Not so Merry Met

I was amazed to see you refer to Roderick Floud, president of London Metropolitan University, as a "champion of the poor" ("Queen's Birthday Honours List", June 17) without mentioning that he has presided over the longest and most bitter contract dispute in British higher education history.

This image of Floud as a latter-day Robin Hood is at odds with the view at London Met, where a recent meeting of lecturers' union Natfhe resolved that "members note with surprise and dismay the knighthood conferred on Roderick Floud and wish to express their sadness that his betrayal of the institution, its staff and its students has thus been rewarded".

The feeling at London Met is that he handed the Merry Men over to the Sheriff of Nottingham bound and gagged.

Steve Cushion Secretary,
London region higher education committee, Natfhe