Fairness:

It is a too familiar refrain that a government is fair or seeks to be fair and that every policy has at is heart fairness. It of course goes unspoken as to what nature or what end this fairness serves? I as a conservative do not believe any policy can be fair and that no institution of man could or will ever be fair. In addition I even question the pursuit of fairness as seeking to escape from an essentially unfair world.

Let us then look at coalition fairness or what I call shameless political fairness; the most obvious example of this is the tuition fee debate. Fees are paid post university and are based on post university incomes, which we all know but to ensure they are fairer still the coalition have waved the first two (2?) years tuition fees from the bill for poor (that is poor on attendance) students. They have also insisted that any university charging the full amount of fees must find room for student from a state dictated area to a state dictated level. This political fairness causes leads to two parables.

“The parable of the poor millionaire”:
Two students attend the same university. One is the son of a millionaire, who refuses to pay for his debts, this child is spoilt and inattentive to his studies; he gets involved in drug culture at university, he squeaks a pass and manages to find a £20,000 jobs as a favour to his farther. From his earning he is expected to repay the full loans and after thirty years he manages this herculean feat. On the top floor of the very same building sit the companies owner; he comes from a family to whom dirt poor would be too kind, he has strove and worked every day of his life and he gain his university place and applied his work ethic hear as well. Not only was his life improved thank to hardship fund but he was free of any significant debts, whilst at university he creates a safer version of hydrogen and become wealthier then avarice; still he pays no fee, regardless of his wealth it is the dirt poor millionaire’s child who pays for them.

“5 A stars”
Are second parable of fairness is a tale of two students, again one poor and one wealthy, both have dedicated themselves wholly to one end – getting to an elite university. They have both worked extremely hard both in there GCSE & A level the wealthier child has managed to get five A star A levels and the poorer student four A star and one A. Both of course have applied for Oxford but it is the poorer student who is accepted above the wealthier student because Oxford now have other non-academic criteria to fulfil. The hard working wealthy student of course goes elsewhere but losses out on some opportunities and the cashay of elite education his hard work has earned him in the name of fairness.

Now you may sneer and say this is the drivelling’s of a reactionary; that I am simply protecting entrenched privilege but I care nothing for privilege I merely want policy that makes senses. It is nonsense to give people free education based solely on their parent’s income and it is deeply unfair to deprive a hard working student of the just reward of their hard work to appease some mythical structural discrimination in the allocation of university places. I could not care less if Oxford had no one from the lower classes, as long as they took the top students in are nation regardless of class that is to my mind to be expected.