The Vice Chancellor of Bristol University, Professor Hugh Brady expressed fears on this morning’s Today Programme that Labour’s university tuition policy will seriously degrade the higher education sector, choking it of resources. Tuition fees were brought in in the first place because the sector was falling behind internationally through chronic underinvestment…

“The worry we would have is if anybody cuts the private contribution, it is essential that that is made up for by an increased exchequer contribution and I suppose that’s where the question mark lies.”

Underinvestment was a perennial problem for nationalised industries, with leaking British Water and creaking British Rail being consistently overlooked in the process of politicians distributing finite resources. Universities clearly fear with fewer independent revenue streams they will suffer a squeeze…

This intervention comes as Scottish Labour have promised to splurge more than half a billion pounds extra on Scottish students alone – paying every Scottish student £10 an hour. The bizarre idea of handing free money to students – some £20,000 a year – will only mean there is less to spend elsewhere…