""Don please stop judging and dismissing all of us by your own stern personal standards.""

If you think that's what I'm doing, then you have totally misunderstood.

I have been trying to prevent others from doing the self same thing, only they are the favoured left wing majority here, and I'm the hated Tory who is reviled and dismissed by more than a few members.

I simply maintain that in days of my youth, opportunity was available to all who chose to grasp it, and that is still true today.

The basis of success however was, and still is, willingness to learn and willingness to work.

Remember that those kids who want to go to university have a much broader choice of subjects, do not have to pay anything up front, and will actually pay a lower percentage of their monthly income than my son did in repaying their loans, and earn £6000 pa more than he did before they pay anything at all.

I suspect that many thousands will never pay off the whole amount, which makes all the breast beating a bit ridiculous.

Don T.