No ladder for the less fortunate

Published: 6 January, 2011

• THE message being peddled to the young people of Camden by Tory MP Mike Freer is simply appalling (Tory MP: ‘university is not right for everyone’, December 16).

When Mr Freer comes over the border from Barnet to praise the “chemistry between David Cameron and Nick Clegg”, then the corrosive impact of this wretched Cameron-Clegg government is clearly displayed: an attempt to wind the clock back so that only a limited few can aspire to a university place.

What sort of a message does this send to children? Mr Freer’s ominous chant on the tuition fees row – “We didn’t go far enough” – suggests yet further attacks, which will restrict our universities to taking just the privileged few from wealthy families, mostly from private schools. 

For the children from less-well-off homes in state schools then the Tory-Lib Dem pledge is the patronising sneer that, for them, “vocational courses are better”. Truly, the whole tuition fees debacle is a “poll tax moment”, when the Tories have been revealed in their true colours. 

Mr Freer in his maiden speech lauded his constituency of Finchley as bequeathing the country “the latter-day Boadicea... Margaret Thatcher”. So we have had due warning of the poisoned well from which his party’s political philosophy derives.

For me, and for so many others, going to university was a life-enhancing experience. My parents both left school at the age of 13 because of family economic circumstances. 

But for me there was a maximum student grant, my fees were paid and I had the benefit of scholarships and fellowships to assist me up the ladder. 

As a graduate, I would gladly pay in taxation an amount to assist others to climb up from difficult circumstances.

Mr Freer looks to have climbed to university in Scotland on a government grant, but like so many Tories he just wants to kick the ladder away from under the less fortunate.

CLLR JULIAN FULBROOK
Labour cabinet member 
for housing