You’ll never work a loan

Universities are not just on the fringe at the Labour conference

What did we learn on day two of Labour’s annual gathering in Liverpool? Former Bank of England governor Mark Carney says it is “beyond time” for shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves to be made chancellor of the exchequer; and Boris Johnson’s ex-wife Marina Wheeler has been appointed as Labour leader Keir Starmer’s whistleblowing tsar for women. It all feels like the nation is cementing the deal in a shift away from the Conservatives to Labour.

We also came to the conclusion that university finance is not a topic that Labour is going to get round to tackling in its first term in office. The task for a possible Labour government in the early years of the next parliament will be to stop the public finances falling over. There just will not be any capacity to fix the imperfections of higher education when so much of the public realm is literally crumbling.