I try and keep Tony Harland's advice on the 3 P's of lecturing - performance, passion, purpose - at the heart of mine. In particular, performance, as - "a performer has a deep respect for their audience." Something a lot of contemporary documentary makers could do with remembering!

Also, the limpness of failing to stand up for something that this country has done well for decades, and is actually a key strength, is awful to see. Politicians need to be far more robust in defending our strengths against lazy opinion-havers.

Fairly sure that it is those post-1992s that do most in terms of social mobility. I am sceptical of these proposals for similar reasons - they are always economically (and culturally!) bad for a bunch of places that really do not need more bad news.

I also don't see how "mergers, campus closures" don't also produce damaging economic effects at a local level. Why does, say, York deserve a university, but Hull doesn't?

The OfS has too many goals, and too little independence. Both show through here, and both need to be changed for it to have any hope of being a source of solutions rather than new problems - onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

What are the odds, I am left to wonder, that in a year we will be back here, with central government complaining that some of this money has been "wasted" on administration, when the requirements here raise administration costs for councils for their road programmes?

Ah, thank you so much!