Usually I am of the mind that single issue politics are somewhat bankrupt, but you do have to have a few red lines, and I've decided that this is one of mine.
So I just sent this message (via twitlonger) to the Labour party leadership candidates - @Ed_Miliband @edballsmp @DMiliband @andyburnhammp and @dianeforleader
Why I cannot vote for a labour leader who backs the Graduate Tax:
Education of any member of our society has benefits for the collective.
The benefits may be very direct - nurses, social workers, doctors, teachers.
Or they may be less obvious but just as important - the ability to think critically to challenge faulty thinking by our leaders, a skill with communicating complex ideas so that many may take part in debates otherwise restricted to the few.
I have no doubt that there are a handful of courses that would make satisfying Daily Mail headlines, but for the vast, vast majority, those 3 or 4 years spent at university do result in a more developed mind.
We do not all start from the same place at birth, at 5, at 11, at 16, or at whatever age we realise we'd like to embark on a university course. Clearly not every degree course churns out latin-verb-declining, equation solving, book writing poly-maths. Does this mean that those courses don't add value? Not in my view. And that's what education is about. Yes - for individuals it can be life changing, but it's society changing too.
If there's a conversation to be had about what we teach on our university courses then that's a different debate. But as to how we pay for education - my view is clear:
Education is the silver bullet.
There is no problem in society which is not best tackled through increased levels of education. We are fools to exile it from the state.
Whether our problems are practical or social, increased education of our population is our best bet for anything from solving water shortages and energy deficits to tackling bigotry and personal responsibility for health.
Education helps us live longer, and contribute more to society in numerous immeasurable ways.
For some people, the confluence of education and other life choices and opportunities will result in an increase in personal wealth. As we have done for many years, we should ask these people to contribute more to the collective pot, through a combination of income tax and capital gains tax.
A separate tax on graduates corrodes our sense of collective benefit from education, and collective responsibility for paying for it. It is the thin end of a very fat wedge. What about taxing people who went to one of the schools at the top of the league tables? School education is more closely linked to the quality of state-funded input than university education, where personal responsibility (using skills you acquired before arriving) is dominant.
The argument for individual-payment for individual-benefit is one I'd expect to hear from people who put the individual at the centre of their politics. People who are blind to the randomness of the circumstances of their childhood, and equally blind to the miracles of mindful collective endeavour.
But to hear it from prospective Labour leaders? I'm shocked.
Education is the social-mobility lever. The level of education required to give a member of society a good start has shifted - as a symptom of success - from just being able to read and write, to needing to acquire a broad set of skills and then further specialise through education post-18. We should be celebrating and enabling this progress, embracing it as an emblem that proves that left-wing principles are about building a better society, not just propping up 'the poor'.
I cannot vote for any prospective Labour leader candidate who backs the Graduate Tax. Your views on education are - in my mind - the most revealing of your perspective on what social progress truly looks like.
Education of any member of our society has benefits for the collective.
The benefits may be very direct - nurses, social workers, doctors, teachers.
Or they may be less obvious but just as important - the ability to think critically to challenge faulty thinking by our leaders, a skill with communicating complex ideas so that many may take part in debates otherwise restricted to the few.
I have no doubt that there are a handful of courses that would make satisfying Daily Mail headlines, but for the vast, vast majority, those 3 or 4 years spent at university do result in a more developed mind.
We do not all start from the same place at birth, at 5, at 11, at 16, or at whatever age we realise we'd like to embark on a university course. Clearly not every degree course churns out latin-verb-declining, equation solving, book writing poly-maths. Does this mean that those courses don't add value? Not in my view. And that's what education is about. Yes - for individuals it can be life changing, but it's society changing too.
If there's a conversation to be had about what we teach on our university courses then that's a different debate. But as to how we pay for education - my view is clear:
Education is the silver bullet.
There is no problem in society which is not best tackled through increased levels of education. We are fools to exile it from the state.
Whether our problems are practical or social, increased education of our population is our best bet for anything from solving water shortages and energy deficits to tackling bigotry and personal responsibility for health.
Education helps us live longer, and contribute more to society in numerous immeasurable ways.
For some people, the confluence of education and other life choices and opportunities will result in an increase in personal wealth. As we have done for many years, we should ask these people to contribute more to the collective pot, through a combination of income tax and capital gains tax.
A separate tax on graduates corrodes our sense of collective benefit from education, and collective responsibility for paying for it. It is the thin end of a very fat wedge. What about taxing people who went to one of the schools at the top of the league tables? School education is more closely linked to the quality of state-funded input than university education, where personal responsibility (using skills you acquired before arriving) is dominant.
The argument for individual-payment for individual-benefit is one I'd expect to hear from people who put the individual at the centre of their politics. People who are blind to the randomness of the circumstances of their childhood, and equally blind to the miracles of mindful collective endeavour.
But to hear it from prospective Labour leaders? I'm shocked.
Education is the social-mobility lever. The level of education required to give a member of society a good start has shifted - as a symptom of success - from just being able to read and write, to needing to acquire a broad set of skills and then further specialise through education post-18. We should be celebrating and enabling this progress, embracing it as an emblem that proves that left-wing principles are about building a better society, not just propping up 'the poor'.
I cannot vote for any prospective Labour leader candidate who backs the Graduate Tax. Your views on education are - in my mind - the most revealing of your perspective on what social progress truly looks like.
---
I'm attending a labour party event where I hope to discuss this with them and other Labour members at the end of this month. I joined up after Nick shocked me by snuggling up with Dave, apparently not worried about the implications of a decision as long as he gets to make it. I was always a Labour supporter, but I kind of thought the Lib Dems were lefties too and in my constituency a cheese sandwich would have more chance of getting elected than a Labour candidate. Now I realise I need to be in the fight more actively.
As an aside, if you haven't seen this video, check it out for a would-be-funny-if-it-wasnt-screwing-real-people revelation of the extent of Nick's affinity with Groucho Marx*: http://www.twitvid.com/ERX9W
* "These are my principles, if you don't like them I have others." Thanks to blaugustine for that fantastic quote.
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