The story of tuition fees: from keepy-uppy to political football

Labour is proposing a cut in tuition fees, but it was the party that made students pay in the first place.

(Photo By The muddled timeline of tuition fees. Photos: Getty)

Appropriately for a higher education policy, the tuition fees story has been approached in the manner of student politics: stridently, sometimes misleadingly, and with a whole lot of feelings.

The development of tuition fees in Britain is a muddled timeline zigzagging from Tony Blair’s “absolute nonsense” to a burning effigy of Nick Clegg, followed up with a jauntily autotuned apology replayed every few months on the Today programme.