Imagine putting your left hand on a table in front of you. Look at it closely. Perhaps the outline of your metacarpals are visible? Maybe you can make out some veins? Now, imagine picking up a large claw hammer with your right hand. Feel its lopsided weight, its cool wooden handle. Now, calmly, smash your left hand as hard as you can with it. Do it again. And again.
Now you understand the British government’s approach to higher education since 2010, the policies against which tens of thousands of academics are striking over the next few weeks. Over the last week, I’ve been speaking to some of them at different universities of different types across the UK. The stories they tell, about the way their jobs have got worse and worse over the last decade, are remarkably similar.
Sometimes, the government’s aim seems to be to transform universities into corporations – competitive drivers of growth, rather than collaborative ecosystems of scholarship. A bit like trying to hew a hand into a foot. But sometimes, the attacks seem more wanton than that. On average, the better educated people are, the less they vote to the right. The expansion of student numbers in recent decades is an existential threat to the Tories. Listen for the tone of conservative commentators towards the academy in recent years, and you can hear their loathing.
