‘Yes, it’s that bad’: inside Oxford’s Saïd Business School
How do you get into the University of Oxford? It is a question asked by thousands of young people every year. In Martin Amis’s The Rachel Papers (1973), Charles Highway discovers that the key is to feign socialism and memorise a few book reviews. It turns out there is an even better ruse: the Saïd Business School. Saïd has, at best, a dubious origin story. In 1996 the project was forced through at Oxford’s Congregation, the university’s legislative body, despite concerns that naming a school after Wafic Saïd, known for his role as a ‘fixer’ in the al-Yamamah arms deal, in return for £20 million might not do wonders for
