Mainstream discourse about the right-wing media refuses to explain this to audiences in plain terms, because that would be to admit that the media aren't simply in the business of making money or serving the public: they also aspire to wield power through their influence over voters.
Meanwhile wealthy liberals will wring their hands about the indelicacy of Reform's propaganda, might even realise that they are dealing with a far right project. But they will refuse to support the one electoral project that can beat Reform, for reasons provided by the centrist establishment.
This was the MAGA strategy in 2016, perfected after 2024. The challenge for the BBC is to pretend that it isn't happening, and to convince the electorate that a competent centrist establishment is being menaced by populists on the left and right, who are equally bad.
Britain's university system, built in large part after WW2, was one of most important elements in a state project to modernise the UK economy. From Thatcher onwards successive governments have tried out various kinds of market-mimicking governance and now the sector seems to be in full-blown crisis.