Tonight:
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Our report today on the thousands of students competing for university places underlines a stark reality: that not only those fearful for their jobs will be hurt by this recession.
Applications are up by 60,000, boosted by those keen to avoid a grim job market. But ministers have increased the number of university places by only 13,000, and the Standard has learned that more than 20,000 applicants will, when they find out their A-level grades next week, end up disappointed. Their alternatives are bleak: youth unemployment is soaring.
Yet a university education is not a right for those with A- levels, however much successive governments may have created that impression since the expansion of universities in the early Nineties. While it is positive that many more young people have been given the chance to pursue higher education, the real academic and vocational value of some degrees, especially at former polytechnics, is questionable. Whatever the undeniable disappointment to would-be students who are rejected, it is not clear whether the failure of so many to find university places will make much overall difference to the skills pool.
It is clearly not the universities' fault that they cannot respond to sudden such surges of demand, nor can ministers create so many extra places overnight. Universities will, however, end up in the happy situation of being able to pick better-qualified students for the places available.
Meanwhile, ministers should redouble their efforts to improve vocational options such as apprenticeships. Whatever the attractions of student life, some disappointed young people may find themselves more employable after taking such courses than they would after three years at college.
Cut-price ministers
David Cameron's instincts in wanting to cut ministers' pay are understandable. In the wake of the MPs' expenses row, and with swingeing public spending cuts looming, the Tory leader is anxious to minimise any impression of politicians having their snouts in the trough: he is sending a message that he is prepared to tighten his belt too. With his reported plans to cut pay by 25 per cent for ministers in a future Conservative government, he has, however, gone too far.At present, Cabinet ministers are entitled to a salary of £79,754 in addition to their MP's salary of £64,766. Under Mr Cameron's plan, their total pay would drop from £144,520 to £124,581.50. Now £144,000 is a lot to most electors but it is comparable — or indeed less — to senior management positions elsewhere in the private and public sectors. Some local council chief executives, for example, make in excess of £200,000, while the Conservatives' director of communications, Steve Hilton, is paid £276,000.
Cabinet ministers have serious executive responsibility for often vast Whitehall departments: they take the rap when things go wrong. For this they deserve serious money. Any move to cut salaries could backfire. Mr Cameron risks creating the impression that he and senior figures such as shadow Chancellor George Osborne are personally wealthy enough to be able to take such cuts, even if other shadow Cabinet members are not. The wider risks are more serious, however: that able and experienced people from elsewhere in society will be even less keen to enter politics. Mr Cameron should think again.
An English original
David Hockney's cigarette is almost as much a trademark as his white flat cap. Now the artist has expressed his irritation with the smoking ban, in a letter to Austin Mitchell MP.He makes his case with eccentricity — “I used to keep a lot of cigarettes in the house in LA, in case of earthquakes” — and humour, recalling the pipe-smoking Clement Attlee, “torn from us at 85”. Regardless of one's views on smoking, we can only hope that the ciggies keep this true English original (72) going much longer than that.
