If there was a Nobel Prize for hypocrisy, then this Tory minister might win it

This is David Willetts, Minister of State for Universities and Science:

David Willetts was responsible for increasing university fees from around £3,000 a year to up to £9,000 a year.

This is a student drowning in debt:

You might wonder what’s so special about an overpaid, over-pensioned, expenses-grabbing Tory minister squeezing ever more money out of us plebs.

Well, this is a book that Mr Willetts wrote in 2010. It’s called THE PINCH How the Baby Boomers Took Their Children’s Future – And Why They Should Give it Back.

The key theme of the book is that the baby-boomer generation has lived beyond its means and saddled the next generation with massive debts. Willetts, who has become richer than most of us can dream of from more than 20 years troughing on taxpayers’ money in Westminster, proposes that the baby-boomers should make sacrifices so that their children don’t get crushed by the debts incurred by their parents.

So, what does Willetts do when he becomes a minister – he massively increases university fees and charges students usurious rates of interest (RPI plus 3%, I think) on their loans. Many of today’s students will leave university £40,000 or more in debt and may not have repaid this debt by the time they retire. How are they going to buy houses and start families?

Now, if Mr Willetts’ government had, for example, set a maximum public-sector pension of average earnings (£25,000 a year), then we would have saved so much money, that universities wouldn’t need to charge fees at all. University education would be virtually free, just as it was when Mr Willetts was a student. This would be a perfect example of what Mr Willetts proposes in his book. Ah, but that would mean our overpaid, over-pensioned bureaucrats and MPs making sacrifices to help younger people. Mr Willetts seems quite happy to propose his generation makes sacrifices, except when it comes to his own considerable wealth and that of his fellows in our overpaid, over-pensioned ruling elites.

And this year’s Nobel Prize for hypocrisy goes to…..wait for it…..yes, the Right Honourable David Willetts. Minister in charge of bankrupting people who work hard and want to get on in life…..the very people Mr Willetts’ government claims it wants to help.

(btw Willetts’ book is badly-written, self-righteous, pompous crap. Don’t bother buying it. Buy my latest book GREED UNLIMITED instead)