The British Deputy Prime Minister, Mr John Prescott, expanded yesterday on his government's attack on privilege and elitism. He insisted the campaign was intended to widen opportunity by providing the majority with the chances taken for granted by the privileged few.
In a speech that did not refer directly to the furore about a 17-year-old state school student rejected by Oxford University, while aimed clearly at highlighting the message of "opportunity for all", Mr Prescott signalled funding increases for universities that attracted students from underprivileged backgrounds. Up to £15 million extra funding is under consideration.
Addressing Labour Party members in Kent, the Deputy Prime Minister explained the themes of the Comprehensive Spending Review due to be completed in July by the Chancellor, Mr Gordon Brown. Last week's attack by Mr Brown on the "old boy network" of Britain's universities, particularly Oxford and Cambridge, ignited the debate over the student, Ms Laura Spence. Mr Prescott hinted at the controversy when he insisted the "disparity" between rich and poor students must end. "That is what we're all about," he said. "About giving to the majority of people the life chances taken for granted by the privileged few."
The focus of the spending review will be to expand the Sure-start scheme designed to help children from underprivileged backgrounds, funding local programmes to address adult skills problems and to ensure universities attract the "brightest and the best" regardless of background.
But the Conservatives hit back, with the Shadow Foreign Secretary, Mr Francis Maude, criticising the speech as an example of "anti-elitist class war rhetoric". Concentrating on suggestions that universities failed to attract students from state schools and underprivileged backgrounds, Mr Maude rejected the idea that the policy was deliberate.
"The idea, somehow, that universities are deliberately keeping people out from state schools in order to help people from independent schools is ridiculous," he told BBC radio. "You are not going to help anybody by having some sort of central Stalinist diktat which says you only get money if you meet our social engineering views."
The Shadow Education Secretary, Ms Theresa May, accused the government of blaming the universities for its own education failures. "This government has reduced the funding per student in higher education. We see student applicants going down as students face the considerable financial burden that the government has imposed on them by introducing tuition fees and by abolishing the maintenance grants."