He was admitted to Brasenose, though, and as @LearnedCoward noted, it is claimed that he presented a “degree” from a US gym as part of his academic credentials, along with 3 A levels which it is alleged he did not, in fact, possess. His father may be one of the models drawn on for the father of Magnus in Le Carré’s A Perfect Spy (who is also said to have elements of the author’s father as well.)
Politicians who have improved their educational credentials are nothing new. The interesting thing is that they feel they need to, whereas politicians of genuine attainment - like Harold Wilson, who was a brilliant statistician before entering politics - tend to play down or even deny their background.
I’ve done a whole bunch of drugs in my time, including some that inadvertently rendered me unconscious, so I’m an anaestheseologist. We’re halfway to a hospital here! Anyone got a shed they’re not using? We need premises.
The only reason why this is controversial is that people find it more convenient to presume rather than admit ambiguity.
I had an employer complain when I excused a work absence with a “doctor’s note” from a geologist. Because they presumed that any doctor would naturally be a physician, and vice-versa. This was even reflected in their written policies, because it never occurred to them that it was in any way ambiguous.
Yes, pretty much any certificate can be rightly referred to as a “degree”. The mistake is in presuming that it is thus a degree from an institution that you would credit with any significance. Sure, ChickenMan was exploiting the fact that most people are literally credulous. The proper response to any claims of achievement might be to ask some questions.
They think they can get away with it because they DO get away with it. Until they don’t.
Take Chelgren as an example. He got elected in 2010, reelected in 2014. He’s been misrepresenting his education for at least that entire time. Nobody ever called him on it - not even in 2015 when he had his first brainstorm of “education reform” where he wanted to set up public universities as if they were an episode of Survivor and let students vote professors off the island. If it were just a question of him suddenly making himself newsworthy by punching educators, it would have come up then.
So it worked for him for a very long time. Hell I don’t know his whole bio - maybe he used that “Forbco Management Degree” schtick when he applied for jobs prior to going into politics too. He could have potentially been “getting away” with this for going on multiple decades. The only reason he got caught out now is because he proposed something so obviously politically motivated and so obviously anti-free expression that he painted a giant target on his own back and made himself into a story. Which made it worthwhile to spend a few dollars checking into his background to find out what particular species of loon he was.
People who get caught out faking credentials generally only get caught after they’ve been getting away with it for a long, long time. Until they do something that forces people to actually check their backgrounds to see what the heck is up with that person - at which point the whole thing comes tumbling down. It takes a certain level of ego to think that you won’t ever get caught doing something like that, but truthfully it seems like you can succeed at faking it for a long time before you get caught.
I have a certificate from a sales course. I wouldn’t say I have a degree or anything.
IIRC my dad did go through a management school via Co-op. While this provided some training in business, it wasn’t a “business degree”. His actual degree was in forestry.
"I also like how one year of foundational courses in college as a declared physics major turned into three years at “University of California at Riverside majoring in astro-physics, geo-physics and mathematics.”
So he went the Thaddeus Venture route of academic credentialling
By the Junior year they specialize in Mad Science, usually with a minor in Supervillain Finance (Not everyone can pay cash for that fortress carved into a volcano)
