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Policy announcements, like sorrows, seem to come not in single spies but in battalions

It was Lenin who said: “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” In the world of higher education journalism, there are weeks when literally nothing happens; and 24-hour periods when weeks happen.

It wasn’t quite the ‘super Thursday’ of 21 January, when the government dropped enough paper to satisfy even the most panic-stricken hoarder of lockdown loo roll. But it came close, starting with the extraordinary letter from education secretary Gavin Williamson to his new oldest best friend James Wharton at the Office for Students, which we covered in yesterday’s Playbook.