Sean Wallis – for UCU Vice President
For a stronger and more democratic UCU led by ordinary members
Introduction The supposedly 'irresistible' rise of Reform in the face of disappointment with Labour was yesterday (26 February 2026) stopped in Gorton and Denton by a surge to the Green Party. I wrote this opinion piece for the Times Higher Education a week ago in response to the question above, but they declined to publish… Continue reading How can we defend Higher Education in the face of ‘Reform UK’?
The treatment of the Palestinian people is the defining question of the decade. I wrote this article before the High Court ruled that the ban on Palestine Action was unlawful. Now Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has said she wants to appeal the judgement. The police are still investigating people for alleged offences. This persecution of… Continue reading Palestine is still the issue
In late 2015, following their re-election, the Conservative Government decided it was time to introduce laws to regulate the Higher Education £9K tuition fee market they had imposed in England in 2010 in coalition with the Lib Dems. They drafted a 'White Paper' (a precursor to a Bill). The Bill, when eventually published, had four… Continue reading Organising against the HE Bill 2016
Introduction Higher Education in the UK is in the throes of a three-fold existential crisis. The first faultline concerns the much-discussed chronic crisis of university profitability under the government-backed funding system. In 2011, a home undergraduate student fee of £9,000 obtained a surplus of around £2,000 per student against the average cost of tuition. When… Continue reading The Triple Threat to UK Higher Education: Market, Trump and ‘AI’