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Your article, "Balls can act, so why can't I: Lammy was vexed by London Met constraints" (15 April), reported that David Lammy, the higher education minister, was puzzled and frustrated by his inability to intervene directly in London Metropolitan University in the way Ed Balls did with Haringey Council in the "Baby P" case.

If he cannot see the difference between a local council and a university, should he be the minister in charge of the academy? Do centuries of universities' struggles for liberty from the state in Europe mean nothing to him?

Yorick Wilks, University of Oxford.