Lamb to the slaughter.

[onebyone]

Perhaps an unwise effort to derail a conversation about tuition fees

Comments

[onebyone]

It means you shouldn't do so as a cheap distraction from what you've actually been asked.

I mean, nobody *should*. But when done from what amounts to even lower moral ground, it's not just a rhetorical trick, it's distinctly shabby.

I'd have no objection to Norman Lamb genuinely proposing an organised campaign to address the diversity failings of Oxford, Cambridge, the Lib Dems, and anyone else he cares to name. But I don't think he was doing that, and even if he is I don't think that the right time to launch it is in the middle of a conversation in which he's under fire concerning tuition fees.

I think he was saying, "you're cross with us about tuition fees, right. But what you *should* be cross about isn't what we're doing to university funding as a whole, it's the fact that two universities have this failing, and one college at one of those universities have another failing. What about that? Eh? Eh? Protest against them, not us".

I don't expect that you would campaign against poor diversity in that strangely convenient way, rich white woman or not, so I don't think you'd fall foul of my rule.

[onebyone]

Thanks. I agree with your point too, I certainly don't want to assume that because a Lib Dem levelled the charge it can be ignored. I'm sure if he put his mind to it, he could present a more detailed criticism with better stats to back it.