Dinner party talk focuses on education not houses

London Briefing Chris JohnsThe last great obsession of the British middle classes is education. The cost of schooling and Tony Blair's efforts to impose extra tuition fees on university students have utterly eclipsed house prices as the topic of conversation at Islington dinner parties.

As is always the case with these debates, where someone stands can be guessed at by looking at their views on other issues. Anyone who opposed George Bush's recent visit, opposes foundation hospitals, opposes any reform of the public services and is pro-euro will be bitterly against university fees.

Few people are bothered with the underlying arguments. British universities are often described as failing. They are falling behind international standards and suffer from a growing inability to attract the best academics. The vast expansion of higher education has been accompanied by declining quality of teaching and research.

Business is growing ever more disenchanted with the output of many universities. In addition to trying to provide extra resources for universities via extra charges, there are several government-led initiatives that try to improve the quality of research and development and the links between academic and more commercially oriented research.

Britain has never been that good at translating its academic achievements into commercial success; in recent years it has got even worse.

The government - Tony Blair at least - seems to realise that the vast expansion of higher education is in danger of falling apart. Extra resources are needed and that cash needs to be put to better use. Even a cursory examination of the facts reveals that, for once, the prime minister appears to have a very strong case. Not much need for spin here.

But the facts rarely intrude on this debate. Minds have been made up a long time ago and the predictability of attitudes is as dreary as it is depressing. You are as likely to find a member of the chattering classes who is in favour of public sector reform as you are of finding a Catholic unionist or a Protestant nationalist.

The argument is all about making universities better than they are at the moment - at the very least, the objective must be to arrest their decline. The universities themselves recognise that they must become more commercially aware. They believe that more and better links to industry and commerce will improve standards rather than contaminate the sanctity and purity of academic freedom.

Hairy Islington hacks, by contrast, believe in a mythological past that condemned the talented children of impoverished miners to follow their fathers into the pit rather than to enter a dreaming spire. Commendably, they want everybody to have a wonderful education. Stupidly, they don't have any kind of vision about how to achieve that.

For these people, public sector provision of education must be free, universal and of the highest possible standards. This is also true of healthcare and refuse collection. All very laudable of course, and all completely impossible to deliver.

Even the parliamentary opposition is clueless. Paradoxically, Michael Howard, the new leader of the Tories, wants universities to remain free. This is just cynical opportunism; opposition for its own sake. Mr Howard could probably make a better case for tuition fees than Mr Blair.

The Liberal Democrats want to fund more expenditure on higher education in the same way that they want to fund all of their other spending initiatives: by getting anyone earning over £100,000 (€140,000) a year to pay for it via higher taxes. Somebody needs to tell them that there simply are not enough people making this kind of money to provide the tax base that the Lib-Dems need to fund their plans.

Intriguingly, Mr Blair has raised the stakes by putting his own credibility and authority on the line. He has all but made the issue of funding reform for higher education a matter of confidence in his leadership. He is in danger of making a habit of this. He might even be in danger of looking like a man of principle. Crucially, he even seems to have the support of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr Gordon Brown.

Business will be looking at all of this in the hope that Mr Blair wins. The separate - but related - issue of intellectual property rights (the sharing of the spoils between universities and business) is also attracting a lot of attention and has been the subject of an independent but government-inspired report.

Mr Blair wants to improve access to education, to make sure that standards are maintained and to make sure that the needs of industry and commerce are better served. He deserves to win this one.