Want a reason for re-nationalising British railways? Try 23 billion...

There is this old yarn about an encounter between Churchill and Attlee in the House of Commons latrines, after the war.  As the recently elected Labour Prime Minister entered, Churchill moved to the far end of the room.  "My dear old Winston," groused Attlee, "I had hoped that although we are opponents again in the House, we might still be friendly outside it."

"Now, now, Clement," replied Churchill, "I have no quibble with you, my good man; it is only that in my experience, when you set eyes on something that is very big and functions well, you are wont to nationalise it."


Irrespective of its proportions, Churchill had good reason to fear for his gentleman's sausage.  Targets big, small, functional and dysfunctional, were nationalised between 1946 and 1951, including the Bank of England, the coal, steel, electricity and gas industries, and, of course, the railways.  On Churchill's return to Downing Street his privy parts had been spared, yet one-ffith of the UK economy was in public ownership.


The majority of this was reversed by an equally ideological privatisation spree in the 1980s and 1990s.  Only the Old Lady managed to escape the Iron Lady.


In most cases, privatisation has been a Good Thing.  It has resulted in improved performance, greater efficiency and more accountability.  Competition has driven down prices for consumers and enforced more disciplined and accountable management.  Profit making has attracted further capital investment.


Not for the railways.  Rail companies talk a lot about improved statistics but passengers have to live with perceptibly declining standards, massive fare increases, under investment and unacceptable overcrowding.  First Great Western might claim that they have been on time nearly nine times out of ten in the past year but I would offer my Twitter feed as a more reliable indicator of their (un-)punctuality (WARNING: adult language).


Regular readers know how I feel about our historically important railways.  Like John Redwood wrote on his online diary yesterday, "I like railways."

Okay.  He didn't say that.  He said, "I like trees."  Yet the sentiment is sort of the same, for he was discussing the merits of private sector trees versus public sector trees.

I am quite sure that John Redwood would say that he does like railways too, yet as with trees, he likes them to be private sector, not public sector.  Outwardly, all Conservative politicians would agree.  Inwardly, some are not so sure.  Inwardly, several would tell you that the railways were a privatisation too far.  Inwardly, some want them back.

The Times (£) reports that the £23 billion of Network Rail debt is to be brought back on to the Government's books "to secure greater leverage over the private company."  This is a bold and decisive act for a Government whose principle objective is to reduce the nation's enormous debts.

The potential for a re-nationalisation of Network Rail is being played down but not discounted.  The initial aim of making the railways more accountable and transparent is a good one, considering the taxpayer already subsidises the company to the tune of £4 billion per year.

Even if Network Rail was bought by the Government, the nonsense of separate ownership of tracks and trains would still exist (except for the recently nationalised East Coast franchise).  It would still be a step closer to the wholesale dependency of the industry on the state, unless major franchise reforms take place, such as lengthening contracts.

There are a litany of reasons why privatisation has not worked for the railways.  Fragmentation has created inefficiencies rather than efficiencies and costs have not come down.  These inefficiencies in a strategic industry such as the railways have prompted ever higher state subsidies, to the extent that the taxpayer now spends more on railways in real terms than when they owned them fully.  Competition (and driving up of standards) cannot exist in railways like it can in utilities such as gas.

These and other reasons might be widely known and ever more widely ignored but in taking on Network Rail's financial liabilities, the Government has given twenty-three billion reasons why a return to public ownership cannot be ignored for much longer.

It would be an economically and philosophically retrograde step - an admission of failure.  It would also be a very dear transaction for the taxpayer.  Although I am more of a supporter of nationalised railways than most, I acknowledge that this would be a Bad Thing.  Yet as the state takes on more and more responsibility for their proper functioning, soon it will seem like the only pragmatic thing to do.

Lick your finger & poke it in the air: tuition fees according to Aaron Porter

"Fees? They'll be this big...."

The BBC is carrying an article in which NUS president Aaron Porter claims that "most degrees will cost £9,000".

Of course, the BBC can't just refer to him as the NUS president - he must be qualified as the "articulate" NUS president.  Sadly, the adjective fits.  Aaron is articulate.  He can be charming and persuasive.  He probably is also a "moderate", as described - but when others in your much-vaunted student protest movement are going to prison for throwing fire extinguishers off buildings at police officers, or climbing on and defacing the Cenotaph, that is no tall order.

Yet in terms of public announcements about possible tuition fee levels, Porter veers from the ignorant to the ludicrous to the downright reckless.  In the past, the NUS has been guilty of irresponsible and flawed market research.  At least that was based on a semblance of quantitative analysis and a verified sample, however amateur in construction.  Porter's latest analysis is based on little more than "behind the scenes conversations."

What an extraordinary basis for an announcement of this sort, even from a NUS president.  Porter also suspects, "50%, 60%, 70% are going to charge £9,000."  Quite the margin of error, but then getting out and about and having a chat with someone is an inexact science so we should not be too harsh.

Like Aaron, in the last couple of years I have shared my own "behind the scenes conversations" with people in the HE sector.  As a management consultant, my colleagues and I travelled around the country and met university executives to discuss strategy, marketing and, most importantly, pricing.  We spoke to universities from all parts of the sector about their approaches to pricing, market research and the Browne Review.  Last summer, in conjunction with other HE specialists, we published a White Paper, 'How prepared are English universities for a more deregulated tuition fees?'

This research was conducted with senior managers from a wide variety of pre- and post-1992 universities.  When asked about optimal levels for their own institutions, there was a clear preference for fees below the £7,000 level.  A fee of between £6,000 and £7,000 was the most frequently selected by pre-1992 universities, although an equal proportion were comfortable with fees above this level.  By contrast, all but one of the post-1992 respondents considered a level up to £5,000 or £6,000 as optimal.

University executives, in my experience, have a good grasp of who their students are and what their marketplace can sustain.  There is an element of truth in a sticker price being a mark of quality.  In our research, we identified some concern amongst post-1992 institutions about how they would communicate their value propositions and protect their brand if they were not able to price at the top end of the fees threshold.

Yet charging "what they can get away with", as Porter suggests, also means taking into account the marketplace.  If a university finds, via scientific pricing research, that what they can get away with before participation falls off a cliff is £6,000 or £7,500, that is as far as they can go.  Universities might increasingly look and feel like businesses (they certainly pay their vice-chancellors accordingly) but they do not truly think like businesses.

Even if Porter is right, and 50%, 60% or 70% (take your pick, he can't) of institutions do decide to charge the maximum £9,000, it is highly unlikely that they will do so across their range of courses.  The Times' Good University Guide (£) ranks Queen Mary outside the elite institutions at 36th, yet mentions that "linguistics, geography and drama produced the best results in their fields."  Lancaster University has average-to-good results across the board but excels in terms of teaching and satisfaction, whilst it has the best physics results in the country.  Many universities have special areas of expertise, for which a premium can be charged.  If 70% of them are charging £9,000 for just a couple of courses, why is that a problem, as long as it means the necessary financial support is there?

Which brings me to my final point, and the one that the NUS' simplistic view simply doesn't grasp.  If a university is charging up to £9,000 then according to the Government (details to be confirmed in the upcoming White Paper), that university must justify it by meeting very strict access criteria.

I suggest that the NUS president licks his finger and pokes it in the air once more.  See which way the wind is blowing: towards a sustainable future for universities and students in this country, not towards an unrealistic distant past.  It is a nostalgia that we might both share but that only one of us sees for what it is: nostalgia.

Much ado about what in particular? Or the Guardian and lazy journalism

When I tell certain people that I enjoy reading the Guardian, they give me a quizzical look - as though they are a parent whose son has returned from his first term at university with his polo shirt done up to the top button.  He looks like the son you knew and there shouldn't, in theory, be anything wrong with doing up the top button of a polo shirt but...you just know he probably won't be the same again.

But there you go.  My name is Nik and I read the Guardian.  I've said it.

Why do I read it?  You get something different from its news coverage, for a start - the Guardian tends to cover quite different sorts of topics, or at least the same topics from a quite different angle.  So it is informative and challenges me to think differently or to reinforce my views.  Plus it has a stellar cast of columnists, from Michael White to Michael Kettle; Sir Simon Jenkins to Simon Hoggart; Julian Glover to Polly Toynbee.  Even Polly.  You might not always (you might never) agree with her but she is a media heavyweight.

Yet sometimes you do wonder why you read the Guardian; moments like when you come across Patrick Butler's blog today, 'Domestic violence: women's charities face 100% cuts'.  From the starting blocks, you know precisely where this is all heading:

"In an era of senseless cuts to vital public services, here's one that in its brutal scale and short-sightnedness almost beggars belief: Devon county council's proposals to reduce funding for domestic violence support services by 100%."

Brief summary: as part of its budget settlement, Devon County Council is, like all councils, having to make cuts to its expenditure.  As part of that, it has proposed to remove £1 million of funding from three domestic violence charities.  That represents less than one-fiftieth of the overall cuts being made.  It represents 0.0006% of local government spending; or 0.0001% of total UK spending.   Of course cuts to charities - whom I'm sure do a good job - are regrettable but Butler's way of expressing it is utterly pathetic.

First, of course these things look bad, but that's localism for you and the chief paradox at the middle of the Government's worthy decentralisation programme. The centre wants to devolve responsibility and accountability but flak still returns to the centre, even though it's not their decision.

Secondly, this is simply media trailing.  The council is putting out an interim suggestion on where cuts might fall but the actual decision isn't being taken until later.  It's part and parcel of announcements to gauge public reaction and act accordingly and governments have been doing it as long as there's been a popular press.  The decision has not been made.

Thirdly, in typical Guardian style, the author mews sanctimoniously about a single issue and won't mention any context.  At least Polly Toynbee tends to put things in context.  What other actions are Devon County Council taking as part of their budget settlement?  Who knows, not the general reader because they haven't read the settlement, perhaps the journalist hasn't bothered either.  If you go to Devon County Council's website you will see that, yes, they have to propose £54.6 million of budget cuts.  In spite of that, there will be increases for social care for older people and people with disabilities, children in care and children with special needs.  Direct grants to schools will increase and no libraries will close.  They are undergoing public consultation before announcing the full settlement next month.

Moreover, what do we know about or are told about the state of Devon?  Have quick look at the National Statistics website and you'll see that the south-west of England has the highest life expectancies and the lowest proportion of the population in social rented housing.  It has one of the highest household incomes in the country outside London; the lowest proportion of workless households; and the lowest crime rates in England.

Now have another very quick glance (its quite simple all this research) at recent British Crime Survey statistics on domestic violence:

"The risk of intimate violence varied by demographic, socio-economic and lifestyle characteristics. Characteristics that were independently associated with an increased risk of intimate violence across all the forms included marital status (in particular being unmarried), housing tenure, age (under the age of 45), and having a limiting disability or illness."

I'm not saying for a moment that there are not some serious cases of domestic violence against women that occur in Devon.  But, in short, Devon is evidently not the epicentre of the problem.

It isn't only the Guardian (the Daily Telegraph is turning into a tabloid with a bow-tie), but it does really grates me the way things like this are reported.  A narrative has been cast about these cuts and elements of the media will use any scraps they can find to flesh that narrative out - irrespective of context or relativity.

The Government is chucking (increased) billions of pounds at fighting poverty and preventable diseases in the developing world; ring-fencing the health budget against much opposition (including the Labour and Liberal parties) because, what a surprise, Tories do care about the NHS; protecting Post Offices from further closures.... And the Guardian is kicking and screaming about a million quid for a charity doing a job that local social services probably ought to be doing anyway?

Of course, these hacks aren't going to stop this sort of thing.  So, an apt consideration in present circumstances: the Government must sharpen its communications operation.  Richard Lambert's pronouncements on the economy recently may well have been "pathetic" on some levels, according to Lord Lawson, but his accusation of drift and lack of purpose in the Government's overall message holds a fair amount of truth.

In Much Ado About Nothing (Act V), Claudio says Hero has been "done to death by slanderous tongue."    The Government must sell its strategy and (already considerable) achievements, or journalists will disseminate their own versions of events.   Leave it too late, for the hoped-for freebie frenzy in 2013-14, and the chance of electoral resurrection might have already gone.  Get the message right now - and it has to be now, before the cuts really bite - and you might just be able to take the country with you.

Anglo-Dutch free trade alliance reminds us what the EU is for

Whilst his MPs are squabbling in the House of Commons about the European Union Bill, the Prime Minister is on the continent making friends.

The Guardian reports that David Cameron, "in his first major EU initiative since becoming Prime Minister", is attempting to create an internal free market area with the Dutch.  This would permit professional and service workers to work throughout the European continent.  The article is just a bit amnesic: Cameron's biggest initiative on the European stage to date has been to limit the increase of the EU budget from 6% to no more than 2.9%, in concert with the French and Germans.  The more cynical might observe that an even bigger achievement has been simply not to cause a row.

That is by the by, for the crux of the matter - an Anglo-Dutch free trade alliance - carries intriguing historical overtones.

England and the Netherlands spent a lot of the seventeenth century coming to nautical blows over the issue of who ruled the waves - and therefore international trade.  The Dutch could not find a way to defeat Cromwell (who could, but Death himself?) but generally they came out on top and in 1667 their raid of the English fleet at Medway ranks as one of this island nation's worst humiliations.

The great French Annalist Fernand Braudel wrote, "history may be divided into three movements: what moves rapidly, what moves slowly and what appears not to move at all.”

The Dutch navy may have been fleeter of foot by the broadside, but moving slowly alongside beneath the swifter current of events was the burgeoning dominance of international finance and trade by the City of London and the nascent British Empire.

The prompt for both of these phenomena - warfare and mercantile superiority - were the Navigation Acts.  These laws, first passed in 1651, were designed to protect English colonial trade with European rivals, particularly the Dutch.  Some historians say that they were a crucial part of the eventual British dominance of world trade and the City's financial preeminnce.  Also pivotal was the accession of William of Orange to the English crown in 1688, which swung the attention of Dutch financiers towards London.

It is oft proclaimed that Britain was at the vanguard of free trade and liberty.  There is some truth in this, if your history books begin with the Pax Britannica.  For much of Britain's rise to global prominence had been on the back of protectionism and naval power.  The Navigation Acts were only repealed in 1849, by which point Great Britain ruled the waves.  Liberalising trade routes did not level the playing field, so much as give British traders more markets to buy and sell in.

With the benefit of hindsight, the respective tales of Britain and Holland could have been quite different.  Both relied on a strong navy to project power and an early mastery of trade and finance.  On the latter count, the Dutch were certainly the superiors.  They even contested similar regions of influence, such as North America, the Caribbeean, the Cape of Good Hope and south-east Asia.  Eventually, Britain came out on top, but it could have been different.

Now Britain and Holland appearto be joining forces to remind their fellow Europeans what the EU is for: liberalised markets for free trade in goods, services and personnel.  Many Conservative MPs have a keen taste for history - not least Bill Cash, who I know to be writing a biography of free trade campaigner John Bright.

Although a free trade alliance between Britain and Holland may seem out of step with the historical record, it sends a message that the European project has lots its way in a search for political, as opposed to economic, union (the clue ought to have been in the title, really).

This, then, is a timely reminder to dissatisfied eurosceptic MPs - particularly those in the new intake - that their Prime Minister has the right idea about Europe.  An idea more nuanced and pragmatic than they might like, perhaps, but this really ought to be a European adventure on which leader and party can see eye to eye.

Ed Balls now has Miliband in the palm of his hand

I haven't really got time for this, but...

The Alan Johnson resignation this afternoon came as a shock.  The affable former postman might have taken to his new brief like a duck to a shooting range, and he wasn't joking about needing an economics primer, however who genuinely saw this coming?

The embarrassing gaffes have not helped.  Not only have they damaged Labour presentationally, they have wounded a good man's pride.  No one enjoys being ridiculed, especially about their maths gremlins.  And honestly, as much as I like Johnson, telling a BBC journalist that they "probably read more" of the last Labour budget is a self-deprecation too far for a Shadow Chancellor.

But strategically, Johnson was still useful for Ed Miliband.  I wrote in October that the choice of Johnson was "strikingly astute" as it tied up a critical colleague and reassured the public that Labour would pursue a credible economic policy by backing Alistair Darling's deficit reduction plans.

The alternative - Ed Balls - had long advocated a softer policy that would put further investment, growth and recovery ahead of deficit reduction and higher taxes for the rich to mitigate spending cuts.  When it came to the decision, Miliband rightly acknowledged reality and plumped for Johnson, sending Balls off to shadow Theresa May.

Since then, however, Labour's economic message, driven by Miliband and Johnson, has been a 'me-too' muddle: opposing some cuts but broadly agreeing that the deficit had to be addressed.  Miliband's leadership has never got off the ground, paternity leave or not.

Meanwhile, Ed Balls has been in combative mood, impressing as shadow home secretary, most recently in portraying the Government's hokey-cokey dance over Control Orders as playing party politics with national security.

He has also not been keeping his dissatisfaction with the Labour leadership's economic policy to himself.  As early as the CSR you could tell he was fuming inside as he watched Alan Johnson stand up to deliver a happy-go-lucky slapstick routine when Balls' well-reviewed Bloomberg speech would have been more effective, to put it lightly.

As wicked irony would have it, had Ed Miliband appointed Ed Balls as his Shadow Chancellor back in October, the new leader would probably have been able to command a certain amount of authority over his defeated challenger.

Now, however, Balls is in the ascendency and in spite of a good victory in Oldham last week, Miliband is struggling.  Personal dynamics are also important.  When Gordon Brown was Chancellor, Balls was his right-hand man (apparently unable to make decisions without consulting him) whereas Miliband was a junior adviser.   On economic policy (at the very least) it will be Balls, not his leader, who will be running the show.

The Government can use this to its advantage if it can successfully paint Ed Balls as the man who, along with Gordon Brown, got the country into its present mess.  If the spinners can manage to depict Miliband as the 'son of Brown', Balls is a much more obvious target.

Yet allow Balls to gain even an inch and he'll take not one yard but ten.  Say what you like about him - he is a consummate political operator.  His first task is likely to be to attack the Government over inflation and VAT - on both counts he can turn his involvement in the last Labour Government to his advantage.  Back then, he and Brown presided over the NICE decade - the Governor of the Bank of England wasn't writing many letters to the Chancellor in those years.  There are myriad reasons why the analogy is inadequate but that never stopped a good soundbite.

And VAT, which is contributing to rising inflation and crucially inflationary expectations, is a topic on which Ed Balls actually has some credibility.  It was Balls who, before the last General Election, insisted that Labour must pledge not to raise VAT.  He was correctly and honourably overruled by Alistair Darling.

Now that Balls is calling the shots, he can tell us all that he was right all along.  Don't increase the regressive VAT, which hurts ordinary hard-working British families - put up taxes on the rich instead.

I sometimes hear Conservative backbenchers confiding that the man pulling the strings in Government is George Osborne.  Now his opposite number will be doing the same for Labour.  And like Osborne, Balls is a scheming politician to the bones: they are always sniffing around for dividing lines.

However it all pans out, you can count on something.  The Chancellor can say goodbye to relaxing skiing trips to Klosters.  With Ed Balls conducting the Opposition's orchestra, he'll be lucky if he gets a spare weekend.

History's place in the National Curriculum risks being an unnecessary reprisal of 'Greatest Britons'

A review of the National Curriculum begins today and Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove, appeared on the Today programme this morning to talk about the "essential knowledge" that pupils must acquire, which includes certain great historical figures.

Martin Sewell writes over on Conservative Home about the "lamentable" fact that the only historical figures who "specifically appear" in the National Curriculum are Tory MP and anti-slavery campaigner William Wilberforce, and the prominent African slave activist Olaudah Equianau.

Sewell offers Mr Gove a predictable list of great men and women who he "would prescribe were [he] in the Education Secretary's position."


His list was in no particular order but I am going to rearrange it chronologically, as this is how government advisor Simon Schama intends history to be taught, and what Mike Baker argued for in the Guardian earlier this week.

• Alfred the Great
• William I
• Henry VIII
• Elizabeth I
• Oliver Cromwell
• Thomas Paine
• Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson
• William Wilberforce
• Robert Owen
• Sir Winston Churchill

It is a perfectly reasonable and comprehensive list, spanning the period from the 9th to the 20th centuries and incorporating great leaders (political and military), thinkers and campaigners.

Yet the problem with Sewell's list is that it is unnecessary.  As Prof Colin Jones (president of the Royal Historical Society) writes today at the Guardian's Mortarboard Blog, "the current syllabus deliberately eschews naming 'great' individuals, on the understandable assumption that teachers already know about key figures."

I have been learning, reading and writing about British history for the better part of two decades and I have either covered (at school) - or had the opportunity to cover - each historical figure on his list.

Sewell states his aim as highlighting names "that would, of necessity, carry any teaching discussion into related areas - so that, inevitably, anyone studying these would encounter other important names, ideas and events."

Well it works the other way around, too.  Study the English Civil War and you shall encounter Cromwell.  Study the Tudors (as schoolchildren do ad infinitum) and you cannot miss Henry VIII, nor his most successful daughter.  And so on.


Where Sewell is correct is to describe the present situation as "lamentable".  Historical understanding, in spite of the popularity of history documentaries and the presence of history books on bestsellers lists, is deficient in Britain.  We have become a country in love with history but with no knowledge of the past.


The place to remedy this is in schools and the Government should start by putting in place a broad, chronological curriculum to follow (I await the contributions of Simon Schama and Niall Ferguson with interest).  Don't elect any individuals above others - that means removing Messrs Wilberforce and Equianau too, however valid their elevation might seem to trendy apologists.

The curriculum should not be about which famous figures we explicitly study or not.  The debate about where history sits in a National Curriculum, if conducted like this, will become nothing more than a gratuitous reprisal of the Greatest Britons series.  If we want children to learn about and be proud of our island story then teach them the story, not a roll-call of fashionable canonical 'greats' whose names sell biographies.

Cambridge University dons in silent protest are missing the bigger picture

Academics at the University of Cambridge are staging a silent protest today against, as the Guardian reports, the government's "devastating" higher education reforms.

Turning up in black gowns and hoods, like a macabre intellectual wake, they say it is a display of "discontent" at the proposed increase in tuition fees (for full-time undergraduate UK students, remember) and the perceived "marketisation" of higher education in this country.

There is a peculiar irony here.  Undergraduate tuition fees might be doubled or trebled under the Government's reforms.  The fears of staff at less prestigious institutions about the potential imapct on access are understandable - if also answerable.  Yet staff at the University of Cambridge ought not to be so vexed, and this is why.

Cambridge is one of only two British universities that can rival US institutions in terms of endowment funds (the other, unsurprisingly, is Oxford).  According to college and university data from 2008-09, Cambridge's total endowment fund runs to just under £4 billion.  This would put it towards the lower end of the top ten US institutions - far behind Harvard (on a breathtaking $25.6 billion), Yale ($16.3 bn), Stanford ($12.6 bn) and Princeton ($12.6 bn), but ahead of the likes of Columbia ($5.8 bn), Chicago ($5.5 bn) and Pennsylvania ($5.2 bn).  To put this into context, behind Oxbridge the next highest endowment fund in the UK belongs to the University of Edinburgh (£200 million), unaffected by the Government's reforms.

This vast wealth allows Cambridge and its constituent colleges to erect an arsenal of bursaries that other institutions in this country can only dream of.  The university's financial statement for 2010 informs us:

The University is committed to admitting students of the highest intellectual potential, irrespective of social, racial, religious, financial or other considerations. The University ensures that individuals from all backgrounds can benefit from the opportunities afforded by a first-rate education and are not unreasonably excluded from those opportunities by the charging of fees. The University ensures that bursaries are available where necessary and outreach activities are undertaken to improve participation by under-represented groups.

Who else, other than Oxford, is in such an enviable position to fulfil these commitments?  Cambridge staff ought to be welcoming the increase in tuition fees because it permits the university to extract financing from those with the willingness and ability to pay, therefore creating an even bigger fund for the creation of bursaries for those equally willing but less able to pay.  In other words, only Cambridge and Oxford are in a position to practise the purely needs-blind admissions system one sees at the likes of Yale and other major US institutions.

At Harvard, only 5 per cent of students pay the full level of tuition fees.  Although the maximum fee can be as much as $50,000 (including accommodation and supplementaries), the average fee paid is more like $12,000.  If your household income is less than $60,000 (£37,700) you pay nothing at all.

As long as the system for university funding in this country remains wedded to an unrealistic past (and yes, if we are to continue expanding the number of students attending university, it is unrealistic) a purely needs-blind admissions system is impossible.  Even with the present reforms it is unattainable for almost all universities because fees of up to £9,000 only just meet the cost of education, and it is very likely that many institutions feel that they cannot charge much beyond the lower threshold of £6,000.

Yet Cambridge (and Oxford) have that opportunity to achieve the egalitarian educationalist's nirvana - world class higher education irrespective of ability to pay.

There is a wider aspect to the dons' protest, in that they are concerned about how the Government's reforms might affect not only the University of Cambridge but higher education in the country as a whole.  I have some sympathy with that honourable sentiment but my response to it is this: the Government's reforms present universities with a chance to become truly liberated from central interference and to pursue their own means in reaching top quality academic ends.  University administrators and academics have been demanding less state interference for generations, if not centuries, so why stop now?

Moreover, isn't this an opportunity for Cambridge, if it is so concerned about the wider sector, to offer help and assistance to sector colleagues who are struggling?  Opportunities abound to run joint programmes (as many universities already do), sponsor joint awards, extraneously merge institutes and faculties and even just offer some advice.  Cambridge and Oxford have the history, prestige and investments that permitted them to build up such large endowment funds over time but from what I am told by people in the industry, they are also a long way ahead of the pack when it comes to professional fundraising.  Can some of this expertise be shared?  A healthy HE sector is in everyone's interest.

There is a troubling problem with the 'cuts' narrative, which is that fiscal retrenchment seemingly offers only trauma and backward steps.  It reveals a depressing lack of optimism.  All over the apparatus of the state are presented opportunities to re-think the way public services function in better, more appropriate ways for the twenty-first century.  A great business analogy was mentioned to me recently by a Conservative MP: when private sector managers have to increase profits, cost-cutting is usually a necessary part of that, but by far the best route to increased profitability is in growth.

The same could be said for higher education.  I would love to see a world where university degrees were free but we left that world behind us long ago.  The present reality throws up difficult challenges but it also brings exciting opportunities, most obviously for the likes of Cambridge University.

Perhaps the Cambridge dons protesting today are so ensconced in their ivory tower that they just can't see how valuable that tower is.

Richard Cobden sought world peace and gave us French wine

Richard Cobden, the nineteenth century independent MP, believed that free trade would nurture international peace.  As an appreciative student of Cobden, that much I knew.

That in campaigning for free trade he enabled these shores to be flooded with an influx of French wine is a fact that I was unaware of.

Cobden's role in the 1860 Treaty of Commerce is mentioned by History & Policy's first policy paper of 2011, 'Wine, supermarkets and British alcohol policy', by Bath Spa historian James Nicholls.  History & Policy's raison d'être is to connect historians to policymakers and the media, in order to inform contemporary debate with historical insight.

According to Nicholls, Cobden called on Gladstone, the Prime Minister, in September 1859, to propose that freer trade between Great Britain and France might defuse the "worrying evidence of mutual sabre-rattling."

Whether or not a French invasion was averted was in all likelihood more a result of other diplomatic plays than the reduction of tariffs.  What cannot be doubted, however, is the effect that Cobden and the 1860 Treaty of Commerce had on British wine consumption.

The 'era of cheap Gladstone claret' witnessed imports of French wine climb from just 600,000 gallons in 1850 to a sobering [sic] seven million gallons in 1880.  The Liberal Prime minister claimed, and philosopher Roger Scruton would affirm, that Britain became more "civilised."

That might be credible under the influence of rarefied Bordelaise tipples in Victorian England; on the back of 3-for-2 discounts of cheap Aussie plonk in a box in modern supermarkets, it feels less so.  (Is this democratisation of wine 'progress'?)

That is the chief critique of Nicholl's essay, centring as it does on current debates about minimum unit alcohol pricing, public health and the tip in the balance between domestic and public boozing.

The ability of such history to tell today's politicians how to act on all of this is highly debatable.  The current scenario sees the SNP in Scotland having adopted minimum alcohol pricing as policy, whereas both Labour (under the previous Government at least, heaven knows what Ed Miliband thinks now) and the Conservatives have neither welcomed it nor poured cold water over it.

Where Nicholls does have a pertinent point, and what this history does teach us, is that to impose restrictions on alcohol in this country you must take the moderate middle classes with you and not be seen to be discriminating against poorer drinkers at the same time. This is the biggest concern of David Cameron, says Nicholls.  (The middle class point is ironic, given that we used to have an apparently over-consumptive middle class occupant of 10 Downing Street only a few years ago.)

Nicholls' essay might well give some useful anecdotes to the tune of 'calm down, we've been here before, dontcha know', but I do not believe it will change people's minds.  It is, however, (and raise a glass here) a bright and sparkling little read - like a sumptuous half bottle of biscuity English bubbly - and it taught me something new.

If that isn't a good enough justification for the sort of 'relevance-driven' history that History & Policy promotes, I don't know what is.

Paul Collingwood: the legend who kept bars full

This Ashes series was heralded with such excitement and expectation.  It opened horribly, with England captain Andrew Strauss being dismissed by the third ball of the 1st Test.

Since that inauspicious start, and excepting the mishap in Perth, it has all seemed almost too easy, as England serenely paraded towards their first Ashes win Down Under since the 1980s.  It seems astonishing to think it, but even Australia's 5-0 whitewash in 2006/07 was not as one-sided.

And as England appear to be calmly wrapping things up at the rickety marvel of the Sydney Cricket Ground, it feels not only a little bit anti-climactic.  There is no nail-biting fifth day at The Oval for a South African born batsman to score his maiden Test century, as in 2005; nor a series-deciding victory at The Oval in which a South African born batsman scored his maiden Test century, as in 2009.

What is more, there is a decided note of melancholy.  His decline as a Test batsman was all too evident.  Yesterday was the last chance saloon for a man whose style at the crease (if 'style' were not a misnomer) has always had the ability to keep bars full, not empty them.  Only a scratchy thirteen runs could be eked from a bat that sounded like tin; even the familiarly unattractive short back-lift leg-side shuffle was nowhere to be seen.

His position in the longest format of the game has always seemed vulnerable, in spite of such peaks as the crucial 72 minutes of batting at the Oval in 2005, which secured his MBE; the majestic 206 at Adelaide in 2006, which for brief passages of play actually looked fluid; his match-saving twin fifties in the Welsh capital in 2009, without which a tight Ashes series couldn't have been won; and least expected of all, the pearler that dismissed the brick wall of Michael Hussey this week.  The only Durham man to score a Test match ton for England usually saved his best for Ashes contests.

He has not departed the world stage entirely - only in creams.  Having led his country to their first world championship last year, he will continue as Twenty20 skipper.  The World Cup is also just round the corner for England's highest-capped ODI player.  IPL riches will follow again surely.

There has always been something very comforting about seeing his name on any team sheet, which is why today's news, as unsurprising as it was to hear, brings a twinge of sadness and regret.

He once said of batting: "You have to get yourself in and you have to scrap all the time for your runs, which I enjoy."  I can't vouch that we always enjoyed it too, but we will dearly miss it.

Paul Collingwood

                    Mat    I  NO  Runs HS1  HS2  HS3     Ave 100  50   0

overall               67  114  10  4246 206  186  161   40.82  10  20   6

v Australia           15   26   1   770 206   96   74   30.80   1   4   1
v Bangladesh           2    3   0   148 145    3    0   49.33   1   0   1
v India                8   15   2   597 134* 108   63   45.92   2   2   1
v New Zealand          6   10   1   276  66   65   59   30.66   0   3   1
v Pakistan            10   17   1   632 186   96   82   39.50   1   3   1
v South Africa         7   12   2   576 135   91   71   57.60   1   4   0
v Sri Lanka            8   15   1   390  57   52   48   27.85   0   2   1
v West Indies         11   16   2   857 161  128  113   61.21   4   2   0

Control Orders abolition is timely boost for Nick Clegg

After the kerfuffle - or in the Prime Minister's more colourful lexicon, the impending "f**king car crash" - a couple of months ago concerning control orders, it appears that they are going to be abolished after all.

I did not buy the Sunday Times today, chiefly because I overslept as a result of Apple's iPhone glitch, nor do I subscribe to the online version (though watch this space).  So this news comes to me courtesy of David Blackburn at the Spectator's Coffee House blog.  Astride an earnest photograph of the Liberal leader, Nick Clegg, is the headline: 'A pyrrhic victory for the Lib Dems?'

In November 2010, here and here, I made the case for abolishing control orders.  In spite of the sincere wishes of the security services, they are an infringement of our fundamental civil liberties and an affront to the ancient British constitution.

There is a strong argument for their retention and one that I acknowledge wholly.  One Conservative backbencher put it to me in no uncertain terms, that your everyday British citizen in the provinces could not spare a thought for elite metropolitan musings about habeas corpus and "ancient liberties".  People want to know that they are safe and if the security services tell us that control orders make this country safer - especially at a time when the Prime Minister informs that "the terrorist threat is as serious as it has ever been" - then these instruments are a price worth paying.  Tell them that they only affect nine people and the case will be, for most people, closed.

Nonetheless, I maintain my belief that an excessive erosion of our civil liberties is not the correct antidote to fighting terrorism.  It is, as I wrote in November, a 'head versus heart' sort of call.  My heart certainly desires the ending of control orders and on balance, my head does too.

Yet the most immediate point is that this is a timely boost for Nick Clegg, who ended 2010 at rock bottom personally and his party sinking ever lower, following the fallout over tuition fees and the disreputable sting of coalition ministers by Daily Telegraph journalists.  Whilst control orders are also opposed by a number of senior Tories, they would probably have been retained by a majority Conservative Government.  A rearguard attack from the likes of David Davis would have caused no damage to the Government in that scenario.  He might perceive himself as a standard bearer for popular Tory disaffection but this is a policy on which he might find little favour in his party.

As voters go to the polls in the Oldham East & Saddleworth by-election, the scrapping of control orders is a valuable feather in the cap of the Deputy Prime Minister and further evidence that his Liberals are making a significant impact in Government.  Prior to learning about the control orders situation, I made the prediction that the Liberals would gain the seat that they came within one hundred votes of winning in May.  This latest policy victory only strengthens that prediction.

Back over at Coffee House, the caveat is inserted that this a 'pyrrhic victory' for Nick Clegg, as it contrasts painfully with the perceived 'loss' over tuition fees for full-time undergraduate UK students (to provide the full terminology).

I'm not so sure.  The article rightly remarks that this "popular perception" of the HE issue is "erroneous".  Nonetheless, to juxtapose it with control orders suggests that they are connected - for it to be 'Pyrrhic', after all, they would have to be, and the 'loss' of tuition fees would have to have been the cost of the 'win' of control orders.

Yet that is a semantically driven chicken-and-egg quibble, which I shan't dwell on.  The main point is that voters are not going to put two-and-two together unless  journalists wishing to construct a political narrative do it for them on a persistent basis.

The damage has been done on tuition fees and the upcoming White Paper is not going to make matters any better or worse.  The Liberal contribution to more general HE reforms is significant - a majority Conservative Government would have, for instance, accepted Lord Browne's recommendation to remove the fee cap entirely.  Regrettably, salient points such as that no longer have any chance of piercing the violent fog of student contention.

On control orders, however, Nick Clegg can point to a genuine victory and one that is very straightforward to communicate.  A Conservative Government equals the retention of control orders.  A Coalition Government equals the removal of control orders.

The Government's ability to sell its message has been pretty hit and miss since its formation last summer.  Nevertheless, this is no hard sell.

As long as the media is willing to buy it, that is.


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UPDATE: Michael White has posted this article too, which takes the same line as David Blackburn at the Speccie, i.e. that Clegg should not be claiming this as too much of a 'victory'.


His verdict is somewhat different, however, in that Clegg's reticence should stem from the horrible possibility that this all turns out badly in the form of another homegrown terrorist atrocity that could have been prevented by a control order.


I sympathise with all of that, as I write above, yet still agree with Shami Chakrabati's statement: "punishment without charge or trial is the hallmark of despots".  And Michael White concedes, "it's hard to disagree with her."