish guidelines for international donations to the university.

Davies said: "I have concluded that it would be right for me to step down even though I know that this will cause difficulty for the institution I have come to love. The short point is that I am responsible for the school's reputation, and that has suffered." >>> Jeevan Vasagar and Rajeev Syal | Friday, March 04, 2011

For the LSE, in Thrall to a Dictator, Gaddafi Was Pure Roast Duck
THE GUARDIAN: The school's association with Libya's leader is just an extreme version of the predicament now facing all UK universities

Pity the poor university. Told for 25 years to get into bed with big money, the London School of Economics found big money sometimes stinks. This week, as the Blairites bobbed and weaved their way out of the sleazy embrace of their friend, Gaddafi of Libya, someone forgot to tell the old school tie. The LSE thought it was helping the cause by giving Gaddafi's son a dodgy PhD, for which it accepted a £1.5m "donation". When the Blairites did a runner, the LSE was left looking like Bugs Moran's gang after the St Valentine's Day massacre.

With felicitous timing, London's Royal Court theatre is staging Richard Bean's hilarious if chaotic play, Heretic, about a university department eager for a grant from a multinational company and ready to suppress academic rigour to do so. It is clearly based on the University of East Anglia and climate change, but the words LSE and Gaddafi could be substituted throughout.

The global-warming sceptic, played by Juliet Stevenson, is ostracised and driven to madness by her colleagues, as her professor argues that their department is merely a unit to "service clients … a virtual budget centre providing tools to the market". Eager for money, he quotes a Chinese proverb: "Man must stand for long time with mouth open before roast duck fly in."

For the LSE, Gaddafi of Libya was pure roast duck. Journalists trawling through the recent jobs, contacts and pronouncements of LSE academics, including directors Lord Giddens and Sir Howard Davies – who has now resigned – have been aghast. Despite references to "the context of the times", the story is of a respected academic institution apparently in mesmerised thrall to a dictator, and actively participating in sanitising his image.

Gaddafi was seen praised by LSE luminaries in a cringe-making video link as "the world's longest serving leader". His son, Saif al-Islam, settled in a north London palace to write an LSE PhD and dispense trips and contracts. He was declared as being committed to "democracy, civil society and deep liberal values" and was even invited to give the Ralph Miliband memorial lecture, an unusual honour for any student. His appreciation was swift. The university accepted a £1m contract to train 400 regime-approved "future leaders" from Libya. The mind boggles at it all. >>> Simon Jenkins | Thursday, March 03, 2011

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Gaddafi the Younger Looks to Consign Libya's Pariah Status to the Past
THE GUARDIAN: Saif Gaddafi, son of the Libyan leader, has engaged a New York PR firm to present the face of a modern reforming state

Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi addresses a seminar at LSE this week. Photograph: The Guardian
It looked, for a while, just like the bad old days: a handful of angry demonstrators on one side of a London street, shouting "Gaddafi is a murderer" and waving placards as a larger group of men on the other pavement lobbed back Arabic insults over the heads of the watching policemen. But the past was swiftly banished when Muammar Gaddafi's son, Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi, began to speak from the podium in a university lecture hall packed with businessmen, diplomats and students.

Saif, 37, is the face of modern, reforming Libya, emerging from its long years as a pariah state to become a dazzling mecca for western investment, with a reinvigorated energy industry, billions of dollars in cash reserves, a re-opened US embassy, and even plans for mass tourism.

Gaddafi junior has no formal position in the Jamihiriya – the "state of the masses" – but he is an energetic champion of change who has a finger in most pies in Libya, as well as jet-setting friends such as Britain's Lord Mandelson. It is widely assumed that he will one day succeed his father, although he insists he is a democrat for whom dynastic rule ended with the 1969 revolution.

Saif got all the difficult old issues out of the way at the start of his speech at the London School of Economics this week; a rare public appearance. He surveyed Libya's decision to dismantle its programme to develop nuclear and chemical weapons, the lifting of UN sanctions, the settlement of claims relating to the Lockerbie bombing and the end of a long row with Bulgaria over medics who were jailed for allegedly infecting children with the Aids virus.

A predictable question about Abdel-Basset al-Megrahi, the terminally ill Lockerbie bomber who was freed from his Scottish prison and allowed to go home to die last summer, produced a response so terse it was almost non-existent: Saif is evidently well-advised by his New York PR company.

The trick is to focus on the country's new-found respectability and its future prospects. >>> Ian Black, Middle East editor | Friday, May 28, 2010

Related articles here, here and here

Gaddafi’s Heir Leaves Clue to His World Vision in His PhD
TIMES ONLINE: Buried away on the dusty shelves of a London library is a student’s vision for a new world order.

Doctoral dissertations are usually of little interest outside the world of academic research but this book casts an intriguing light on the beliefs of one of the Middle East’s most influential figures.

The publication by Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the eldest son of the Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and his second wife, is set to fuel the debate about the pace of democratic and economic reform in his homeland.

Perhaps because it is published under the surname Alqadhafi, the blue cover of the PhD thesis appears to have been little read since it was filed at the Senate House library of the University of London last autumn. Over 428 pages, the man seen as heir apparent to the socialist dictator who has ruled Libya for 40 years calls for democracy and greater influence for business in his vision of the world’s governing institutions.

Dr Gaddafi has become an increasingly powerful voice in the oil-rich country, which has influence in both the Muslim world and the African Union. Although dismissed by critics as a playboy prince for his frequent international travel and attendance at celebrity parties, Dr Gaddafi spent four years researching his thesis at the London School of Economics.

While other doctoral students struggled to survive with occasional lecturing, the multimillionaire Libyan was also negotiating the release of the Lockerbie bomber and $1.5billion compensation for his victims, opening up his country’s oil and gas fields to international businesses and restoring diplomatic links with the US.

Dr Gaddafi, 37, introduces his work by writing: “I shall be primarily concerned with what I argue is the central failing of the current system of global governance in the new global environment: that it is highly undemocratic.”

The comments will be read with interest in Libya, where his father has ruled since a military coup in 1969 and where opponents are still ruthlessly suppressed. Dr Gaddafi says that his dissertation “analyses the problem of how to create more just and democratic global governing institutions”, focusing on the importance of the role of “civil society”. >>> David Brown | Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Gaddafi Son’s Academic Thesis Boosted by Corporate Consultants
TIMES ONLINE: When it comes to carrying out original research, few PhD students have access to one of the world’s most prestigious corporate consultancies, with advisers including the former head of the Secret Intelligence Service.

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi used Monitor Group to carry out a survey and interviews with the leaders of non-governmental organisations to provide the empirical data for his thesis at the London School of Economics.

Senior advisers at Monitor Group include Sir Richard Dearlove, who was recruited in 2005, the year after he retired as head of MI6. Sir Richard was well known to the Libyans because Colonel Gaddafi had chosen British intelligence as the go-between when he decided to surrender his country’s nuclear programme.

The company also employs Sir Mark Allen, another former MI6 agent and a senior adviser to BP. Sir Mark lobbied Jack Straw just before the Justice Secretary abandoned efforts to exclude the Lockerbie bomber from a prisoner transfer deal. Mr Gaddafi hired the company in 2004… >>> David Brown | Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Gaddafi's Son Used Spies for British PhD Thesis that Decries Lack of Democracy

THE TELEGRAPH: Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi, the son of the Libyan dictator, used a firm that employs the former head of British intelligence to carry out research for his doctoral thesis.

Mr Gaddafi used Monitor Group to interview the heads of non-government organisations for a paper that argued the "central failing" of current global institutions was that the set-up was "highly undemocratic.

The 37-year-old is seen as a potential heir to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi who has been dictator of Libya for 40 years. Monitor Group employs both Sir Richard Dearlove, head of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) at the time of the Iraq war and Sir Mark Allen, the intelligence agent who brought Col Gaddafi's regime in from the cold.

Mr Gaddafi spent four years researching his thesis at the London School of Economics and his PhD thesis was filed at the Senate House library of the University of London last autumn. The paper runs to 428 pages and calls for democracy and greater influence for business* in multi-national affairs. >>> Telegraph’s Foreign Staff | Wednesday, September 16, 2009

*What sort of nonsense is this? It is precisely because business has had far too much influence in multi-national affairs that we have just experienced the fiasco of the craven British government caving in to Libya over the release of Megrahi. If we are going to have a world in which corporations wield too much power, then we are going to have a sick world to live in! Go back to the LSE, Dr Gaddafi, you've got some learning to do! – Mark

Illegal Immigrant Numbers Higher than Official Estimates
THE TELEGRAPH: There are nearly three quarters of a million illegal immigrants in Britain, research has suggested.

A study by the London School of Economics suggests that the number of people living in the UK without permission is much higher than previously thought.

The last official estimate of illegal immigration, a Home Office report in 2001, put the figure at 430,000.

Because of the nature of illegal immigration, accurately charting numbers is difficult. The LSE team said the figure lies somewhere between 524,000 and 947,000, with a "midpoint" figure of 725,000.

The LSE study was commissioned by Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, who is advocating a form of amnesty for illegal immigrants, something both the Government and the Conservative Party leadership oppose.

Many illegal immigrants work without paying taxes. Mr Johnson said that it is not realistic to try to find and expel all illegal immigrants, so it is better to try to bring them into the system and make them pay taxes.

"What I am trying to get people to recognise is that there are limits to what the policy to expulsions is able to achieve at the moment. Failing that, and it is failing, we need to think of a better alternative," Mr Johnson told the BBC. >>> | Monday, March 9, 2009

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Melanie Phillips: The LSE Caves In to Terror
THE SPECTATOR: First the Netherlands prosecutes Geert Wilders for speaking against Islamic terror; now the London School of Economics has caved in to the threat of Islamist violence. Douglas Murray, the director of the Centre for Social Cohesion, has been banned from chairing a debate on Islam at the London School of Economics today between Dr Alan Sked, a senior lecturer in international history, and Hamza Andreas Tzortzis, a Muslim writer and lecturer, because the LSE fears his views will provoke violence. Those views are outspoken opposition to the Islamisation of the west and staunch support for Israel. >>> Melanie Phillips | Friday, January 23, 2009

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