Dissent Among the Schoolmen

Forty-three senior academics have threatened to resign as peer reviewers for the Arts and Humanities Research Council because of the Government's attempt to tie funding to certain theological studies. The AHRC has produced a strategy document proclaiming that money to the value of up to a hundred university courses at £9000 apiece could be awarded to projects devoted to Daveybloke's Big Society thingy. The thingy, of course, possesses several Godlike attributes, notably those of ineffable mystery, leaving the poor to the mercy of the rich, and the fact that the Church of England doesn't quite believe in it. The peer reviewers are annoyed because they hold the unhelpfully reductionistic belief that the thingy is no more than a "Tory party slogan".

When asked about the issue, the Minister for University Fees was out mending a puncture on his bicycle, but he has directed his minions to deny everything; he has also published an article in the Murdoch Journal of Higher Education warning of the "hazards" of adopting "political slogans" for research purposes. It is not entirely clear whether the Minister regards Daveybloke's Big Society thingy as a slogan, although it is fairly certain that he regards universities as having more to do with profit than with politics.