The Oil Crisis
The Labour rebels may be lining up to challenge the government over top-up fees but this is not the almighty juncture of Blair’s premiership it is being billed as. Many rebels are undoubtedly enjoying the publicity that rebelliousness manufactures. Beyond the usual suspects is a cabal of ex-ministers and usually loyal backbenchers.
Nick Brown, Clare Short and Robin Cook had no problems with the concept of supporting tuition fees when they had seats at the Cabinet table. Amongst the backbenchers are MPs who have happily voted for five military invasions in six years, have endorsed slashing benefits to single parents and been content to lock up refugees.
Labour MPs opposing top-up fees cite the variability aspect, that different courses at different institutions will cost more. Opposing variable fees is to deny the very nature of Britain’s higher education system. It is an undeniable fact that some degrees have more prestige than others. It is very easy to bemoan this elitism when you are an Oxbridge graduate sitting in the House of Commons. Those MPs who are allegedly offended by a market system should remind themselves that they have overseen the political drive for PFIs and the expansion of free market thinking into public services.
The rebellion is based on a serious worry that top-up fees will turn the middle class away from New Labour. Many Labour MPs, especially in marginal seats, need the votes of the health clubbing, Tuscany-holidaying, sundried tomato eating bourgeoisie.
Those in the upper echelons of society, who educate their offspring privately anyway, may feel a pinch but the continued effort to get their privileged minors into one of the leading universities won’t burn a hole in their Barbour pockets. This strata doesn’t vote Labour anyway; they never will. Those who most support the principle that privileged students should pay their way are staying away from the ballot box: the families living in abject poverty whose children cannot even dream of Oxbridge’s spires.
Many Labour rebels are well aware of this. Their opposition to top-up fees is not based on any principled rejection of the policy but a desperate attempt to retain the electoral affinity of the middle class.
Top-up fees are a bitter pill to swallow. Especially for those MPs who need to keep the sundried tomato middle class on side.
Spineless York MP Hugh Bayley has no qualms about performing another mammoth U-turn in backing top-up fees after publicly stating that he wouldn’t. Perhaps the pressure from Labour whips on this toady was simply too much for him to bear. It would appear that this is an MP with a supreme confidence, appearing content to offend both student voters and the sundried tomato brigade.
No Small Print? Take another look.
From reading the small print of the Tory’s proposals for student finance it appears that helping students is the last thing on their mind. Their policy seems to change with the wind. Since IDS adopted an anti top-up fees position, all we’ve heard from Tory students – even within these pages – are boasts about their party’s single popular policy. Now it looks like their retreating, having found taking a principled stand a wee bit too challenging.
Their policy of abolishing the proposed Access Regulator is disgraceful. The proposals are not perfect but the Access Regulator is a positive step in ensuring that universities will have to develop bursary schemes for poorer students.
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