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University UK's annual review reads like the class swot's diary.

The glossy 40-page booklet, published this week, lists an impressive range of universities' achievements in teaching, research and widening participation. Yet underlying almost every success is the common theme of government underfunding of higher education.

All good stuff and, of course, absolutely true. Unfortunately, it is hard not to imagine that somewhere in the background is the menacing spectre of a bullying government counting the money it has already wrung from the sector and brandishing the next load of work it expects universities to do for nothing.