Oxford under siege

The government’s interference in university admissions is unjustified – and may yet push our strongest institutions to go it alone

It is a well-worn tactic for politicians to distract attention from their own failures by picking on an outside target. Thus Nick Clegg’s recent attack on Oxford and Cambridge last month for proposing a maximum of £9,000 in tuition fees. ‘They can’t charge £9,000 unless they can prove that they can dramatically increase the number of people from poorer and disadvantaged backgrounds who presently aren’t going to Oxford and Cambridge,’ said the Deputy Prime Minister.

Let’s set aside the role Nick Clegg’s predecessors played many years ago in the dismantling of those excellent engines for social mobility, the direct grant and grammar schools. Today, thanks to the efforts of politicians, the single biggest barrier to getting socially disadvantaged children into Oxford is the lack of academic attainment in state schools. It is not some elitist determination to engineer admissions so as to exclude bright children from poor homes.