David Willetts’ former tutor says: ‘I have no confidence in him’

Universities minister faces votes of no confidence from Oxford and Cambridge dons calling for his removal from office Oxford and Cambridge dons attempting to force the resignation of the universities minister, David Willetts, have been given a boost by a declaration from the politician’s former economics tutor that he had “no confidence in him”. The controlling bodies of the universities are due to stage a vote calling for the minister’s removal from office amid growing unrest over the government’s trebling of the limit on tuition fees and recent announcements on higher education policy. Now, speaking to the Observer , Peter Oppenheimer, an emeritus professor at Christ Church, Oxford, and a tutor to the beleaguered minister in the mid-1970s, has admitted: “I have no confidence in him, absolutely. He was a highly intelligent and thoughtful person, very able – but no politician. He has got the kind of open-mindedness which enables him to see the value of a whole range of points of view, especially that of the person he last talked to.” Senior academics at Cambridge and Oxford are calling on Willetts, nicknamed “Two Brains” for his reputed intelligence, to reconsider the hike in undergraduate tuition fees, cuts to higher education and what they say are “incoherent” messages on university admissions. Almost 150 academics at Cambridge, including the renowned poet Jeremy Halvard Prynne, have signed a motion of no confidence in the minister. It will be sent to the university’s council, which is expected to endorse it and the university will then need to tell the government that it has passed a vote of no confidence in Willetts by the end of this month. More than 170 Oxford academics sought signatures for a similar motion and they too will vote next week on whether Willetts is up to his role. The passing of a vote of no confidence would be a first for any university in England and comes as Willetts is set to unveil his delayed white paper on the higher education. Tthe shadow universities minister, Gareth Thomas, said: “David Cameron and David Willetts shouldn’t be surprised to have lost the confidence of so many. They have refused to listen to the huge concern, in every part of England, that cutting 80% of teaching funds, axing vital investment in research facilities and then allowing universities to treble fees would have a devastating impact on the hopes and dreams of all those wanting to better themselves through university.” Willetts’s critics are on both the left and the right. Oppenheimer, who was seconded from his college in the 1980s to be chief economist to oil giant Shell, said he believed his former pupil had been a victim of the coalition agreement with the Liberal Democrats. “I have no confidence in him because I think it is tragic that higher education policy should be made on the basis of those considerations,” he said. “He is not a man to fight for ideological rigidity. Academically it is admirable but as a policymaker it is a bit sad; it is not worthy of him.” Oppenheimer said he believed a sector of the university system – Oxford, Cambridge and “two or three others” – should be allowed to opt out of government regulation and to develop “like the Ivy League universities in America”. That way, he said, they would be able to charge their own fees and be “far more effective in promoting fairness and access and redistribution”. “The average fee would be no more than the £9,000 now talked about but the spread around the average would be much higher, so that those who can afford it can pay £20,000 like they already do for their schooling, in their boarding schools. And those who can’t afford it pay nothing,” he said. David Willetts University of Oxford University of Cambridge Tuition fees University funding Daniel Boffey guardian.co.uk

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