David Willetts, the Conservative Universities minister whose idea of explaining something to the country's students is to repeat himself at ever decreasing speeds, has started criticising institutions who have announced or are considering charging the full £9000 a year as soon as they can. Apparently the government are afraid that if too many charge the £9k then they won't afford the upfront costs. This seems to me to be yet another example of this government's failure to think anything through. Every time they make a policy announcement, it is accompanied by the sounds of the collective knees of the Cabinet hitting their desks. They are cutting the teaching grants for the vast majority of subjects by 80%, and now they are threatening further cuts if the universities don't take what they now see as necessary steps to secure their future existence? I loathe the cuts and the fee hike, it stands against everything i think is right, but if I was a chancellor of a university, I would be considering this. What exactly did you think they would do David?
The story is here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-12499265
And in spite of this, Barclays Bank paid us £113m in 2009, whilst making a $4,85bn profit. Vodafone owe us billions, Philip Green owes us billions, so do Boots, Tesco, and, oh yes, Lord Ashcroft. We suffer, our children suffer, our service suffer, but tax avoiders get a nice suntan.
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