You can’t handle the truth
We were in the ‘Tapestry Room’ at a mahogany table with little white sandwiches with the crusts cut off. The Vice Chancellor of the University smiled benignly, and said: ‘Well they say if you’re a socialist when you’re young your heart’s in the right place and if you’re a conservative when you’re older your head’s in the right place.’ Polite laughter from the assembled student representatives and University suits. We’d organised the meeting to talk about the government’s forthcoming White Paper on higher education, set to receive its second reading in Parliament on 27th January. ‘You say the government’s broken a manifesto pledge?’ said the Vice Chancellor.
The government has broken a manifesto pledge, and the debacle over top-up fees is illustrative of a broader trend within the Blair government. This is a trend towards the centralisation of power to Blair and his unelected advisors; the enforcement ‘unity’ on increasingly disconsolate back-benchers; and an increasingly cavalier attitude towards debate.
Blair has systematically undermined his own ministers. It is common knowledge within the Labour Party that it was David Blunkett who insisted on the manifesto commitment against top-up fees. There are also rumours that Estelle Morris’s resignation in the Summer was nothing to do with the fiasco over A-Level results, but the culmination of her increasing frustration at the way she was being undermined on education by Blair’s unelected ’special advisors’. In the current Higher Education bill, we see a policy designed and formulated by unaccountable free-market ideologues such as Stephen Schwartz and Andrew Adonis. How many people have even heard of these two figures, the architects of the current government HE policy? Not many I would guess, and they are undermining elected government ministers.
On the proposals, there has been a tentative response that the proposals are a ’step in the right direction’. A few vice-chancellors, such as Richard Sykes of Imperial College London, are irritating their counterparts in other universities, and embarrassing the government, by openly calling for fees of ‘15,000 a year, or even getting rid of the cap altogether and introducing a free market. By publicly admitting what everyone privately accepts, Sykes is ‘letting the cat out of the bag’ and badly damaging the argument in favour of top-up fees. In our little meeting in the Tapestry Room, our University officials made it quite clear what they expect from this ’step in the right direction’. They expect the cap on tuition fees to be raised to £5000, then £15,000 and finally abolished altogether. They do not expect any more funding from central government. In fact they suspect that funding will actually be reduced, as it was when tuition fees were first introduced.
It is this fact that is being excluded from the debate. Tony Blair doesn’t trust his ministers: he undermines them with special advisors. And he certainly doesn’t trust his parliamentary party to come to the ‘right conclusions’. I understand from people within the Labour party that Blair is an idealistic politician, driven by social concern. Unfortunately, when we ask for the truth, he responds ‘You can’t handle the truth!’ We couldn’t be trusted to know the truth about Iraq: that there were no weapons of mass destruction. Now, we can’t be trusted to know the truth about top-up fees: that the new system requires fees of £15,000 a year to work. Instead, Blair is winning over the rebel MPs with a package of lies and coercion. The Labour party is being duped.
Part of my job involves lobbying MPs. The majority of MPs I have spoken to, including two cabinet ministers, oppose the principle of variable fees on the grounds that it will lead to a marketplace in higher education. And yet they are being coerced and whipped into supporting the bill with two lies. The first lie is that top-up fees can be reasonably capped at £3000. They cannot, as Universities accept. The second lie is that this issue will seriously damage the credibility of the Labour party. Yes, the Labour party is taking a bit of a battering at the moment, but the polls seem to indicate that in spite of Iraq, in spite of foundation hospitals, and in spite of top-up fees, Blair is still the most popular Prime Minister for ages. The lack any credible opposition from the weak-willed Liberal Democrats and the still-divided and hopelessly regressive Conservatives ensures that the Labour party is still pretty much unassailable. We have a party system that has lost all credibility. In next Tuesday’s vote may well see the bizarre spectacle of Conservative MPs who are in support the principle of top-up fees voting against the bill in order to irritate the government. Meanwhile Labour MPs who object to top-up fees will be voting in favour of them. Admittedly, there is nothing particularly novel about this situation, but it bespeaks a profound rot of hypocrisy in our democratic system.
The University refused to send anyone to argue the University’s case at a debate in our student union. Students can’t handle the truth. In our private meeting in the Tapestry Room, the University Director of Finance said to me: ‘The good thing about top-up fees is that it will allow universities to set their own fee rates, so we’ll never be under-funded again. And you know what will happen when the government cuts our grant again?’ What, I said. ‘We’ll rise to the challenge’ he said.
Top up fees are coming. If you’re planning on having children, start saving now.
It’s good to have an informed and researched article from a man who knows. A slab of knowledege to my ear. Did anyone see TB (as I affectionately term him) on Newsnight last night? Highlights included a hideous rictus smile when someone in the audience turned out to be an ardent Blairite, and a suckling general slipperiness. One thing that got me: when asked to admit that he has broken an explicit manifesto promise, he replied that this is not the case because the legislation won’t come in until after the next election. Under this logic, he could systematically break every promise he has ever made, as long as his policies don’t take affect until after each election. Ja?
Ja! Very informative stuff, Mr Towers. I do salute.
What amazes me is that this is issue is one of a very long line of ‘backtracks’ and ‘u-turns’ (or outright fleecing of the public, if you like) that this government and the ones before it have pulled off. Are we still shocked that they do this?
If we are, we shouldn’t be. Perhaps people are still a little traumatised by the fact that things like privatisation, top-up fees, illegal bombings, illegal invasions, detention without trial and increasing erosion of civil liberties is being carried out by a (nominally) Labour party. But every government is going to do what it can to hold onto power, and every government seems to be either corruptable, corrupted, or corrupting. There’s a good saying: “it doesn’t matter who you vote for, the government will still get in.”
Well, it looks like we should turn to technologoy. How does a secret group of non-corruptable, unidentifiable and all-powerful robots hardwired for humanitarianism sound to you?
Oh, and to stop anyone complaining about free-will or any of that nonsense: the robots keep themselves unknown to the mass public. Super!
And we can make them look like mad 80’s japanese mechatrons. It’s a much better idea than God!
That’s the Masons, isn’t it?
I wish.
Is centralisation of power in the government a tendency of socialist governments? The paternalistic tendency to rule the public more can be quite strong in a certain liberal mindset (the public isn’t smart enough to rule itself, they can’t see the long term picture etc) Possibly Blair is continuing this style of thought.
And he may have a point. Someone rang me earlier to say that because the inhabitants of their building forget to lock the door, could they have a latch that locks itself. Muppets.
I think centralisation of power is a tendency of mnipulative, control-freak governments, whether they are socialist or not. It’s true that left-wing politics often tends towards centralisation (from the ‘nanny-state’ to the dictatorship of the proletariat), but then right-wing does politics too. Strangely, political movements like neo-liberalism and free market capitalism, which we might think of as economically controlling, tends towards decentralisation (politically at least). Conservatives and Republicans both advocate less, not more, state involvement in citizens’ ‘private lives’ (leading to attacks on the NHS in this country and huge welfare cutbacks in America). Which is not to say, of course, that Republicans, Conservatives and neo-liberals are less controlling than socialists in government they just have different ways of manifesting that control.
Should a bus driver pay for someone to become a doctor? Graduates do not necessarily stay in the country and may work elsewhere, without paying taxes or supporting the system that educated them. Should the taxpayers fund everybody’s further education or should people be expected to pay, in part, for it themselves?
The taxpayers should pay for everyone’s father’s education: that’s the nub of human decency.
And what jobs? The decent jobs we slip into with our degrees, fresh as pancakes? Michael, you have made a whore of our educational systems. You filth!
Why does Blair want to get 50% of the population into University? I can’t imagine that Tony bother getting out of bed for cultural enrichment or anything so namby-pamby. In the words of his old partner in crime and spin Clinton, “it’s the economy, stupid.” Graduates are bascially good for business; good for the economy as a whole. Graduates are ‘key economic drivers’. The man can’t open his mouth without the words “global market” burping out like Leo’s sicky sick.
Since 1997, corporation tax has been reduced by ?8bn. The average ratio between employees’ and directors’ pay has grown from 1:11 to 1:18, while the higher education sector has been underfunded.
If graduates are being trained up to benefit the economy, the money should come from the economy as a whole. This is done through income tax and corporation tax. The introduction of a higher band of income tax of 50% for the very rich and the restoration of corporation tax to its 1997 levels would end the ‘funding crisis’ in Universities overnight. But Blair can’t do it because the Tories will stick it in him if he does.
And Michael ‘poll tax’ Howard can fuck off.
Listen me careful Mr/Miss Alabamaradatowers,
The poll tax was a fair time ago, and although I supported it then, I have apologised to the nation for the whole affair -AND I WOULDN’T BRING IT BACK!
Graduates have never been trained up “to benefit the economy”, in actual fact even the economists are emigrating to Arab to steal resources from our investments in natural resources against the opposition to the War on TErroRism.
Yours sincerely
Michael ‘poll tax’ Howard
Why are graduates good for the economy?
I read an article in the Guardian that argued increases in the university population creates a self-perpetuating cycle. Employers want to employ the best people possible. When university entrance was 10% of the populace, the employers target group was those among the top 25%, so including those without degrees. This assumes that the best go to university. As the university population increases the target group for employers also increases. If 40% of people go to university, then employers will tend to recruit from within graduates, not those without degrees who may be as qualified. So as more people go to university, more jobs require degrees that didn’t before, so more people go to university to get a better job, so you end up with everyone having a degree to have a chance of being considered for jobs that a generation ago didn’t need degrees. I think this suggests that above a certain number, graduates are no longer good for the economy.
Anyone who did economics got any ideas?
Listen me carefully Mr “prison works” Howard!
How am I to take to take your charming apology (”it was a bold and brave experiment but it didn’t work …”)? Didn’t you say “I will never stand again for the leadership of the Conservative Party.” [completely, whatever the circumstances]( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2503737.stm )
I’m confused, Mr Michael “the minimum wage is extreme and absurd” Howard.
As I’ve said before, “I genuinely believe the future of the economy of this country is to get a better and better educated workforce”
As my loyal subjects, you will all know that I studied Law, not economics. however, let me offer my humble explanation. Crudely, as our economy gets more advanced and the world gets more globalised, lots of the nasty, low-skilled jobs can be exported overseas where we can pay them less (manufacturing, call-centres, etc. etc.) This frees up our own population for the hi-tech, hi-paid jobs that require a more educated workforce. And we can afford to pay these people more, because we’re paying the low-paid workers even less! Great! Education is good for our economy because we’re competing in a global market.