Attila the Gobbet

You'd have to have a heart of stone not to feel sorry for Faiz Siddiqui, the lawyer who studied at Brasenose College, and sued the University of Oxford because he says that only getting an Upper Second in his History degree cost him a high-flying career in the Law.

And I've just got the results of the scan back. My heart appears to be pretty much pure flint. So I'm the Archdruid for the job of not feeling sorry for him. Let's go.

After all, it's not like a 2:1 at Brasenose is a bad degree. You could say all the best people got a 2:1 at Brasenose. Toby Young  got a First. So that proves it.

The Daily Mail manages a brilliant article where it clearly doesn't know that an Upper 2nd is a 2:1...

"Mr Siddiqui had claimed 'boring' tuition and staff being on extended sabbatical leave had meant he only got a lower 2:1 instead of the higher upper second or first he was hoping for. "

 But then it also manages to grab off Google Street View a picture of what I think is basically Exeter College, so I don't think they put their Oxford Special Correspondent onto this job.

And you know the problem for Mr Siddiqui now? He's going to be known as the bloke who lost the case that it was his college's fault he's not a very good lawyer. Which is roughly equivalent to advertising himself to future employers as not a very good lawyer.

On the bright side for Mr Siddiqui. A few years before he picked up his Attila, a shiny-faced, entitled youth called David Cameron left Brasenose with a first in Politics, Philisophy and Economics. He went on to prove that, in at least two of those categories, he was useless. So you know. A first ain't everything.

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