Leading article: Oxbridge blues

Richard Lambert's interim report on strengthening the links between business and the universities - or rather the way he sold it to the newspapers - will terrify Oxford and Cambridge and please Gordon Brown. We are told that the ancient universities should become more businesslike or face government intervention. It is well known that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is irritated with Cambridge for failing to take full advantage of the £68m partnership he brokered with MIT to help make Cambridge and all British universities more entrepreneurial. The question is whether a more tightly run Cambridge - or Oxford, for that matter - would really make these institutions any more go-getting and innovative.