It's not my party

Alan Johns, president of university and college lecturers' union Natfhe, was all charm at a recent Natfhe parliamentary reception when he particularly singled out the Liberal Democrats for help given to the union over recent months.

So what explains the patent embarrassment of Liberal

Democrat MPs, including

education spokesman Phil

Willis? Could it be anything to do with the fact that the reception was in fact hosted by the Labour Party?

We'll take the highlands

"Popular in Inverness" may be the new motto for the Institute of Learning and Teaching after it announced its first members last week.

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Five of the 24 are from the

University of the Highlands

and Islands, which has just

360 staff. And the remainder

are not immune. Staff development coordinator Jenny Tizard points out that 25 UHI staff are taking the university's professional development MA, which will offer a route to ILT membership. She says the push is partly designed to "inform the ILT" as it shapes the academics of the future - and partly to help in the UHI's bid to become a full university.

Know your right

As the Quality Assurance

Agency finally publishes its

new complaints procedure, student members of the working group that drew up the procedure and have been tracing its painful progress have already spotted something to complain about. Take references to students' "rights" or "right". Number of references in the code text, June 5 1999: five. Number of references, October 26 1999: one.

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The bad news last

Brace yourself: the following news may prove devastating. The THES regrets to announce that the Institute for Learning and Teaching's website will not be available between December 30 1999 and January 4 2000.

The sad tidings are carried

on the ILT's news page. If you had been planning to see in

the new millennium in the

company of your nearest

and dearest website, you

will have to make alternative arrangements.