I work in a UK university.

There are very few here that work less than 10 hours a day. We're contracted for 36.5 hours a week, but there's no way you can meet targets in that time. Bullying is commonplace and if you don't deliver the reports, papers and other products you're tasked with you are singled out (usually not by your own manager, but his or her manager, which means it's very hard to demonstrate victimisation). Questioning or complaining is treated as 'non cooperation' - never tested by disciplinary, but murmured amongst the senior management teams.

The situation is the same whatever area you visit - academic departments, technical support, estate management, even the staff in the kitchens are bullied, pressurised, monitored and forced out if they are not compliant.

I moved into HE 15 years ago; staff morale has steadily declined over the years, but in the last five years it has plummeted. And the saddest part is that it's obvious that less productive work gets done now than ever before. Academics publish the same work over and over again, support staff spend half their time tracking and reporting, managers ignore the needs of their team because the only thing that matters is that they produce statistics that show continual 'improvement'.

Interestingly I get the impression that people higher up the food chain are beginning to notice. It seems likely that we'll have a change of government in the next couple of years, and I won't be at all surprised if there are major structural changes to the way HE is funded.

Otherwise, as we come out of the recession, I can see a mass exodus of HE and FE staff into industry. Better pay, a lot less bullying and less of an expectation to work 60 hours a week.

Incidentally - I'm on a good scale with a good pension - this isn't sour grapes...

I think the sooner an 'important' state does this sort of thing the better.

The current situation is a chaotic cat and mouse game that's gradually playing into the hands of the publishing industry.

If a big state blocks and censors parts of the internet, they can probably make it stick. The result might be an incentive for people to start encrypting data by default, and I kind of think that would be a good thing for the whole world.

Here in the UK the government is up to all sorts of tricks - the RIP Act gives them the power to monitor all internet traffic and store it for up to 2 years. Even your local council can request to see which web sites you've been visiting - no need to involve the police or the courts, just a 'senior official'.

I think there's just not been a good enough reason so far to encrypt more than the bear minimum. This sort of thing might shove things in the right direction...