Comments on: UK university fees

By: Otto

Otto — Sat, 02 Apr 2005 16:31:19 +0000

The need for more income for higher educuation in the UK is so important that this sort of shenanigans, very modest by the standard of politics in any country, is entirely justified.

By: Raimo

Raimo — Fri, 01 Apr 2005 17:42:19 +0000

Tax, of course. It’s for the common good.

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 01 Apr 2005 17:38:41 +0000

And you propose to fund this how?

By: Raimo

Raimo — Fri, 01 Apr 2005 17:24:01 +0000

A charge on education?

How low can one sink? It should be free from primary school to PhD.

By: mc

mc — Fri, 01 Apr 2005 16:40:33 +0000

Chris – the quote you reply with, and which you need to justify your claim that the govt is ‘selling the electorate a false prospectus at election time’ is by an academic who I doubt has any inside knowledge and indeed admits to be ‘guessing’. The quote I used, by contrast, seemed to be the considered opinion of the author of the article – which is why I used it in support of my charge that you were misrepresenting the THES article as a whole by implying it supported your interpretation that the govt is ‘selling the electorate a false prospectus’. And of course if I accepted your interpretation, I would not be trying to excuse it as ‘the basic stuff of government’.

I’m not a long-time reader and I’m sorry I guessed wrong on your views on the substance (in fact, it sounds like we broadly agree on the substance of this issue). But I’ll risk compounding the insult by hazarding another diagnosis: sensitised by what you see to be the govt’s sharp practice on other issues, you no longer give them the benefit of the doubt on anything. You may not think they deserve the benefit of the doubt. Fine, but you still risk devaluing the currency of the charge of ‘unethical’ behaviour if you apply it to every case which could possibly be interpreted as such, rather than restricting it to those cases where such an interpretation is actually, on balance, persuasive rather than merely possible.

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 01 Apr 2005 13:01:08 +0000

Matt,

You quote the bit of the article that reads:

“there was no suggestion that the Government intended to break its promise to maintain the current cap until 2010.”

But elsewhere we have one of those interviewed saying:

“If Tony Blair gets in with a substantial majority (in the forthcoming general election) he would feel sufficiently secure to implement what he wanted in the first place. My guess is it would be fairly soon after the election.”

As to the substance of the policy bothering me, long-time CT readers will recall that I broadly supported top-up fees whereas Daniel and others opposed them. What I’m not in favour of is uncapped fees, and I’m certainly against selling the electorate a false prospectus at election time even if doing so is, as you say “the basic stuff of government.”

By: mc

mc — Fri, 01 Apr 2005 12:46:33 +0000

If as you say fixing the cap at £3000 until 2010 was a ‘sop to the [backbench] opposition’ then by definition the govt would have preferred not to have a fixed cap at £3000 until 2010 – but equally to describe that preference as its ‘secret’ policy is odd. I note that the THES article says (though you would hardly guess this from your summary) that ‘there was no suggestion that the Government intended to break its promise to maintain the current cap until 2010.’

If the Govt is saying to various interest groups who likewise would have preferred not to have a fixed cap at £3000 until 2010: of course as a matter of substance we agree with you; but as a matter of process we are committed to what we have promised; but also as a matter of process we’ve got no problem with you continuing to argue against what we have promised – what exactly is ‘unethical’ about that? This is just the basic stuff of government – assembling coalitions, making compromises, managing interest groups. To pick it out as worthy of special censure seems to me a case of displacement – i.e., what really bothers you is the substance of the policy, so you are over-sensitive to aspects of process which otherwise wouldn’t bother you. (Here’s an analogy which might help to separate substance from process. When govt first got tough on drink-driving, in order to get the measures through the commons the minister undertook to ensure that police would not hang around outside pub car parks trying to pick up patrons driving home. Would you have had any problem with the same minister privately meeting anti-drink-driving groups and saying: we’ve got no problem with you campaigning for police to hang around pub car parks…?)

By: peter clay

peter clay — Fri, 01 Apr 2005 12:36:59 +0000

The Blair government unethical? Now there’s a surprise!

By: des von bladet

des von bladet — Fri, 01 Apr 2005 12:11:09 +0000

Every Government announcement should include the phrase “There is no truth in these comments,” and they should hire some proper Cretans to announce it.

By: Andrew Boucher

Andrew Boucher — Fri, 01 Apr 2005 11:17:15 +0000

“A spokesperson for No 10 said this week: “There is no truth in these comments. Our policy on higher education has been clearly outlined and there are no plans to change it.” ”

I just love these so-called denials full of opaque references. No truth in which comments? Clearly outlined where? Change what?

By: ionfish

ionfish — Fri, 01 Apr 2005 10:55:21 +0000

Good grief.