The World

Amidst all the drama and the horror of events in Libya, one strange angle to emerge is the role of Colonel Gaddafi’s son – Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, or rather Dr Saif al-Islam since he is the proud holder of a doctorate from the LSE. The younger Gaddafi’s thesis was on the undemocratic nature of global governance (I have heard his father wax lyrical on the same theme from the podium of the UN). David Held, professor of politics at the LSE, recalls Gaddafi junior as manifesting a “deep commitment to liberal democratic reform of his country.” It has to be said that deep commitment didn’t seem to be much in evidence on Sunday when Saif Gaddafi made a rambling speech on television, threatening to fight “to the last bullet” to retain control of Libya.

Professor Held muses that the earnest reformer that he thought he knew had clearly been “overwhelmed by the crisis he finds himself in”. Prof Held’s Global Governance institute recieved a £1.5m grant from Libya, which the LSE now appears to be reconsidering.

The whole episode suggests that the hope that a western education will convince a despot’s children to change the system they have inherited is often misplaced. Bashar al-Assad spent many years in London training as an eye doctor and working in unglamorous NHS hospitals. He is clearly an able man, who was prepared to eschew the playboy lifestyle. But when the time came to assume the mantle of the Assad dynasty, Assad junior did almost nothing to dismantle the dictatorial, Syrian security state.

Many of the children of the Chinese elite are also studying at elite western universities. A daughter of Xi Jinping, the heir apparent to the Chinese presidency, is currently at Harvard. When I first heard this, I thought it was a promising harbinger of change in China. Now I am not so sure.