In the mid-70s I formed a rock band in Manchester, which was completely derailed by the sudden explosion of punk music, when every venue suddenly just wanted punk bands.

As a massive fan of that music I - unsuccessfully - tried persuading my band members to change direction and become much more aggressive. The nearest I came was to get them to consider changing our name to the Bolshy Ballet.

Forty years on, the world appears to be going through a similarly anarchic phase. Bolshiness is back, even if it is expressed differently.

Today, the 70s’ generation aren’t displaying their anti-establishment credentials through their music - Adele and Ed Sheeran are hardly Sid Vicious - but by voting for Brexit and Trump instead.

‘Do what you can get away with’

Public discourse has become coarsened and is all about power. “Do what you can get away with” is the new maxim of governments and many companies.

Fairness seems to have gone out of the window, and is perhaps viewed as a sign of weakness. Some commentators even say that democracy is in retreat. A recent speech on “British values” by Ofsted’s Amanda Spielman pointed out that the EIU Democracy Index categorised only 19 of the 167 countries it surveys as “full democracies”, and this number has fallen.

Those of us working in the college sector are rarely viewed as bolshy, but has that made us easy prey at the mercy of our funders? Do we need to change our approach? The blatant unfairness of funding pay rises in schools but not colleges suggests we do.

Trump’s bolshiness has crashed the Turkish and Iranian economies. There seems little doubt his bolshiness will also result in China buying more American goods and Europe making a bigger contribution to its own defences.

‘Effective bolshiness from our unions’

It achieves what he wants. His actions remind me of the Gordon Gekko response in the film Wall Street. When asked, “Why do you need to wreck this company?” he replies, “Because it’s wreckable.”

Closer to home, we see elements of the Labour Party working collectively to dominate its executive and remove those MPs who don’t share their views.

Similarly, there are reports that Ukip members are joining Conservative associations with remain-supporting MPs to do likewise. Displays of power are everywhere to be seen.

Closer still, we have seen some effective bolshiness from our own teaching unions. Strike action at a number of colleges has suddenly produced three-year deals worth 6 per cent plus - awards those same colleges said were unaffordable before.

‘Innate courtesy and helpfulness’

Even if it works, the obvious question is whether the sector has the unity and power to get a better deal.

As a sector, we have been treated like a crash-test dummy or guinea pig, used for some lousy ill-thought-out experiments and policies.

We see large sums of money diverted to eye-catching schemes with little evidence they will work (UTCs, National Colleges and IoTs spring to mind). 

Our innate courtesy and helpfulness mean we tend to try to make the best of a bad job and express our concerns privately in a measured way.

It has brought us generous words but ungenerous funding. And by trying to make bad ideas work and keeping our criticism sotto voce, we end up being blamed when things go wrong.

Many years ago, I worked for an outstanding chief executive who advised me never to use embarrassment to get a blue collar worker to do what I wanted, because it would never work. Rather, I should consider using it with white collar staff because fear of embarrassment was something they all wanted to avoid.

Maybe he had it right. 

‘We need to be more public and vocal’

Johnny Rotten famously sang “don’t know what I want but I know how to get it”.

Colleges operate in reverse. We know what we want but we don’t seem to know how to get it. Maybe we need to be more public and vocal in exposing poor thinking, poor implementation, poor decisions.

Maybe we need to display our anger more, use embarrassment more, give those who treat us badly a rougher time, withdraw support for bad ideas or make our support conditional.

The centenary of the Bolshevik revolution was celebrated last November. Maybe it’s time for colleges to launch a bolshy revolution of our own?

Ian Pryce is chief executive of Bedford College