Save us and set us fee

While the government considers whether to allow top-up fees as a solution to the financial crisis facing universities, it is easy to forget why Labour introduced tuition fees. Thank goodness, then, that the concluding part of the BBC1 political drama The Project provided a reminder this week. It focused on the summer of 1997, just after new Labour's landslide election win. It showed nascent party disaffection with the new government, not least with David Blunkett's decision to introduce fees and scrap grants. The programme included a clip from 1997 with newscaster Peter Sissons reporting that the government had introduced fees to - yes, you've guessed it - save universities from financial crisis.