Westminster wieners

Boris Johnson, Shadow Higher Education Minister, is a sucker for a good quote. He is currently preaching the gospel according to Felix Frankfurter to anyone who asks him about him universities. Justice Frankfurter said in the US Supreme Court in 1957 that universities should have "the freedom to decide on academic grounds who should teach, what they should teach, how it should be taught and whom to admit". But it appears that repeating this phrase endlessly to journalists and vice-chancellors may not be enough for Boris. Walking past one of his Westminster offices this week, it was impossible to ignore a gigantic length of very pink German sausage stretching across the desk of his researcher. It seems his staff must, quite literally, swallow everything he says.