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In 1918, Thorstein Veblen said the US university was in decline because it had become "a business enterprise, bureaucratically organised under its 'captain of erudition', in pursuit of 'notoriety, prestige and advertising' at the expense of scholarship and to the accompaniment of a vast competitive waste of resources" (Halsey, 1992). Today, at London Metropolitan ("Threat of 'lockout' at London Met sparks talk of staff boycott", THES , February 7), the polarisation of record pay-rise captains Roderick Floud and Brian Roper from their staff, whom they threaten to lock out over a pay dispute, indicates how much further the British system is in decline.

Geraldine Thorpe
London Metropolitan University