There is a danger that by arguing the amount, we end up conceding the framing. Britain's welfare is ungenerous, the spend in total is mid-to-low table, and below past peaks. Benefits need reforming because they're unfit for purpose and trap, instead of enabling people. Not to make fantasy savings.

Glad someone senior from the sector is pushing back. Labour MPs need to understand the serious real anger from graduates and the people who produce them. And the dangerous financial situation they have allowed to fester, or indeed worsened, in one of Britain’s leading sectors.

Labour has harmed universities as much as Trump, London School of Economics head says

LSE vice-chancellor Larry Kramer points to domestic student fees freeze, international student limits and rise in employers’ national insurance

ft.com

The sec of state who has seen at least 15000 academics lose their jobs just said this. Out loud. Mercy me. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

‘It hurts to lose a job you love’: Starmer loyalist Bridget Phillipson fights on despite cabinet demotion

Exclusive: The former education secretary on her new role as Labour chair and continuing as the minister for women and equalities

theguardian.com

1/🧵EXCLUSIVE: @bylinetimes.bsky.social's six-month investigation into Reform UK's policy chief: a secret donation from Peter Thiel, Thiel's life-changing offers to Cambridge scholars, and a far-right, theocratic student recruitment drive in breach of safeguarding bylinetimes.com/2026/07/09/p...

Palantir Co-Founder Peter Thiel and Reform UK's Cambridge University Recruitment Pipeline Project Revealed

The world-renowned academic institution has nothing to say in response to a six-month investigation by Byline Times raising serious concerns about the safeguarding of students and foreign influence at...

bylinetimes.com

This, in particular. Increasingly of the view that government policy towards universities is the test case of whether it really has a wider economic policy.

Jonathan Portes@jdportes.bsky.social · 3w ago

"A closed country will be poorer. A country that underinvests will not grow. A state that refuses to reform tax will ration ambition. And a Labour government afraid to say these things will discover once again that caution, too, has costs." www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Does the BBC think its a university?

Byline Times@bylinetimes.bsky.social · 3w ago

📌 ICYMI — ‘The BBC’s Ill-Conceived Cuts Sacrifice Journalists In Order To Save Managers’ The BBC is sacking journalists whilst leaving layers of largely superfluous and expensive management in place, argues former BBC reporter Patrick Howse

Of course they see AI as part of the solution.

Times Higher Education (THE)@timeshighered.bsky.social · 3w ago

UK Research and Innovation has pledged to halve the time it takes to review grant applications by targeting a 90-day turnaround for applicant-led bids

This is really quite shocking when all laid out.

Rachel Cunliffe@rmcunliffe.bsky.social · 4w ago

So it turns out the "contract" teenagers signed for their student loans wasn't actually a contract at all, the government always had the right to retrospectively change the terms, and at no point was this explained to those taking out the loans... www.newstatesman.com/politics/edu...

interesting paper on academic craftsmanship and its underpinning values that have been undermined by ‘managerialism’.

Academic Craftsmanship: Reclaiming Values, Practices, and Sovereignty in the University - Minerva

This essay proposes academic craftsmanship as an ideal-type for interpreting and defending universities’ research, teaching, and public work under managerial regimes. It argues that neoliberal manager...

link.springer.com

Since the hard-won, fragile, and crucial consensus on climate change was unpicked by the right wing, some on the left are happy to join this regressive attack. What does Graham tell her members about failing crops, coastal erosion, and global instability? Tough tits? It is so disheartening to see.

Absolutely this. If only we had HE leaders that actually lobbied hard for the sector and its staff that actually deliver this economic success, instead of cutting themselves to the bone and baking in terminal decline.

Chris Parr@chrisjparr.bsky.social · last mo.

Time and again I think that THIS is the stat universities should shout, shout & shout again about. New education export data again show HE responsible for nearly three-quarters of a £37bn UK revenue source. Fund our universities! Source: explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statist...

Really interesting thread

Dan Neidle@danneidle.bsky.social · last mo.

What if Andy Burnham could raise £15bn – without a tax rise? There's one catch. He'd need to solve the UK’s biggest and least-discussed tax problem. Almost half of all small business corporation tax isn't being paid - and nobody knows why. Thread:

Really good piece on the current crisis.'The university system is more like a cartel than a market. Among managers, there is far more imitation than innovation'. Dimaggio and Powell's description of mimetic insitituional isomorphism in their 1983 paper 'the iron cage revisited' seems relevant here.

The Crisis in Britain’s Universities

The cuts that have been proposed at the University of Exeter demonstrate the crisis of purpose in Britain’s universities. Should not universities also be places to prepare for "eternal dwellings"?

johnheathershaw.substack.com

Leaders who can't be bothered to do their jobs, & want to be able to blame someone else for the decisions they want to take, hire consultants who care nothing about education, research, or people. Universities end up wrecked, lives are ruined, only consultants benefit. Again & again & again.

Margot Finn@eicathomefinn.bsky.social · last mo.

'The Herald reported in April that PA Consulting had been contracted to manage an "academic size and shape" exercise at the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (CAHSS).' 1/2

As debates rage about where to get the money for higher defence spending, it’s important we have a clear picture of how we spent the peace dividend while it was around. Thread 🧵⤵️

trying and failing to think of anything in the UK that isn’t currently in a doom loop.

East Anglia Bylines@eastangliabylines.co.uk · 2mo ago

The migration debate is stuck in a doom loop: politicians blame immigration for economic and social problems, tighten the rules, growth slows, services struggle, and public frustration grows. Stephen McNair reports how research by Jonathan Portes and Lauren Gilbert shows the cycle feeding itself.

NEW from me: today I've written another piece in our @isrfoundation.bsky.social series on the destruction of British Higher Education. What's it like to live under the threat of redundancy? Read all about it here: isrf.org/blog/what-do...

What Does It Feel Like to Live Under the Threat of Redundancy?

isrf.org

What is wrong with these people? (www.paconsulting.com/client-story...) (Actually, you only have to put “PA Consulting UK scandals” into Google to see for yourself.)

I have seen a few academics offering their takes on English HE in the last week. I don't think the issue of insolvency is really being grasped in these. Basically, it is worse than people think ... The Education Committee gives a good account of the issue: committees.parliament.uk/work/9012/hi...

Higher Education and Funding: Threat of Insolvency and International Students - Committees - UK Parliament

The UK’s higher education sector is in trouble. Dozens of universities are making redundancies and cuts to courses, trying to stay afloat amid uncertainty over where their money is coming from.  ...

committees.parliament.uk

In London for a long weekend to see the Pixies, and I can confirm it’s very warm and humid!

Some call it the Schrödinger's cat of higher education consultancies, suggesting that if you have Nous you don't have nous.

QM_UCU@qmucu.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Relieved to see more coverage of the grip Nous is getting on #UKHE. Thanks @privateeyenews.bsky.social! A million pound @cardiffucu.bsky.social alone. That’s a lot of money for the very same PowerPoint…

ja fragt euch mal

this thread is pretty spot on and depressing. I think as a country we might just be totally screwed, but I am a natural pessimist.

Alex Andreou@sturdyalex.bsky.social · 3mo ago

I really wanted this Burnham speech to leave me hopeful and was actively rooting for it. I found it deflating - to put it mildly. Where it needed to be brave and expansive, it was small and meek. Let me give one example that I found quite instructive, since Andy used it as a framing device. 1/

For those of you concerned about university solvency, there is actually a lot of good work out there. What about this from m'learned colleague at Brunel on the financial health of every single uni? I count 40 universities rated 'Red' on the Critical List. policycommons.net/artifacts/48...

NEW from me: many of our universities are now in a dying fall. A new global-national-regional-local split is opening up, which could choke off progress on almost all the Government's plans. Do they have a plan? Nope, nothing, not a clue. 👇 isrf.org/blog/whats-t...

What’s the future for our universities?

isrf.org

The helium shortage is now unavoidable. Another wonderful follow-on to the Iran War, and if you think helium doesn’t matter much, think again:

Helium and the Strait of Hormuz

science.org

Or we could just not create ‘dangerously capable AI’ so we don’t then have to create ‘super smart babies’ to save the world. Personally, I find the idea of super smart babies far more terrifying than AI.

Mother Jones@motherjones.com · 4mo ago

After advancements in gene editing led to the successful treatment of life-threatening health conditions, some tech bros are considering a new application for the controversial science: making super-smart babies to save the world from dangerously capable AI.

The Strategic Defence Review, which Robertson spearheaded, came out in September 2025, as I was writing the last chapter of my book, which is focused on foreign policy and strategy. I read that entire document and interviewed a number of experts about it. A few thoughts. 🧵

Helene von Bismarck@helenebismarck.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Meanwhile, the usually very discreet Lord Robertson, former NATO Secretary-General, has had enough and accused the British Government and all opposition parties (!) to be complacent about defence. www.ft.com/content/88b1...

Keir Starmer’s unrealistic goal to build a country where “people are not at the mercy of events abroad” suggests governments are still not willing to be open with the public about the UK’s place in the world. I wrote in my book about how politicians infantilise voters: linktr.ee/whateveryone...

Great interview with my brilliant colleague @susansegfault.bsky.social about his excellent book on Tor-Dark Web. highly recommend both the interview and the book, which is available free at MIT press direct.mit.edu/books/oa-mon...

Ben Collier on Tor: From the Dark Web to the Future of Privacy

Podcast Episode · Peoples & Things · March 30 · 1h 1m

podcasts.apple.com