Universities could be?¡°part of?the election campaign in a?way they do?not want¡± if?campus controversies are seized on by?Conservatives using culture wars to?split the Labour vote, according to?the author of?the last Tory manifesto, who said that currently ¡°everyone hates the Conservatives for the same reasons¡±.

Rachel Wolf, a?founding partner at?political consultancy Public First, also said universities should keep in?mind on?funding that for any government ¡°fiscal is?everything¡± and for Labour ¡°fiscal is?going to be?conservative¡±.

The advice for universities ahead of the election campaign was to ¡°make it local, make it tangible¡±, she told a Higher Education Policy Institute and Advance?HE event looking at how higher education should prepare for the next general election.

On manifestos, universities should remember that ¡°if there is money to spend ¨C big?if ¨C you are?not top of the list¡±, advised Ms?Wolf, who co-wrote the 2019 Conservative Party election manifesto and was an adviser to Boris Johnson in his time as shadow higher education minister. Voters ¡°do?not generally want to talk about universities ¨C and politicians respond to the electorate¡±, she added.

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But there was a ¡°downside risk¡± for the university sector in an election campaign, Ms?Wolf also said. ¡°For the Conservatives, one of the tactics in an election campaign will be to seek to find moments, and expand moments, that split the other side¡¯s [voter] coalition¡­Universities are sites where that can happen.¡±

While many ¡°massively overestimate the importance of the culture war in the electorate¡¯s mind¡± at present, she continued, ¡°if?there are things that happen on university campuses that provide opportunities for the Conservative Party to say ¡®the Labour Party is split, they are not on your side¡­¡¯ they will take them, and it will be all over front pages of the newspapers for a very long time.¡±

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Ms Wolf added: ¡°To be honest, the biggest probability for universities is they are part of the election campaign in a way they do?not want¡­I¡¯m sure all universities have done this, but you need to be spending a lot of time thinking about how you are going to manage that situation if it emerges in an election campaign. Because all eyes will be on you very, very fast.¡±

The general election is?¡°not going to matter to you [universities]¡± aside from that downside risk; ¡°what is going to matter is what happens after the election¡±, she argued.

It was ¡°very plausible there will be a one-year spending review¡± to allow the economic outlook to improve ¡°so they [the new government] have some more money to spend¡±, Ms Wolf went?on.

Beyond that, she added: ¡°There is absolutely going to be an opportunity for universities to place themselves more centrally in terms of growth and productivity ¨C that is going to be the major obsession of the next parliament and plausibly the next two parliaments.¡±

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Universities would need to focus on ensuring that their ¡°general R&D story can be made as practical and practically transferable [into economic impact] as?possible¡±, to match with a new government ¨C Ms?Wolf was apparently referring to a Labour administration ¨C ¡°more active in how it thinks about the state and the state¡¯s partnership with industry, while also having no?money¡±.

The kind of electoral ¡°realignment¡± seen at the last election, and since the Brexit vote, was being masked by the size of Labour¡¯s current polling lead, she also argued. ¡°Because everyone hates the Conservatives for the same reason, right: everyone is cross about the economy, everyone is cross about cost of living, everyone is cross about public services. That therefore hides these schisms ¨C but those schisms do still exist.¡±

These continued schisms would mean, she went on, ¡°continuing to think about a university in their place ¨C why they [universities] matter for people who are?not going and what they are doing for an area¡±, issues that are ¡°going to still matter in five or 10?years¡±.

Ms Wolf also said: ¡°While it is fairly clear what the next government is going to be ¨C and it looks like the majority will be very large ¨C this is from all our opinion research the most apathetic and disillusioned with politics we have seen the British population.¡±

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john.morgan@timeshighereducation.com