Intern This

No, it is not easy to take seriously anything involving Alan Milburn. And his little bit of news comes just after the Government’s wheeze to pay for internships for this year’s crop of new graduates.

Why? Why should they be paid twice the dole merely for having degrees? Academic education is an end in itself or it is nothing, and other things deserve at least as much respect. Thus properly understood, there are far too many universities in this country, with far too many people at them. I certainly do not say that in order to encourage smugness at or about institutions that merely happen to be old.

As for social mobility, because there used to be hardly any, and there is now also hardly any, people allow themselves to assume that there has always been hardly any. But there used to be an astonishing amount, particularly in the decades just after the War. And there was a reason for that. It was called grammar schools. I’d have to check, but I rather expect that Alan Milburn went to one. Still, don’t let that put you off them.