University Tuition Fee Tomfoolery

David Cameron, in today's Evening Standard:

Unlike our predecessors we won't patronise the public by pretending there's a bottomless pit of money we can dig into. There isn't, and that means difficult choices need to be made. The public subsidy for higher education is massive — this year the Government will spend around £5 billion on teaching costs in English higher education alone — and in the context of spending restraint it cannot be exempted from cuts.

A lot has been said in recent weeks about what is in the interests of students, but this government is also responsible for the interests of taxpayers — and at a time of real financial hardship, a time when we have no choice but to make cuts across public spending, I don't believe it is right that we ask those on low incomes to pay taxes to prop up an unaffordable university funding system that they are not benefiting from directly.

Seems fair enough to me, sure, soften the blow by paying students a grant or a Citizen's Income, give them low interest loans so that people from poor families etc can go (which is sort of what the Lib-Cons are doing).

But that '£5 billion' figure reminds me of something else I read today, what was it.... ah... here we go:

Schools, employers, the food and drink industry and communities themselves are being urged to do their bit to make the nation healthier. Ministers said they wanted to tap into the potential of all of society in setting out their public health plans. Projects being promoted include everything from bike training in schools to voluntary cuts in salt and fat content by food manufacturers.

Councils will get a ring fenced budget to coordinate the push in England. This pot, which will be handed over from the NHS, will total at least £4bn a year from 2013, the government's public health white paper, Healthy Lives, Healthy People, said. It will be accompanied by the transfer of local public health directors from the NHS to local government.

It's funny how the money has run out for something half-way sensible, like universities, but there's plenty left over for these entirely made up schemes. As a taxpayer, I'm not keen on over-subsidising other people's university courses, but I'd rather pay for that (which does have some overall benefit to society, and maybe my kids will benefit from it) than this quango shite which is clearly of no benefit at all to anybody apart from the quangocrats running the scheme.