Peter Rhodes on vanishing hedgehogs and chucking money at migration and academia
How to solve the flood of illegal migrants in small boats? Chuck another £75 million at the problem. Hand up those who think this week's bung will make the slightest improvement.
So let us get this right. University fees were originally £3,000 then went up to £9,250. At this level, unis have been losing £4,000 per student per year and pleading for a hike in student fees. The new Government has agreed, bumping fees up to £9,500.
Two worries here. The first is the eagerness of the Government to turn teenagers upside-down and shake the last pennies out of their pockets. The second is the apparent inability of Britain's unis to run a simple, oversubscribed establishment at a profit. If your kids were reading maths, business or economics in such a place, wouldn't you worry about exactly what they're being taught?
An international report says that Britain's hedgehog population has tumbled by 30 per cent in a decade. Blame is focused on modern farming methods and over-tidy back gardens. But a few of us remember the days when, in part of the UK, hedgehogs were deliberately exterminated by the authorities.
