Jennie Lee would be spinning in her grave

One of my many complaints about this Labour government and their dozen years in government has been their paucity of imagination, and general timidity in opposing vested interests.

One area in which that is most glaringly obvious is Tony Blair's oft-quoted maxim "education, education, and education". Whether it is in the primary, secondary, or tertiary sector.

Despite record spending, one-in-three schools are failing to provide pupils with a good education. Almost one-in-three 11-year-olds fail to reach basic standards in English and maths. More than half of all pupils fail to achieve 5 A*-C grades (inc. maths and English), and one-in-seven leaves school without a single C grade.

To quote our schools spokesperson David Laws who last year said, "These shocking figures reveal the true extent of Labour's failure in education... It is these young people, let down by Labour, who are now likely to be bearing the brunt of the recession".

In the tertiary sector, the introduction and maintenance of "top-up" fees despite the 2001 Labour manifesto promise of, "no plans to introduce University top-up fees", is counterproductive and not only saddles students with massive debts but disproportionately discriminates against those from poorer socio-economic classes.

All of which is ironic on the anniversary of the awards of the first degrees by the Open University in 1973.

The OU was (and remains) a truly remarkable organisation based on radical principles of bringing education to "the masses" following on in a direct line from the Mechanics Institutes, to the WEA, and night schools.
The OU was founded in 1969, inspired by the vision of Michael Young, under the aegis Jennie Lee, with the full co-operation of the BBC.

When the Tories were elected in 1970 they cut its budget having earlier called the whole idea "blithering nonsense".
Hmmm, sound familiar?

We Lib Dems are the only party that believes university education should be free and everyone who has the ability should be able to go there and not be put off by the cost.