'People wouldn't believe in me'
Ruth Pardel statement at the Hay Festival
But this isn't politics, it's poetry.
Ruth Padel has been explaining herself at the Hay Festival, just hours after it emerged that she'd resigned as Oxford Professor of Poetry and within days of taking up the post.
Her main rival, Derek Walcott, pulled out when previous allegations of sexual harassment against students suddenly reappeared in the press. Their source? A campaign by Padel supporters to discredit Walcott and push the Darwin descendant into the Professorship.
Padel has denied having anything to do with the photocopies of an obscure publication detailing allegations against Walcott which found their way into the pigeon-holes of influential Oxford academics.
But after a week of bad headlines, Padel has admitted that she recently emailed two journalists giving them a heads-up on the Walcott stories, but says she was shocked to find herself implicated in a more sinister and coordinated campaign to discredit him. The furore of it all has forced her to quit.
The reaction has largely been a mournful acceptance that Padel would inevitably have to stand down. Some of her high-profile backers, including Melvyn Bragg, rounded on her at the weekend.
Last night at the Hay Festival, the feminist writer Jeanette Winterson seemed particularly peeved about the whole affair. 'A man in the same boat wouldn't have resigned,' she said.
So what next for the position that's hosted Auden and Heaney? The Guardian blog speculates wildly sum up the poetry-reading with some fanciful appointees - do Margaret Atwood or Anne Stevenson float your boat? I prefer the suggestions in the blog post's comments - praise for Purple Ronnie and Pam Ayrespublic's response to the past week's farcical turn of events.
On Saturday at Hay, Clive James admitted he would love to have the job. Three lectures a year would give him ample opportunity to chronicle his own life's work and talk about the subjects and poets he adores, he told the festival audience.
But would Oxford really take to a TV personality (regardless of his critically-acclaimed published poetry)?
