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For senior public servants, a gong from the Queen is the traditional way to cap a career and disappear into honourable retirement.

Which is why the knighthood awarded to Ivor Crewe, the former president of Universities UK and the vice-chancellor of Essex University, at new year is intriguing. Far from being about to bow out, Sir Ivor is on the longlist of possible replacements for Sir Howard Newby, the outgoing chief executive of the Higher Education Funding Council for England. Unless, of course, Buckingham Palace knows something we don't.