Epidemic proportions - does the minister have an opinion on this?

As a foreigner working in UK academe I must say that I am stupified by the level of bullying and denial that goes on in UK academe. In my own field of research alone, I know of three individuals (all of them foreign, as it happens) who have been mobbed in three different UK departments, two of them Russell Group universities. One has been dismissed, another has managed to remain in post, but seconded out of the home department, and a third is currently undergoing an elimination ritual.

From what I am learning at this wonderful blogsite, the problem seems almost epidemic in the UK. And yet everyone--governors, senior management, HR depts, and above all academic staff--remain in the most appalling states of denial and/or intimidation into silence. I have never seen anything like this in my previous 20+ years of teaching in another country, nor have I heard of (nor read about) so many problems as in the UK.

I am beginning to wonder if there is something endemic to UK institutions of higher education that encourages this kind of rampant mobbing. I would be interested to have the thoughts of others on this subject.

Anonymous academic
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Does the Minister of State, Lifelong Learning, Further and Higher Education the Honourable Mr Bill Rammell have anything to say about this situation? If not, feel free to inform him.