The imminent general election (most likely about a year away), the consistent Labour polling leads and the evisceration of Conservative power in local government at the end of last week have all combined to rather concentrate the mind.
Just what would a Keir Starmer government mean for higher education?
For better or worse, it is challenging to see anything much beyond the huge great elephant that has occupied the room labelled “Labour’s university policy” since Keir took over the leadership of his party from Jeremy Corbyn in 2020: what will he do about tuition fees?
Last week the Labour leader was forced by some awkward leaking to admit publicly for the first time what we all knew already: that there was no way he was going to stick to the Corbyn-era policy of free HE for all.
And so we are left with other questions: what should Labour do? What room does it have for manoeuvre? What should it commit to in private? What should it say in public before an election?
