Do you want Swedish meat balls with your tuition fees?

Michael Gove is always keen to quote “The Swedish Model” when discussing the perfect approach to education.

So let’s follow his example and quote the Swedish model for university education – it’s free to all EU citizens.

Or we could quote the Danish model or the Finnish or Norwegian one, or how about the Polish one? All free to EU citizens.

What do they know that we don’t?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/sep/15/students-university-netherlands-scandinavia

This whole tuition fee debacle is simply a backdoor to force people from poorer backgrounds into other forms of non-academic, vocational HE. It is a disastrous abandonment of fundamental Liberal Democrat principles and, if the parliamentary party doesn’t have the balls and the integrity to oppose it, it should be met by the fiercest opposition by the rank and file.

I wonder what’s involved in calling for a vote of no confidence in the leadership now that we’ve had all the clap-trap about “voters can now sack their MP”? Whatever it is, will the membership have the gumption to mobilise and take them to task? They’ve shown great restraint until now and the party does seem to be well and truly over – in every respect…

Nick Clegg applies to send his son to the London Oratory School...Déjà vu?

It speaks volumes for the unstated, acute discomfort of Liberal Democrats that 90% of Liberal Democrat bloggers completely ignore this story and instead frantically attempt to cover it up by shooting the messenger, in the shape of the, admittedly highly dubious, Daily Mail (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-131923.html). So let's get back to the facts of the story:

Fact: Nick Clegg sells himself as atheist or agnostic
Fact: Faith schools are anathema to atheists and agnostics

Stephen Tall over on Liberal Democrat Voice states that Nick Clegg’s own views on faith schools are no secret and that 'within a month of his election as party leader in 2007, he set them out plainly': "If we are to create a society in which everyone has a fair chance in life, we need to focus on education, above all. Faith schools have an important role to play in that, and I am keen that they become engines of integration, not of segregation."

Well, he would say that wouldn't he? When making that statement he already knew that his children would be heading for some top catholic school and is, presumably, too clever to shoot himself in the foot. Children from homes with faith can perfectly happily be brought up in that faith by their family and their faith institution, without also going to a faith school.

A quick trawl of the history and context of the London Oratory makes it abundantly clear that it is highly selective, it's own website states the importance of 'interviews with parents and 'suitable' boys'.....Their Head was a member of a Tory Education Think Tank and openly goaded and challenged the Labour government by asking parents to cough up to 'cover the shortfall in funding'.

Our bloggers might all be good card carrying Liberal Democrats, I'm sure, but come on, just bite the bullet and admit that this is a shamelessly elitist choice by Clegg.

Love it or hate it, but don't deny it.