University rich list row – Christmas or April Fool for Labour?
I’m at a Prime Ministerial school visit in Dulwich. David Cameron arrives, knowing that his No. 10 team has spent a busy morning jumping up and down on David Willetts.
The cerebral minister for universities has been guilty of thinking aloud again and what a thought he had.
Not only would philanthropic enterprises be able to add to university places by paying full international student “club class” prices for extra “off quota” places, but individuals would be allowed to as well.
One Ed Miliband aide I saw this morning wasn’t sure if it was Christmas or an April Fool. No. 10 saw it less cheerily and issued a statement in David Willetts’ name clarifying, as they say, the minister’s thoughts.
Rich folk buying places for their Jemimas and Jeremys is not the “progressive” image David Cameron seeks and not the anniversary announcement he was looking to mark one year (tomorrow) from the Coalition’s birth.
There are 6 comments on this post
Well you’ve got to hand it to DC. When these ministerial cock-ups arise, which they inevitably will when the Government is trying to squeeze as much into this Parliament as possible, DC does seem to do the right thing and knock these ideas on the head, even if that does embarrass his Ministers.
It is very different to the way his two immediate predeccessors used to handle this sort of problem.
They’d have just let the ideas run and would have defended them no matter what, through fear of them personally and the Labour party in general being seen to be wrong…
The suggestion that the rich have not been buying places at Universities for many years must be the ultimate in brass-neck cheek.
I suggest your “factcheck” team look at the proportion of places taken at elite Universities by the products of the private education sector.
I accept that those entering University will have had to meet the requisite A level grades – but at fees of £30K pa then sufficient crammers can be provided to get even non-intellectual pupils over this hurdle.
Too true Alan. You can buy aneducation, which is unfair in a country that at lest aims to be a meritocracy, but ther eis the straight out buying in to Univeristies whether the student has the grades/brains or no, e.g., the recent LSE and Gadaffi scandals.
I’m surpised they haven’t announced it sooner. Didn’t most of the cabinet enter higher educsaion in the same way?
Willetts seems confused on university education, torn between his instincts that places should go to the wealthy and Cameron’s desire to say nice things about intelligent hoi polloi in order to make the tories more electable next time (Let’s never forget that failing to get a majority against Gordon Brown’s government was catastrophic failure).
Then there’s Lansley, who either deliberately came up with a plan to privatise the NHS or, perhaps even worse, didn’t realis that his plan would end up with NHS GPs as rare as NHS dentists.
Then there was Whats Her Name who wanted to privatise the woodlands, something even tories were against. Doh.
Cameron may get brownie points for jumping on these when the public reacted but wouldn’t it have been more impressive if he’d looked into them before they were announced? And he still hasn’t reined in Georgie boy, who has managed to kill off any glimmers of a revival by choking the economy with his cuts.
As my granny used to say when I kept falling over trying to rush to the sweet shop, more haste, less speed. We’d have been better off with my granny in charge.
I like David Willetts and his plan to get up front money ; money which could be invested and make interest to compensate for all those loans which we will never get back due to lack of jobs.
I know all about the ethics,but we can’t make the poor pay up, so what is the alternative? narrow down the need for university degrees, employ less staff , subsidise only the very intelligent, narrow down the variety of courses, ask people to start paying for their education when they are born at a small amount per month with a promise tht if they didn’t make university standards,they would get interest on remuneration????