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Written by Austin Mitchell
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10 December 2003 |
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On, on, into the valley of death ride the four hundred. To have our faces in rubbed in miasma. The Tories are on a high. The Queens speech was a rag bag demonstrating that Blairism has run out of ideas. Bush was brought over to strut his stuff. I don’t mind that but Tony was so nervous about it that he never came near Parliament. Thought he did devote a day to Tony’s constituency at a cost of a million quid for a pub lunch. I’d have provided better fish and chips at Leon’s in Grimsby for a tenner.
I’m all at C minus on university fees. I don’t see why we should legislate for higher fees now when the manifesto said we wouldn’t. There’s a case for opposing it to force more money out of Gordon, or to teach Tony a lesson. You can’t govern against Labour with the Prime Minster chucking himself off every cliff and asking the party to catch him
But what should we do? Brownites want a graduate tax so existing graduates, like me, would pay. This seems to work ok in Australia.
I don’t mind a layered system, let top universities charge much more for the courses that are the prelude to higher earnings such as law and accountancy and particularly medicine and dentistry etc. Provided the poorest third of students pay no fees at all and the richest third pay the lot, means tested bursaries are available for the less well off and student loans don’t start being repaid until you are earning £25,000
It may begin a middle class backlash. Yet my new labour colleagues are confident they can persuade the middle class to fork out more for their own good. We can persuade each other brilliantly
American research shows that nursery educated kids earn more in later life. So why not levy these children when their pocket money rises above £10 a week.
While all this is being forced down our throats Blair launches the big conversation. We are going to listen. Quite unlike him, and always on the provision that folk tell us want we want to hear. I am all in favour of listening to the people but, like them, a bit weary of listening to Tony.
In the vote on foundation hospitals I passed a thin haggard figure, chiselled faced like an angry accountant, wearing make up to cover the deep lines, clearing acting on auto pilot. A new MP? No it was Tony Blair on one of his rare visits. Is he ill? He gives every indication of being at the end of his tether. With a driven mission to get his programme through. Iraq has convinced him he can persuade the Labour party to do anything: War, Foundation hospitals, welcoming Bush, Top up fees. Yet this is beginning to look like an end game. |
