Anxious pupils wondering whether to take on decades of debt by
going to university might like to take a look at the recent
Lambert report on higher education, commissioned by Gordon
Brown. A little-noticed section of the report called on
universities to reveal the starting salaries earned by graduates from each of their courses – and how many end up on the dole.
So applicants would know whether they would be financially better off with, say, a languages degree from Durham or a maths degree
from Hull.
In the real world, I am not sure that people would base their future on such stark cash totals. But for a market to operate properly, consumers need clear information, so the Lambert recommendation has some logic in a world of variable tuition fees. At the time of writing, more than 150 MPs are defying Tony Blair on tuition fees because of concern on the variable element. Most of the Parliamentary Labour Party accepted the need to make students pay more somehow. There were two things still bothering them.
One was the Prime Minister’s tactic of turning the issue into a ‘back me or sack me’ vote. One rebel told me: ‘It’s the third time he’s done it this year [after Iraq and foundation hospitals]. He can’t go on doing it.’ The other was the idea that full-priced universities could end up with all the middle-class kids, while their working-class counterparts studied somewhere cheaper. In a way, that would be the point of the variable fees. But it would also strengthen the social divide that already runs through the British higher education system.
In one of my first stabs at journalism I argued for the scrapping
of the weird, flapping academic gowns that make undergraduates look like extras from Brideshead Revisited. A decade on, the gowns are still around and half the Oxbridge intake still comes from independent schools. The chancellor demonstrated how emotive the issue remains when he lambasted Oxford in the case of Laura Spence, the talented comprehensive pupil who failed to win a place to study medicine.
The Lambert report contains proposals to modernise the ivory towers by transferring power from fusty dons to sleek bureaucrats.
I’m not certain which would really make a difference – Tony Blair’s top-up fees, Lambert’s corporate rejig, my bonfire of the gowns, or none of the above. Perhaps Oxbridge will stay how it is because it is a symptom of Britain’s class system, not a cause.
The Liberal Democrats have issued a careful, point-by-point rebuttal of Labour’s jibe that their sums don’t add up. They
say they would lift the top rate of income tax to 50 percent
for anyone earning more than £100,000 a year. It would raise
£4.7 billion. They would spend the money on scrapping university tuition fees and providing longterm care for the elderly (with a billion left over for a rainy day).
I hope there is enough uncertainty left for the row to rumble on. Tony Blair’s mocking of the Lib Dems – reeling off endless lists of spending pledges that he says they have made and could not meet – is a regular highlight of Prime Minister’s questions.
And at a time when the Lib Dems seem to be outflanking Labour to the left on everything from foundation hospitals to jury trials to Iraq, the weekly ‘reality check’ may be the only thing reminding some Labour supporters why they don’t simply change parties and have done with it.
Tony Blair and Ken Livingstone got their fingers burnt by basking in the reflected glory of England’s triumph in the rugby union world cup. The PM had to issue late invitations to Michael Howard and Charles Kennedy after they were left off the initial guest list for a Downing Street celebratory reception. The Mayor was booed and shouted down by thousands of rugby fans in Trafalgar Square.
Big tents are all very well, and triumph on the sporting field is a natural lure for any politician. But wouldn’t left-of-centre leaders be better advised to stick with football or rugby league and steer clear of the posh version?