Blair has made a mess of the top-up Bill, says Freddie Sayers. It’s now up to the Tories to revolutionise our universities on market principles
I think I once knew how Tony Blair felt on Tuesday night. It was Matriculation Day for the Fresher class of 2000 at New College, Oxford. With the obligatory white tie and gown as scruffy as I could make it, I strolled over to join the expanding group of nervous, black-and-white-clad new students, of which I was one. I was slouching against a buttress, trying to look reluctant and hungover as we lined up for the official photograph, when someone threw me a yellow ribbon.
‘Put it on! It’s a protest against top-up fees! We’re all wearing them!’
I instinctively threw it into the herbaceous border.
But as I began to notice ribbons on almost every lapel, I started panicking. What would they think of me? Will they presume I am some sort of right-wing fanatic? An atavistic relic of feudal times past? Will you, reader, now presume that too?
I promise I am neither of these things. I have just finished a three-month internship for the New York senator Hillary Clinton, whose tireless campaign to increase federal funding for a whole range of issues I support wholeheartedly. I graduated last June, and my student debt is undiminished. And yet when I remember why I refused to protest against top-up fees in the official New College photograph, I don’t feel embarrassed. I remember thinking that on the very day we were being welcomed into those astonishing buildings for a unique three-year adventure, to protest against being asked to pay for them was a bit gross. I still think so.
In fact, my time in America only strengthened my impression that we take our universities for granted.
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