*I'm not a journalist, I don't really care about on/off-record. I'm a Conservative Party member sick of internal corruption resulting in morons becoming MPs. Raja is in no meaningful sense a conservative. We need to re-introduce civil service type exams for all prospective parliamentary candidates.

So I respectfully disagree. Based on my experiences in Leicester City, many are not integrating and it is deeply harmful (both to the communities themselves as the Leicester race riots in 2022 showed, and to wider British society).

Yeah, I can see that. I'm trying to be more optimistic, and hoping that dialogue with moderate Conservative MPs can persuade them of the need to de-racialise the discourse and push back against these lurches toward Reform. What else can you do? 🤷🏽‍♂️

One problem is keeping these silly labels (like “white British”) on official forms, which feed into policy discussions. I agree that this language gives his statements a racial dimension we could do without. But I always felt O’Brien was concerned about integration—which, I think, is reasonable.

Could I ask what the “preferred pronouns are white British” is a reference to? Neil O’Brien is my local MP. Even though I disagree with him on a few things, he has been a genuinely great MP.

No matter how they try to sanitise it, “remigration” is rooted in racism (at an AfD meeting, Martin Sellner used the term to talk about kicking out “non-assimilated” citizens). For CINOs with a track record of racism, like Hall, not being white will always tantamount to not being integrated.

90% of social homes go to UK nationals, so saying “millions of foreign nationals... live in social housing” feels coded. This coding is reinforced by the lack of a subject in “significantly more must leave than enter”—significantly more UK nationals, migrants or something else (non-white citizens)?

I say all of this as someone who has studied on four continents, and someone whose partner is an international postgraduate student at a great (albeit American) university in London. This isn't about prejudice, it is about returning UK universities to being global educational institutions.

India, Pakistan and Nigeria produce incredible students, many of whom attend Oxbridge, Durham, Imperial, LSE, UCL or NCH. But there is a difference between those universities’ application policies, and the policies of many ex-polytechnics whose VCs have reduced education to a grubby business.

We need an absolute ban on the use of agents, and to look seriously at barring applications from certain Indian states with high levels of fraudulent applications (as the progressive government in Australia has done).

AND we have to fund properly good, academic universities across the country.

I have experience of Brunel’s MSc in International Business. I helped a neighbour on their assignments (their English wasn't great). For basically regurgitating the textbook, they received distinctions. Being generous, the content itself was about A-level standard. I was astounded.

Economic argument is what I'm describing as neoliberal (and will inevitably lead to the death of universities anyway). I don't agree with the appeal to popularity. Maybe “bullshit” is unfair, but degrees like business management at ex-polys offer nothing of value—no methodology, no critical thought.

One issue when advocating for HE spending is that people no longer see universities as educational. Fix this and there will be more support for increased spending. As for bankruptcies, you’re right. There needs to be longer-term plans to transition some unis back into community-based polytechnics.

This trilemma is precisely designed to make you think that the least worst option is to carry on accepting the economic exploitation of huge numbers of international students (most of whom have no interest in studying anyway). With a little bit of vision, there are much better options.

3) the small, academic colleges can then form part of federal universities, like London’s, which share overheads and research costs (i.e. combined research institutes). Esp. with devolution, imagine a University of the East Midlands with good liberal arts colleges for undergrads in each city.

2) we need more small, selective colleges (I went to a Dutch university college, and the level of education was better than any RG for a third of the cost), and set up vocational colleges with better links into jobs (i.e. teacher/nursing training centres that partner with schools/hospitals)

1) scrap bullshit degrees (business, management, nursing, teaching, law*... basically anything vocational), and refocus resources into real subjects.

* jurisprudence should be available as a postgraduate option, but we should be shifting the cost of training lawyers back onto firms and chambers.