Snouts in the universities pension trough

The cushiest job in the UK today is in a university. No longer need one be gifted academically or have skills as a scholar or teacher; any mediocre administrator who can talk the talk can get in to a university staffroom these days. One has to publish, of course, but given the plethora of niche academic journals with tiny circulations but eye watering costs you can write pretty much academically worthless and semi-literate garbage in order to accumulate a publications list. No-one will read it. It doesn't matter. Then there's the pension; 1/75th of salary and a lump sum of 3/75ths of salary for each year of service. With employee contributions capped at 8% and the university paying 18%. For the new Vice-Chancellor of the Agricultural University of Steeple Bumstead on a salary of £450,000 a year, that 18% employer contribution is worth an extra £81,000 a year. 

Of course, as the FT reports, the next best job to being a Vice-Chancellor is to be a member of the 8-man University Pension Scheme Executive Committee; they were paid an average of £488,000 each in 2016/17. Plus, no doubt, the pension benefits. 

There's only one problem with this academic cornucopia, under which VCs have grown fat as butter and as rich as pre-reformation abbots and even the Head of the School of Pig Farrowing at Steeple Bumstead earns more than the Prime Minister. We can't afford it. The pension fund has assets of £60bn but liabilities of £77.5bn. Something needs to be done. 

Part of the problem is that each participating institution doesn't have to balance its books; Steeple Bumstead can award its teaching staff the most outrageous salaries, salaries that accumulate pension liabilities way beyond the institution's own contributions and share, but the scheme as a whole must meet the costs. The universities can't increase student fees any further, as this will kill the goose. And all those podgy-fingered vice chancellors feasting at their high tables on fine foods and wines won't take a cut in their wedge. So either the taxpayer bails the broke USS out or the pension fund cuts its benefits .... and you can probably see which way this is going. 

Glynis Breakwell, Bath Uni VC on a wedge of £451,000. Not sure who the bloke is.

Universities must banish Islamism

The government, through HFE funding, can force an immediate change for all new undergraduates wishing to attend UK universities that will significantly curb Islamism and make Islamist speech and action as unacceptable as racism or sexism. Simply, all new students must sign a declaration abrogating the seven key indicators of Islamism, and agreeing that should they be caught expressing or arguing such views it will be grounds for immediate expulsion. 

Islamism is not a matter for freedom of thought. Islamism is not a human right. Islamism is a perverse and inhuman death-cult that has no place whatsoever in a western democracy. It must be stamped out from every aspect of public life.