It’s class war as Labour raises tuition fees and destroys family farms

Ms Phillipson is seen at the despatch box
Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, speaking about Labour’s plans to raise university tuition fees - PA

I’m starting to feel sorry for Labour MPs. Imagine this: you’re halfway through your politics degree, you accidentally get elected to the agricultural constituency of Lower Field (Tory since Caligula) only to discover that your new PM is a flute-playing son of a hacksaw who wants to raise tuition fees and destroy family farms.

Comrades, this is what a class war looks like. It ain’t pretty.

Opening a double bill of socialist austerity, the House first considered the Government’s exciting plan to raid farms with inheritance tax. Most parties spoke against. The Greens were silent. They reject intensive, meat-based farming methods in favour of burning Edward Woodward on Summerisle.

Kevin Hollinrake detected a “warped socialist ideology” at play. Farmers felt “utterly disappointed”, said Tim Farron; they were “up in arms” said Stuart Anderson. Richard Tice warned they might top themselves – earning howls of displeasure from Labour MPs who would let burglars out of prison if they thought jail harmed criminals’ mental health.

John Glen feared that Daniel Zeichner, the food security minister, had been the victim of a “hit and run” by the Treasury, and Zeichner – a very nice, very pale man – did look as if he’d been run over repeatedly by a tractor.

His constituency covers Cambridge University, where the closest the dons get to rural life is listening to The Archers. The Tories noted that Labour’s secretary of state for rural matters also represents the rolling hills of Streatham and Croydon North. The only thing farmed there is Parson’s Delight, a strong variety of marijuana, popular, I’m told, among students of theology.

Laura Trott speaking in the Commons
Laura Trott, the shadow education secretary, took on Bridget Phillipson on tuition fees - PA

Education, education, education? Oink, baa, quack. Zeichner departed for a cardiogram; Bridget Phillipson took his place in the dock, a woman who talks entirely in buzzwords. Raising tuition fees has “not been an easy decision” but we must “fix the foundations” to create a university sector that “not merely survives but thrives”, packed with students who can “become all they can be” (she went to Oxford, which explains a lot).

Bridget was parried by her new opposite number, Laura Trott, exuding jolly hockey sticks, head girl vibes. Expect lazy sketchwriters to call their duels: “St Trinian’s vs Grange Hill.”

Labour promised not to touch farmers or students, said Trotters, yet here we are: “Perhaps we should start putting sell-by dates on statements the Prime Minister makes?” Bridget dismissed her “faux outrage”, and might have a point.

The fees are only rising by £285. It should be much higher and determined by subject. Anyone who wishes to study how to grout my bathroom pays no tuition fees. Those who want to do native American studies and interpretive dance: £10,000 a term.

The odd Labour MP defended the Government: “black hole”, “fourteen years”, etc. But for the most part, they sat glum and silent – their minds drifting back to their recent history, when politics meant passing motions to boycott Israel in the JCR, not running a country and balancing the books, under the eye of a PM who seems imprisoned in his own past of broken windows and ominous postmen.

Did you know he was director of public prosecutions?