An academic who stripped to his underpants and donned a hood outside Norwich Labour Club in a protest against the treatment of prisoners in Iraq has been elected to the city council in the constituency of Charles Clarke, the Education Secretary. Rupert Read, a philosophy lecturer at the University of East Anglia, was one of five Green Party candidates elected in Norwich. He told The Times Higher that street theatre was now just as important as traditional campaigning. With Labour support looking precarious, one wonders whether Mr Clarke - or the local Labour rebel MP Ian Gibson - might see some merit in such tactics?