Cherie Booth, the Prime Minister's wife, may be dragged into an escalating industrial dispute at Liverpool John Moores University. The LJMU branch of lecturers' union Natfhe last week unanimously carried a resolution calling on Ms Booth, as chancellor of the university, to speak out about the university's "contempt for collegiality and consultation" after an apparent breakdown in relations between the university and its staff unions. The resolution also voiced lecturers' "profound dismay" at revelations in The Times Higher last week about the sacking of Lewis Lesley and called for "an unfettered independent external inquiry into the circumstances".