Labour’s tone shift

Ministers’ fresh approach welcome, but they cannot sidestep systemic problems for universities and research

Bridget Phillipson’s recent interview with BBC Radio 4’s World at One may have amounted to the most an education secretary has said about higher education policy in any substantive sense in the last 14 years. Indeed, she may have said more about higher education policy in that single interview than all her predecessors put together managed over the last 14 years (and there were a lot of them).

Not all of what she said will have been easy listening for university and research leaders: the government has “no plans” to ease the crisis in higher education funding by lifting the tuition fee cap, or by increasing direct public funding for universities, Phillipson said.