Tenure on hold

Good of Tessa Blackstone to appear at last week's AUT meeting in Manchester on the role of Unesco in higher education. The United Kingdom having rejoined as one of the new Labour government's first acts, she was suitably positive about its importance, and even supplied an advance copy of her speech. Only one thing was missing from the printed word - the section (present in the spoken version) about just why the UK cannot support Unesco's declaration on the vital importance of academic tenure. The government claims this interferes with the rights of member states.