Universities

Sending more people to uni isn’t the answer

10 November 2018 9:00 am

Imagine a world where employers judged applicants solely on their dress. Anyone in frayed clothes or scuffed shoes would never…

The neo-Marxist takeover of our universities

8 September 2018 9:00 am

According to Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, America’s universities have succumbed to ‘safetyism’, whereby students are protected from anything that…

Our great universities are struggling – but not because of Brexit

12 May 2018 9:00 am

British universities have serious problems. The recent strikes protesting against a sudden reduction in pension rights were unusually effective, and…

You can’t beat Corbyn with Miliband – but the Tories are trying to anyway

20 January 2018 9:00 am

Tuition fees have all but killed the Liberal Democrats. The breach of their manifesto pledge to abolish the charges, compounded…

The curious star appeal of Jordan Peterson

20 January 2018 9:00 am

Last Sunday night a capacity crowd of mainly young people packed into the Emmanuel Centre in London. Those who couldn’t…

Letters: the tyranny of ‘equality of outcome’ in education

4 November 2017 9:00 am

Equality of outcome Sir: Rod Liddle exposes some deep flaws in the way children are prepared to play their part…

Letters

26 August 2017 9:00 am

In defence of General Lee Sir: In your leader ‘America’s identity crisis’ (19 August) you state that ‘When General Lee…

Varsity blues

19 August 2017 9:00 am

A vast cohort of bright young things have secured their university places with A-level success this week. But things are…

Generation Snowflake: how we train our kids to be censorious cry-babies

4 June 2016 9:00 am

We’re training our children to be thin-skinned, censorious and belligerently entitled

British universities are whipping up a mad boom that’s bound to go bust

14 May 2016 9:00 am

British higher education is in a boom that’s bound to go bust

Michael Dobbs’s diary: Talking House of Cards with President Xi

30 April 2016 9:00 am

I’m a lucky man. My novel House of Cards transformed my life, yet I wrote it almost by accident nearly…

The tangled story of dreadlocks, from Milton to YouTube

9 April 2016 9:00 am

‘Why are you filming this?’ ‘For everyone’s safety.’ Those are the last words in a 46-second video that was watched…

Stepford students’ new target: other Stepford students

12 March 2016 9:00 am

Politically correct students are now falling victim to the censorious climate they helped create

In defence of discrimination

6 February 2016 9:00 am

David Cameron has accused universities of being xenophobic, racist and prejudiced against the poor. He is too much of a…

Corbyn's purge of the Oxbridge set

24 October 2015 9:00 am

Labour was once the clever party. Under Jeremy Corbyn, its front bench is purged of Oxbridge intellectuals

There’s too much bunkum talked about the arts and education

24 October 2015 9:00 am

At the last minute, a friend invited me to a ‘Distinguished Speakers Dinner’ at the Oxford and Cambridge Club earlier…

What Scottish professors have to fear from Nicola Sturgeon’s power grab

17 October 2015 8:00 am

What Scotland’s professors have to fear from the SNP’s latest bright idea

Edmund de Waal’s diary: Selling nothing, and why writers need ping-pong

10 October 2015 9:00 am

On the top landing of the Royal Academy is the Sackler Sculpture Corridor, a long stony shelf of torsos of…

What I’ve learned helping to found a specialist free school

5 September 2015 9:00 am

Lessons from the first year of our specialist maths school

Tony Hall’s diary: the Proms, my walking obsession, and why the BBC is like James Bond

25 July 2015 9:00 am

There’s nothing quite like a First Night — and last Friday we launched the Proms, the most celebrated classical music…

How British universities spread misery around the world

25 July 2015 9:00 am

From Greece to Kenya, the worst economic ideas come from alumni of British universities

What Aristotle would have made of Cambridge’s Lego-sponsored professor

20 June 2015 9:00 am

So Cambridge University has accepted £4 million from the makers of Lego (snort) to fund a Lego chair (Argos sells…

The best way to end the ‘poshness test’

20 June 2015 9:00 am

There’s a warning buried in the detail of the new report by the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission on…

How come our cash-strapped universities can afford so many administrators?

6 June 2015 9:00 am

At Oxford and elsewhere, university administration is out of control

My part in a masterpiece of political correctness

9 May 2015 9:00 am

Damien Hirst, Grayson Perry, James Delingpole: all winners of major art prizes. I was awarded mine last week by Anglia…