Data, but no context

Some 40 years after the publication of E.P. Thompson's book Warwick University Limited, you report on a new survey in which the majority of respondents at UK universities agreed fairly strongly or very strongly that universities are businesses ("Old and new cloisters ring to the march of the managers", 26 August).

That will be a relief to the ever-growing number of managers in higher education, but what it doesn't tell us, as Thompson did forcefully four decades ago, is whether they think this is a good thing or not.

Keith Flett, London.