Abdul Arain makes the ballot and will battle Brian Blessed, Lord Sainsbury and Michael Mansfield for the prestigious role
As Prince Philip divests himself of the role of Cambridge University chancellor, the ancient institution is set to witness an unusual contest over who will inherit the black silk and gold lace ceremonial robes of this lofty office.
Nominations to succeed the prince, who steps down after 34 years, closed today. And among the distinguished and the prominent to have made the ballot paper – the philanthropist Lord Sainsbury, the actor Brian Blessed, and the barrister Michael Mansfield – is the lesser known Abdul Arain, who owns a local grocery store.
The Nairobi-born businessman, campaigning on a grassroots ticket and in opposition to plans for a new Sainsbury's supermarket near his shop, has secured the requisite 50 nominations to ensure his place in the bid to become the 108th chancellor since Hugh de Hottun was elected in the 13th century.
Arain, 46, owner of the Al-Amin grocery shop in Cambridge's multicultural Mill Road, said he had been nominated by people from all walks of life. "Academics, professors, clergy … I have double the amount required," he said, stressing his motivation was to save Cambridge from becoming a "clone town" and to reconnect the university with the local community.
A succession of dukes, earls and lords have, historically, assumed the largely ceremonial position. Indeed, the natural order of things seemed assured when the university's nominations board selected Lord Sainsbury of Turville – Labour peer, former minister, and exceedingly wealthy former chairman of the supermarket chain – as official candidate.
Lord Sainsbury said: "I am very pleased and honoured to have been nominated … I have great admiration and affection for the university, built up over all the years since I was an undergraduate at King's, studying history and then psychology. I also have a life-long interest in education. I have no personal agenda, and if elected, my sole aim would be to help the university in any way that I can."
Sainsbury is a King's College graduate with a Buckinghamshire stately home. But Arain, alumnus of Anglia Polytechnic, with semi and shop comprising grocery, deli, bakery, newsagents and post office, seized the opportunity to highlight opposition to the prospect of a Sainsbury's Local in Mill Road.
Any candidate must have nominations from 50 members of the university's senate. Arain soon found support swelling, despite some detractors, who dismiss it as a publicity stunt.
"I feel very strongly that the multiples, particularly the big four, are moving into high streets, and the result is you have a dilapidation of the local economy," he said.
"Local shops, the butcher, the baker, the newsagent, are reduced to one multiples outlet. There's a compounding effect. Streets are reduced to dormitories. People who would normally invest in that area, and take pride in that area, are gone."
This is happening up and down the country. You end up with the multiple outlet, a few charity shops, maybe some food outlets and the rest are boarded up," added Arain, who does not believe any Sainsbury's store would be in competition to his own, given the nature of the unique goods he stocks. "The consequences are antisocial behaviour, an area deprived of its soul., and that soul is the value system which we, as a community, need in order to survive."
Arain, who has lived in Cambridgeshire since he was 16, and found his vocation as a shopkeeper after working as an auditor for a multinational company, harks back to an era when the 800-year-old university was "a vanguard for Cambridge".
He cites the university's opposition to a car-assembly plant in the city in the 1930s, and how it encouraged the council to reject the approach, a decision that might have seemed unfavourable at the time. "The motor industry went to Luton, and which place would you rather live – Cambridge or Luton?" he said.
"There are many instances. I believe the chancellorship at the university is so removed from what it initially stood for. I believe it is time that the university reconnected with the people and with the town."
He has a tough battle ahead. A campaign by graduates backs "the man, the myth, the legend that is Brian Blessed" as a candidate. "Picture him loudly reciting the Latin at graduation ceremonies and you have some idea of what a legend Brian would be," Seth Alexander Thevoz, a graduate, said after his campaign had secured enough nominations for the actor.
Blessed, an accomplished mountaineer, said he was thrilled: "For me, Cambridge has always been the centre of the Earth, there is a brightness and light there that rivals that on Mount Everest."
Mansfield, a latecomer to the increasingly crowded field, and nominated by several outspoken academics, has pledged to defend higher education from market forces. "This is a fine opportunity to defend the principles of higher education and critical thinking in particular, which have been steadily eroded by successive governments wedded to market forces," he said.
According to the university, the office of chancellor is "held by a distinguished individual, from academia or public life" responsible for adjudicating in certain disputes and presiding at major ceremonies. Up to 200,000 people – anyone who holds a doctor's, master's, or bachelor of divinity from the university, as well as academics and officers – are entitled to vote but must do so in person on one of two polling days at the senate house in October.
Aa university spokesman confirmed that Arain, Sainsbury, Blessed and Mansfield all had the required number of nominations.
Arain welcomed the competition. "Initially, when I decided to stand for nomination it was going to be a personality issue between me and Lord Sainsbury," he said. "Now people are beginning to see beyond the individuals, and they are beginning to think what that person stands for.
"Most people know me at Cambridge, both town and gown. So they know what I stand for. And I believe it is something which has a lot of grassroots support".