Margaret Mountford, Sir Alan Sugar's advisor on the TV show "The Apprentice" has dismissed Edinburgh University for not being up to standard. This comment was broadcast to the whole of the United Kingdom on BBC1 between the hours of 2100-2200 on 07/05/08.

The phrase she used was, when referring to the contestant Michael Sophocles who graduated from Edinburgh with MA (Hons) History and Classics, "Edinburgh isn't what it used to be."

What Margaret Mountford has done, perhaps unwittingly, is reduce the value of our degree in the eyes of any person who has watched this episode of The Apprentice. This may not be consciously recognised, but given two people's CV's of equal quality, an Edinburgh student, past or present will now be disfavoured. Subliminal messaging at its most cruel.

If this were not bad enough, this woman has made Edinburgh University the laughing stock of all Russell Group universities. No longer can we quip at Bristol for being 'practically in Wales', or St. Andrews for being a hamlet, or Durham for being, well, Dulham. Now they can fight back. All they have to say is "Mountford" and we will shake in our (Ugg) boots knowing full well that we have been publicly ridiculed in front of the nation and are career hopes are in tatters. "Edinburgh is not what it used to be will haunt us for the rest of our lives"; unless we act!

She has based this assumption on one person, and one person alone. A candidate in The Apprentice who took active part in bribery and sabotage. Is this how we want to be recognised? Is this how we want to be portrayed? This one woman has potentially set our university back hundreds of years in reputation building, by this fraudulent allegation.

We will not stand for this gross injustice. We must all fight for our University and petition for a public apology to our University. Edinburgh is what it used to be, and we will make damn well sure it stays like that.