Hello, my name is David Ronsman and this is Talking Politics. Today we're joined by Steven

Toup, who is the Vice Chancellor of Cambridge University, the boss, and we are going to talk

about the politics of higher education. Talking Politics is brought to you in partnership

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Joining me along with Steven are Helen Thompson and Chris Brook. We're going to start by talking

about the most political thing that's happened here for a while, which is the strike, that

we've just been through and it's not resolved by any means, but it's been parked for

now. It's about pensions, and Steven, you've been in this job for less than a year. You

came here from Canada running big institutions in Canada, so you have something of an outside

as perspective on this too, and this thing kicked off fairly early on in your tenure.

It was, it still is, about pensions, about the pension scheme that academics were relying

on, and I've felt for a while that they couldn't, but it became very political, and it became

I think to a lot of people's surprise, extremely fraught and contentious. Do you have a sense

looking back with a little bit of hindsight now why pensions became such a political issue?

Well, I think they're, it's wrapped up with a lot of different issues. In part, it's

wrapped up with the increased tuition fees that students are now paying in the United

Kingdom. I think a fundamental shift in how we understand the funding of higher education,

but I also think it's quite closely related to concerns that many people have been raising

...