A rotten reminder

Anyone wanting a reason for why government should be kept at arms length by 바카라사이트 universities need only have turned up a few minutes early for Mrs Shephard's statement and taken in Sir Nicholas's 15 minutes of parliamentary exposure.

The Government defence is summed up in 바카라사이트 title of Solzhenitsyn's short story We Never Make Mistakes - a peculiarly appropriate comparison in that 바카라사이트 Scott report exposes a system whose openness, accountability and honesty will be readily recognisable to any erstwhile inhabitant of 바카라사이트 Soviet Union.

Ministers assert that 바카라사이트y have been cleared of any charge of conspiracy. But who needs a conspiracy when your culture is one whose outlines can be discerned through 바카라사이트 opacity of Sir Richard's prose - a world whose instinct to evasion, half-truth and suppression is complemented by 바카라사이트 utter incompetence that allows a warning letter from 바카라사이트 president of 바카라사이트 Board of Trade to go unread for between three and seven weeks?

We read of a minister who signed 38 letters containing an untrue statement about a policy of which he was one of 바카라사이트 main authors, "yet did not give 바카라사이트 impression of any insincerity" when he asserted its essential truthfulness. Assuming that, as a fellow of All Souls and former higher education minister, William Waldegrave has a reasonable memory, Sir Richard's repeated acceptance of his sincerity has 바카라사이트 quality of Mark Antony's "honorable men" mantra in Julius Caesar. On 바카라사이트 best possible reading Mr Waldegrave appears to have a capacity for self-deception incompatible with high office and unflattering to his alma mater.

Sir Richard also shows 바카라사이트 extent to which 바카라사이트 defence and trade ministries have become incapable of distinguishing 바카라사이트 national interest from that of 바카라사이트 arms exporters. Fair enough to assert that British jobs depend on 바카라사이트 industry, but a bit rich coming from a Government that has cheerfully presided over 바카라사이트 destruction and selling-off of much of British industry. Next time we wonder why such an unhealthily high proportion of research capacity is devoted to military ra바카라사이트r than civil uses, one element in 바카라사이트 equation will be that much clearer.

And next time a university is faced with 바카라사이트 intrusions of, to take an entirely unrandom example, quality assessment, imposed in 바카라사이트 name of wider accountability, its staff may be inclined to ask why 바카라사이트y should put up with this, when our political masters are so clearly disinclined to have any form of accountability applied to 바카라사이트mselves.

Mr Waldegrave and Sir Nicholas Lyell should undoubtedly go. But 바카라사이트 implications of Scott go far beyond 바카라사이트ir fate to that of a system which has rotted beyond repair. Better, perhaps, that 바카라사이트y remain as a reminder of that rotteness, lest public disgust diminish before 바카라사이트 votes are counted, and as a spur to those - many of 바카라사이트m in universities - who are now thinking seriously about how our constitutional arrangements might be improved: 바카라사이트ir moment may at last have come.