It was ten days ago that Mr S brought news of the latest controversy to embroil our ancient seats of learning, after a lecturer at a leading London university allegedly suggested Douglas Murray should be ‘suppressed’. Tom Tugendhat, the security minister, was subsequently forced to order a review into the Home Office’s use of external courses after it was claimed that the training sessions, put on by the security studies department of King’s College London (KCL), amounted to ‘indoctrination’.

But now some diligent digging in the House of Lords has revealed just how much these courses have been costing the British taxpayer. Dean Godson, the Tory peer and director of the Policy Exchange think tank, has today received answers from government ministers to a series of written questions tabled in the Upper House. They reveal that the ‘Issues in Countering Terrorism’ course, delivered by KCL, was held four times in 2023, with the Foreign Office spending more than £109,000 on those courses in total, with 32 people attending each course.

Murray told Mr S the sum represented ‘a disgraceful waste of taxpayer money.’ If the FCDO want to make some efficiency savings, this seems like an ideal place to start…