Howells has landed
We've got a live one. Kim Howells burst on to the scene last week with his first foray into university politics as higher education minister. The man best known for labelling the Turner Prize "conceptual bullshit" was not sounding very on-message. In a departure from his prepared speech on the launch of an NUS information campaign for would-be students, Howells started, well, rambling about how he used to be transport minister, though obviously he hadn't yet "cracked" the Regent Street problem (he was talking at Westminster University's Oxford Circus building). But he soon came to the point. Which was that, in his day, careers advice wasn't very good: a couple of shoe boxes containing a few leaflets on the merchant navy.
Mud slinging
Howells' decision to attend Hornsey School of Art came after he spotted some "stunning" women who studied there, in a colour supplement, but when he turned up he found a campus comprising a "bunch of toilets spread across north London". We look forward to following his views on the world of higher education, but almost feel sorry for the mandarins at the DfES who are assigned to do his PR. He's going to take quite some handling.
Mud wrestling
EducationGuardian goes to press a tad too early to bring you a report from last night's Labour party conference debate on the Tomlinson reform, featuring Mike Tomlinson, Digby Jones, director general of the CBI, the schools minister David Miliband and Buckingham University's Alan Smithers, chaired by our very own political editor, Michael White. Instead we can report that insiders at the Association of Colleges, which organised the event, were last week touting it as a "mudbath". As the official put it: "I want to see Alan Smithers get Miliband in a headlock."
Fresh(er) and (con)temporary
It's freshers' week and that time of year when we play spot-the-roomless-fresher. Lancaster University is the first to fall foul of its PFI deals this year as 600 students are spending this week in temporary accommodation rather than in their unfinished accommodation. Know of any more? Email education.editor@guardianunlimited.co.uk