Taxpayer-funded British Academy warns Labour of "precarious" university finances

New Education Secretary Phillipson has been warned that HE needs more money. Really?

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Hello my Fellow Awokens,

This is officially my first post since we, the British people, have been blessed with a Labour government.

I know I will be spoilt with new material for my Woke Waste series - where I investigate how the British taxpayer is funding their own demise - considering the Left’s proclivity for spending *because if you throw money at the economy, it’ll magically bloom (think a flower being sprinkled with water).

To kick off with, some thoughts on education. This week the new Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson, gave a few hints of what’s on the agenda.

In a video for social media, she emphasised that she wants to “reset the relationship between government, our nurseries, schools, colleges and universities”, adding: “We are all partners in the push for better.”

The message is clear. “The nice people are in charge now, unlike those beastly Tories.” Clearly Labour thinks the last government was too hostile towards the education sector, which surely deserves only praise.

Yesterday Phillipson continued on her charm offensive, tweeting: “No more silly games. We will treat the workforce, and their trade unions, with the dignity and respect they deserve.”

“Silly games”, ey… (Like education unions closing schools down for the best part of two years?).

Elsewhere, Phillipson has indicated she wants to splurge on the university sector. In a letter to “the education workforce”, Phillipson she wrote: “We will secure the future of our world class universities as engines of growth, ambition and opportunity for all.”

This almost always means “spend more”, particularly as the university sector (and the arts) permanently acts as though victim of a humanitarian disaster - in desperate need of financial aid.

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Another addition to the Government’s Education Department is Labour veteran Jacqui Smith, who’s been appointed a minister.

It was noticeable that, around the time of announcing her new role, Smith retweeted Hetan Shah, CEO of the British Academy - “the UK’s national academy for the humanities and social sciences”.

Shah posted that he was glad to see Phillipson highlight “the precarious state of university finances”, an “issue that urgently needs addressing to protect students, research and local economies”.

Listening to Shah you would think, in addition to being beastly, Conservatives had been a stingy government.

If only! The Charity Commission shows that the British Academy received £274,493,050 in total (£1,583,050 and £272,910,000 in government contracts and grants, respectively) from the British taxpayer between 2019-23.

It repaid Brits by allocating £7.2 million to “Global Professorships” - in other words, professorships that only international talent can apply for. Successful candidates are eligible for “childcare support”, “relocation and visa arrangements” - including those for their dependents (sounds better than any domestic rights!).

More here:

I don’t want to pick on Shah too much, as he’s not the only one in the HE sector who thinks they’ve been hard done by (while receiving huge amounts of taxpayer funding).

His post is merely a sign of the scramble to come from those desperate to get a slice of funding from a conciliatory Education Secretary.

This money will be needed “urgently”, of course, or we stand to lose all this: