Category: Politics

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Tante lobby

Nick Cohen would have it that the Pope has `signalled his fealty to the deep strain of reaction in European history’, because, in a statement on prejudice against gays, he made reference to `masonic lobbies’ (`lobby dei massoni). Cohen explains:

Few Anglo-Saxon readers understand that prejudice against freemasons is the founding conspiracy theory of the far right. It saw the machinations of a society that began among harmless Scottish craftsmen in the 15th century as responsible for liberalism, the enlightenment, the rights of man… everything it hated.

Quite apart from the use of the term `Anglo-Saxon’ (does that include the Celtic fringe, or non-white Britons), Cohen seems to have missed the point.

To anyone paying attention to post-war Italian history, the first thing which comes to mind when someone says `freemasons’ is not some harmless old buffers with their trouser legs rolled up, but the Propaganda Due lodge, which, as part of the strategy of tension,  perverted the course of justice during the investigation into the Bologna railway station bombing, and was involved in the corruption of the Banco Ambrosiano, the Vatican’s piggy bank.

It is not impossible that the Pope is a bit reactionary, but his use of the term `masonic lobbies’ is a feeble hook to hang the argument on.

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Convention for Higher Education: IV

The final session began with reports back from the workshop session, followed by talks from John Holmwood, Tom Hickey and Martin McQuillan.

John Holmwood talked about the trajectory of higher education from the Robbins (`social democratic’) to the Browne (`neo-liberal’) report, describing the changes in policy. He rejected the claim that there is a need for cuts in education spending, mentioning the Aubyn report showing that UK higher education is the best value for money in the world, and the Wolf [?] report on aspiration to university.

Tom Hickey discussed the UCU response to the current situation and asked what connection there is between trade-unionism and the vision of a university. Like John Holmwood, he noted that the public strongly supports access to education. On the subject of organization, he pointed out that autonomy is dangerous in a system of privatized universities, and that UCU is the only organization distributed throughout the sector. He proposed that UCU put forward a vision for universities, defending self-managed scholarly activity.

Martin McQuillan took his topic from Tamson Pietsch’s idea of the enclosure of the epistemological commons. He gave an account of the forms of management of English universities such as companies limited by guarantee (which can be taken over). Other models are available, such as the University of California system, or private universities backed by private equity, as in continental Europe. He gave two examples of dangers for university education: `open access’ which is put forward as giving the public access to taxpayer-funded research, but will mainly benefit those (business) who previously paid for data; and MOOCs, which as well as being criticized for their pedagogy, but which are also run by private bodies which want to monetize lectures. The ideological drive is to justify private profit as a public good.

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Convention for Higher Education: I

Having just come back from the Convention for Higher Education at Brighton, I am putting up summaries of discussions. These are broken up by session, to avoid having a very long account, and to make it easier to comment. Panel speakers are named, because they had already agreed to have their names used, but not contributors from the audience. Apparently, videos of the talks will be online in the near future.

In the first session, I estimated about sixty people were present. The speakers in the first session were Caroline Lucas MP, Luke Martell from University of Sussex, and Peter Scott columnist and one-time Vice-Chancellor at Kingston.

Caroline Lucas spoke mainly about the political context of the public university and especially the effects of fees on applications and access, and how the idea of studying for love of learning rather, and the words `public good’, have largely disappeared from discussions of higher education. She also mentioned the UCU proposal for an education tax on large corporations, which would allow the abolition of fees.

Luke Martell talked about resistance to privatization at Sussex and the balance between trade unions and students in the campaign. He described an initially negative response from the trade unions to the campaign, with academics complicit in marketization, and considered the limitations of information or propaganda activity as opposed to occupation and other forms of action. He was especially critical of the one day strike.

Peter Scott gave his view that we must take back the claim to be radical, which is currently made by the government. He said that supporters of the selective, academic (in the bad sense) system have not come to terms with mass higher education, and that while higher education needed reform, to deal with inequities that were in the system, it did not need this reform. Noting that the question is what is the trajectory of the reforms, he pointed out that Browne introduced a paradigm shift in the sector (this was developed further by John Holmwood on the second day). In answer to the question `what is to be done’, he said we need clarity about values, and that we should celebrate the mass system of higher education, end league tables, and weigh all forms of impact including social critique.

In the discussion at the end of the session, the issue of role of trade unions in universities was raised, and the problem of the depoliticization of unions and the lack of concern amongst academics about outsourcing. There was a comment about a general lack of radicalism amongst staff, even those organized into trade union branches. A participant from Brighton said that the Sussex occupation had shaken his faith in trade unions, and that he was supporting the `pop-up union’. Luke Martell shared this disillusion with trade unions but pointed out that they do have important resources and mobilizing capacity. It was noted from the floor that while class had been raised as an issue of access and widening participation, the white maleness of the panel (Caroline Lucas had had to leave early) did not inspire confidence in its ability to deal with the diversity of university students and staff. The von Prondzynski review of governance in Scottish universities was mentioned in the context of the role of academics in governance. A colleague visiting from the US mentioned the role of debt in higher education and how it destroys any idea of education. Finally, it was stated that unions are best placed to resist the changes in the sector, but cannot do so in a narrow way, and the question of how to politicize `support staff’ was raised.