Tensions were running high at the Natfhe conference at the weekend, where rival factions thrashed out union policy on the Middle East, the war in Iraq and the future of British higher education. But one debate was so fractious that the doors had to be shut while tellers conducted a nerve-racking count of votes. The motion? "Conference is dismayed by the decision to remove the personal Natfhe diary, which is sent to its members." The call for the diary's reinstatement from 2004 was narrowly carried.