One of the poll questions explained the loans system, which sees graduates start repayments once they earn over £21,000, asking: “Regardless of whether or not you support the cost of university degrees being paid through tuition fees, do you think a university education is or is not worth £9,000 a year?”

Just 29 per cent of respondents said it was worth the money, 56 per cent said it was not, and 15 per cent were not sure.

Pretty loose wording here, particularly the headline.

The cost of the tuition (and all the associate magubbins provided by the university) will be £9,000 per year, or £27,000 in total.

The cost of a degree is far higher, since it includes a load of other stuff including accommodation, the opportunity cost of not working full time for 3 years, and so on.

The issue for universities is whether applications drop by 56% next year, which is what this poll suggests. I somehow doubt they will (by which I mean that people often seem to say one thing in surveys like this but act differently in practice).

On the 2-year degree thing... yeah, sounds pretty sensible to me. Why aren't we seeing more of this?

Preliminary analysis of this Twitter activity in 12 riot locations shows the majority of surging social media traffic occurs after the first verified reports of incidents in an area, which could suggest that Twitter was used far more by those seeking to follow fast-moving events than to incite trouble – although it is not possible to say it played no role.

The tweets also reflect a shift in social media use during the week. Most reports place the initial disturbances in Tottenham between 8pm and 9pm on Saturday night. The number of tweets referencing the area surged in the wake of these first troubles: up from 15 between 7pm and 8pm to 15,000 between 10pm and 11pm.

Later in the week Twitter may even have helped spread warnings about trouble. On the following Tuesday Greater Manchester police gave a press conference at 2pm warning of potential issues later that day. This was mirrored by tweets mentioning the city jumping to over 1,000 an hour before trouble began, peaking at around 12,000 an hour after disturbances had started.

"Social media was used far more by those seeking to follow – or avoid – events than to incite trouble".

No big surprises here (to anyone with a brain) but I don't suppose it will carry much weight with those politicians who simply want to play the blame game.