those entrails seemed swallowed over and over again by the same mouth, to be oppositely voided by the gaping wound

new financial health report from University of East London. Not read it in full yet - but it does not appear to factor in access to short-term credit for liquidity (no RCFs or overdrafts considered). This makes a big difference to some of the individual scores www.uel.ac.uk/about-uel/ne...

Ed Miliband: "New phone, who dis?"

NEW on Wonkhe: The Home Office’s new system for monitoring visa compliance has come into effect. Michael Salmon walks us through the stricter process and speculates on the fallout buff.ly/bMEVMNp

£300,000+ a year.

I have seen a few academics offering their takes on English HE in the last week. I don't think the issue of insolvency is really being grasped in these. Basically, it is worse than people think ... The Education Committee gives a good account of the issue: committees.parliament.uk/work/9012/hi...

The new normal. "Peter Thiel and Milli Vanilli say 'no' to America"

It's also interesting that the Milburn report, in section on pupils' sliding sense of belonging at schools, references this paper from the (centrist) SMF think tank, which itself blamed the exam-focused, "rote learning" Gove reforms for that: www.smf.co.uk/wp-content/u...

one respect in which we need a "Thatcher of the Left" is because we need a government willing to identify and label the "enemy within" and use the power of the state to eviscerate them that obv doesn't mean Norman-style "harrying", but it does mean bulldozing the entities that propagate fascism

Dear politicians Future of the economy needs B. It happens in universities. A is not some alternative to B, and university does not only consist of D. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

And I mean, you’d think stuff like this would be at least relevant

OfS has approved the name ‘London and South East University Group’ for Greenwich. 90% of the respondents to the consultation said the new name is, or has the potential to be, confusing. DfE has added that the trading names must add ‘part of LASEUG’ www.officeforstudents.org.uk/publications...

"University of Kent to pursue controversial 2000-home development"

Again, you have to admire British politics for its endless reinvention and innovation in the field of abysmally insulting the public’s intelligence

Also picked up the Pierre Boulez conducted Stravinsky stuff. Early 1970s quadraphonic Japanese imports, still in the shrink wrap!

I see Simon Heffer, in Michael Gove's Spectator, is once again repeating his lie that Enoch Powell's Rivers of Blood speech wasn't about race.. I debated Heffer recently (at the Oxford Litfest) - here's what I said. archive.ph/bqKZF

KCL webpage is very clear that Cranfield is being dissolved and taken over by KCL. www.kcl.ac.uk/about/strate...

In Wales, I think it's been under-appreciated how much of Plaid surge was an anti-Reform vote. Half of Plaid voters - and 62% of Lab to Plaid switchers - cite stopping Reform as a top motivation ! Plaid had the highest proportion of anti-Reform tactical voters across Britain.

lmao that the only name Starmer wins against - and crushingly - is Streeting

🇯🇵 A Japanese company making ferocious-looking robot wolves is being swamped by orders after record numbers of fatal bear attacks on humans last year. ➡️ u.afp.com/SRYQ

NEW on Wonkhe: Who was delivering higher education for who last academic year. Thanks to the OfS, DK has the receipts buff.ly/gG5Swf2

Great to see aliens Khn and Klek interviewed in the Guardian today. Looking good for 333 years old. Can't wait to see these two in October. Microtonal music from another planet. #AngineDePoitrine www.theguardian.com/music/2026/m...

OfS provider news. Global University Systems, through a joint venture with Brightstar Capital Partners, has acquired Study Group’s academic operations. news.sky.com/story/mark-k...

It never ceases to amaze me how many election pundits don’t understand the dynamics of First Past the Post, and how vote-splitting works under the UK’s electoral system. John Curtice does. Listen to John Curtice.

New substack: Westminster politics is something which no intelligent person can look upon with anything other than revulsion. chrisdillow.substack.com/p/the-stupid...

The General Counsel "leads a team of around 30 highly capable legal professionals to deliver high quality, clear and enabling advice on complex legal matters"

A finding that says a) you acted beyond your powers b) your understanding of free speech within the law was wrong is about as devastating as it gets for OfS. A head should roll, surely?

OfS' track record in bending to the whim of political masters while simultaneously disappointing them is breathtaking in way. "Yeah we'll do as you say. Badly!"

I - for one - welcome our new alien overlords

It was Bear Grylls

PR executive tried to ‘get rid’ of documents despite legal warning ft.trib.al/SUnHRHY

What a fantastic look this is

🔴 SCOOP: Remember Labour Together paid PR firm APCO £36,000 to investigate journalists? Now the firm has been reported to Serious Fraud Office + senior APCO executive told a freelance contractor to destroy evidence of Labour Together work NEW on D4S: democracyforsale.substack.com/p/labour-tog...

ok take 2 the reason i appear to care - i was there when it was written etc etc, i was part of team grischuk in kazan 2011 (together with bacrot and riazantsev) so i had a front row seat to it

Great to see #Tortoise last night. The bass was so loud/ rumbling, I'm pretty sure it dislodged my prostate. I first saw them in London about 30 years ago. Then I saw them in San Diego in 2004. And now in Switzerland. 3 shows in 3 countries over 3 decades. Excellent band.

Heathen that I am, for some reason I've always thought that 'A Love Supreme' sounds like the name of an ice cream or lolly. "Two Cornettos, an Orange Maid, a choc ice, and a Love Supreme, please"

🎞️ A lost silent-era film -- "Gugusse and the Automaton" made by French film pioneer George Melies in 1897 -- has been found inside a battered wooden trunk in Michigan and donated to the US Library of Congress. ➡️ u.afp.com/SEc7

The White House issued an executive order on college athletics (on a Friday evening during a long weekend for many Americans). I zoomed in on this paragraph given the cuts to research in today's proposed FY27 budget. www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

This week on Wonkhe: The plate glass universities were founded on intimacy, radicalism and community. Adam Wright asks whether an obsession with growth has made those promises impossible to keep

🇯🇵 Teams race for rice in Japan's office-chair endurance contest Dozens of competitors take part in the ISU-1 Grand Prix in Japan, a two-hour endurance race inspired by Le Mans run entirely on unmodified, store-bought office chairs.

NEW on Wonkhe: The 22,000 weekend delivery students need information wonkhe.com/wonk-corner/...

⚖️ Isabelle Adjani soupçonnée de fraude fiscale: le parquet général a requis jeudi à Paris contre l'actrice une peine de 18 à 24 mois de prison avec sursis probatoire et 250.000 euros d'amende, avec exécution provisoire.

🐋 Exceptionally rare footage of sperm whale giving birth in the wild Scientists have released footage of a spectacular event rarely witnessed by humans: a sperm whale giving birth while other females worked together to support the mother and her newborn

this development has not really been picked up by mainstream media. wonkhe.com/blogs/weeken... Excellent overview by Jim. I would add that this creates huge financial difficulties for at least 5 of the institutions affected. Franchising was doing most of the cross-subsidy work.

the wait is almost over, and in a couple of hours the candidates will finally take off. i'll try to post some thoughts about the rounds after end of play, but for now - very happy to be here, with jan, to talk about my favorite event as it unfolds. www.youtube.com/live/fGON0E0...

NEW on Wonkhe: Jim Dickinson unpacks the fallout from a DfE crackdown on weekend course misclassification – and finds students caught between forced repayment, forced delivery changes, and a system that is unlikely to accept blame buff.ly/Wd1hPso