History is the English subject: our greatest Prime Minister was an historian. The Government is now making alarming cuts in the funding of the English universities. Next year the funds will be cut by £449 million. The minister who is making these cuts is Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, who argues that universities could use the opportunity to focus their resources on their strongest areas. These would often be historical studies.
Inevitably the universities have protested, as they should. Apart from the threat to learning and to jobs, these universities are among our national success stories. If Britain is to succeed in building a knowledge-based economy, these universities will be among our best assets. It may have been crude mercantilism to put higher education into