Prof Mackay is also an extreme political activist, whose views include equating the actions of British and American soldiers with Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists, and also encouraging people to stop paying taxes as an 'anti-war' protest. Until September 2009 all of these views were hosted on his Cambridge University home web page where he attempted to force his political views on his students. His website also contained deeply offensive cartoons ridiculing Jesus and Christianity. A friend of mine made an official complaint to Cambridge University about this in 2007 (correspondence below) when, as you can see, the University refused to even ask him to separate out the political material from his teaching and research material. The offensive material was, however, taken down in 16 September 2009 when Mackay posted a statement saying “Civil servants aren't permitted to be politically active, so I have removed my political links from this website”. This coincided with his appointment by Ed Milliband (who was then the Government Minister for Energy and Climate Change) as his adviser. When I discovered in 2009 that Mackay had been appointed to this post I wrote a letter of complaint to Ed Milliband (but never received a reply). My complaint contained a copy of the 2007 Cambridge correspondence.
While I can understand why global warming fanatics could be seduced into giving Mackay a position of authority in government, I was surprised that a government under Conservative leadership could have continued and even expanded his role. It is possible David Cameron is unaware of his radical political views (imagine how voters would feel if they knew that millions of pounds of tax payers' money was being given to this man who has already forced his poisonous views on his Cambridge students). This is a man who has advocated not paying taxes to protest ‘against war’. For consistency it should therefore be acceptable, in his view, not to pay taxes to protest against other government policies – such as the Government’s energy and climate change policies which many people feel are fundamentally flawed and will lead to disaster. Those are the very policies being imposed by Mackay and his colleagues.
Cambridge University Correspondence in
Chronological Oder
****************************************************************
****************************************************************
To:
v-c.office.online@admin.cam.ac.uk
Sent:
Friday, 1 June 2007, 16:41
Subject:
Offensive content on website of one of your members of staff
Dear
Professor Richard
I was
disappointed and somewhat alarmed at some of the material on the home page of
one of your Professors. Specifically, the home page in question is:
http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/mackay/
The home
page, which clearly contains a lot of important and useful information for the
Professor's students, is unfortunately interspersed with political messages and
slogans that have nothing whatsover to do with the Professor's work at the
University. Moreover, the home page contains links to other pages on the site
which are extremely offensive, such as:
http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/mackay/Political.html
These
include deeply offensive cartoons ridiculing Jesus and Christianity.
There are two new prominent links on the right hand
side:
(together
with a cartoon link)
and
The first
of these links is to a campaign encouraging people to withhold paying their
income tax in protest against 'the war'.
The
second is a piece which appears to have been written by Prof Mackay himself; it
makes an explicit 'moral equivalence' argument that American and British
soldiers are no different from Al Qaeda terrorists and the Taliban.
The reason I came across this site is that my daughter is considering applying
to Cambridge for one of the sciences. Prof
Mackay is of course perfectly entitled to hold these personal views, no matter
how repugnant many of us find them. However, he is not entitled to force these
views on impressionable students trying to find course notes and other
information relevant to his and his department's teaching and research.
I think
it would be in the University's best interests if the political material was
removed and I look forward to hearing from you that it has been.
Yours
sincerely
Mrs XXXXX
*****************************************************************************
From: I.J. Lewis
<ijl20@cam.ac.uk>
To: XXXXX Sent: Friday, 8 June 2007, 17:24
Subject: Re: Further offensive material on same site
To: XXXXX Sent: Friday, 8 June 2007, 17:24
Subject: Re: Further offensive material on same site
Dear Mrs. XXXXX ,
I am sorry you were disturbed by some of the web content posted by a member of staff here at the University of Cambridge. We have policies in place to prevent misuse, enforced via the University Computing Service under authority formalised in the University Ordinances. With a large body of people here at the University, particularly including the undergraduates, we do routinely take action where that is necessary.
My staff have made a careful review of the content causing you concern, and it will, I'm sure, surprise you to learn that the content does not fall foul of our policies. The author is expressing a personal political opinion and in this case has separated that content onto the 'non-work' half of his homepage. These personal pages are hosted on University servers, but our policies expressly allow this.
Our policies are designed to protect other users as well as the reputation of the University, but also to protect freedom of expression and intellectual endeavour. This is generally straightforward as the vast bulk of material produced by members of the University is relentlessly academic to the highest standard and the misuse of the network, typically by undergraduates with an entrepreneurial flair, is easy to determine. We are cautious about overstepping our authority regarding personal homepages of staff or student and will not take action in this case.
I hope I have given you some insight into the environment here at Cambridge, and assure you it retains a vibrant atmosphere of academic excellence which remains undeflected by the considerable freedom personal expression you have witnessed.
I hope that your offence at a web page from over 100,000 hosted here at Cambridge doesn't give you the wrong impression of the place, and that your daughter has a successful academic career here if that is her choice.
If I can help further feel free to call my at my office on 01223 334 702.
Regards,
Ian Lewis,
Director, University Computing Service.
University of Cambridge
**********************************************************
From: XXXXX
To: I.J.
Lewis <ijl20@cam.ac.uk>
Sent:
Monday, 11 June 2007, 11:32
Subject:
Re: Further offensive material on same site
Dear Mr
Lewis
Thank you
for your response.
But I
have to point out a fundamental error in it. You say that that "the author
is expressing a personal political opinion and in this case has separated that
content onto the 'non-work' half of his
homepage."
That is not correct. There is no division of this home page into 'work' and
'non-work'. For example, links to the author's Information Theory notes and the
notes about examinations are nested between blatantly political statements and
links. Students trying to find such important information have no option but to be exposed to the
authors' political views. There is NO OTHER page through which students could
find the course notes. Hence, as I stated in my previous email, the author is
forcing these views on impressionable students trying to find course notes and
other information relevant to his and his department's teaching and research.
I suspect
that the policy you are referring to allows a member of staff to have a link on
their home page to their 'personal pages'.
I do not believe it allows for
the home page itself to be the personal political bulletin board as in this
case.
There is
a very simple solution. The author must be advised to genuinely separate out
all the 'non-work' links and material. The home page with the url
http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/mackay/
should
contain only work-related material and there should be a single link to a
different 'personal' page. That is surely the intention of the University's
policy.
Yours
Mrs XXXXX
******************************************************************
From:
I.J. Lewis <ijl20@cam.ac.uk>
To: XXXXX
Sent:
Monday, 11 June 2007, 13:07
Subject:
David Mackay homepage
Dear
Mrs. XXXXX
,
thank
you for your reply. Having reviewed David's homepage we have determined not to
take action to force a change or its removal.
I
would like clarify a couple of possible misunderstandings. David's separation
of information on his homepage into 'work' and 'non-work' is on his own
initiative, not a requirement of a policy here. And for what it's worth, his
column headings are "What's new at work" and "What's new
(non-work)" which suggests a division of some kind which you appear to
have missed. Forgive me if I have misunderstood your comments in this regard.
Regards,
(Dr.)
Ian Lewis
From: XXXXX
To:
I.J. Lewis <ijl20@cam.ac.uk>
Sent:
Monday, 11 June 2007, 17:57
Subject:
Re: David Mackay homepage
Dear
Dr Lewis
I
find your decision extremely disappointing. My proposed solution (i.e. just move the 'non-work' material to a
different web page, with a link to it) is so simple that surely the Professor
would have no objections to doing it. Have you asked him? If he really did say
no then at least we know where we all stand (i.e. that he is deliberately
setting out to force his political views on naive and impressionable young
people). Given his prominent and deeply offensive article claiming moral
equivalence of British soldiers and Al Qaeda terrorists I am sure that would be
a matter of interest to certain national newspapers.
I
also dispute your claim about the obvious division of material. For a start
there is a political banner about nuclear weapons that runs across the top of
the page and secondly students trying to find course information on the page
would have much more difficulty finding it than, say, finding the above
mentioned offensive article.
Yours
Mrs XXXXX
*******************************************************************
There
was no reply to the last email letter.
We have a snapshot of the home page as it was in 2007 and a snapshot of two of the offending articles linked from the home page (linked above). By the time of Mackay’s appointment in September 2009 these articles and the other offensive links were removed - but only because Mackay was forced to do so due to his appointment as a Civil Servent.
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