Interesting times

If a date can be agreed, what would a general election mean for higher education?

It is sometimes said that the UK is now like Italy without the weather or the food. At last month’s Universities UK conference, Playbook was told by two prominent vice-chancellors that we were witnessing the “Italification” of Britain, with years of unbroken political dysfunction while civil society keeps calm and carries on regardless.

According to this theory, the UK—or Italy—is the opposite of a duck, with all the frantic paddling going on above the waterline while there is serene sailing below. This may be to credit British civil society with a touch too much sangfroid.