Institutions once at the vanguard of liberal thought have also succumbed to a kind of intellectual Stalinism, influencing the politics of professors and students. Just 7 per cent of academics voted Tory in the last election, with more than 80 per cent backing Left-wing parties. Vast quantities of research is produced, much of it never cited again, and yet the number of Tory‑supporting academic historians, for example, is vanishingly small.

In this stultifying culture of uniformity, different views are discouraged through “safe spaces” and “no platforming”. Even free market capitalists aren’t safe. A talk at Exeter University last year by Yaron Brook of the Ayn Rand Institute was disrupted by student activists.