When I met Shirley Williams

I’ve mentioned before on this blog that it was through dabbling in the student media while studying at Imperial College that I ended up as a journalist; the opportunities to learn about such things helped me decide that it was that – rather than writing computer software – that I wanted to do for a living.

While tidying up recently, my mother came across a photocopy of an old issue of Felix, the student newspaper at Imperial, which is probably one of the first pieces I had published. It’s dated Friday October 31^st 1986, which puts it at the end of my second month there (I learnt how to work the typesetter in my first week!).

It’s a report of a talk to the Women In Science and Technology group that was given by Shirley Williams, which I covered for the newspaper; at the time, only 17% of the students at Imperial were women.

So, although it’s another off-topic post, I thought I’d share it with people here. The scanned text is below the image. It’s interesting to see that some of the same concerns expressed back in 1986 are just as relevant today.

The article as it appeared in Felix, on October 31st 1986

Williams and WIST

Mrs Shirley Williams, the President of the SDP, addressed a meeting of Women in Science and Technology (WIST) on Tuesday. The main theme of her talk was the changing role of women in society, and in particular the role that she saw for women in scientific subjects, Mrs Williams felt that it was up to women to raise questions about the impact of science upon society. She cited examples of ‘prestige‘ projects, in Third World countries where, for example, huge hydro-electric schemes are created, with a consequent loss and erosion of land needed to produce food, and warned that “We cannot afford scientifically illiterate students of humanities and humanistically illiterate students of science”.

On the subject of women as leaders, Mrs Williams noted that successful women leaders have had many of the same qualities as men in the same positions-toughness, ruthlessness, logic and aggression-and proclaimed that “women can be just as good as men are.” Although she admitted that women in power often had masculine qualities, Mrs Williams suggested that a gentler, feminine approach to problems would produce better results in the long term and gave as an example the manner in which Germany was treated after the Second World War, contrasting it, with the treatment after the First, and the subsequent rise of Hitler. Still on the subject of women in positions of power, Mrs Williams did not feel that segregation, for example by the creation of a Women’s Minister, would help. Rather, this would lead to patronisation and help to keep women out of key positions. It would, she suggested, be far better to enforce equality by a system of monitoring to ensure fair practice, or the imposition of Contract Compliance, whereby a company cannot win a contract unless it proves that it treats everyone equally.

Asked by FELIX if she thought that the lack of women in science and technology was due to the standard of teaching and the shortage of science teachers, she replied that teachers were ludicrously badly paid, and that a 10% pay increase in real terms, together with conversion courses, was needed to attract people back in to teaching. Though she felt that co-education was in principle a good thing, Mrs Williams expressed the view that it also reduced the number of women taking science subjects, as they were encouraged towards the more ‘traditional‘ areas. She also felt that the creation of the new Technical Colleges would empty the schools of scientists and make the problem worse.

FELIX asked Mrs Williams for her opinion of the new Unemployment Benefit questionnaire, which may disqualify those, such as students, who are unable to travel to find work. She asserted that this was “An attempt to reduce the number of unemployed before the next election” and said that the SDP would provide a ‘basic benefit’ for students studying after the age of l6, with removal of fees for part time students.

Questioned about the possibility of student loans, Mrs Williams stated that the SDP believed them to be necessary only in the case where the parental contribution is not made, and that they would have to be provided at low interest rates. The SDP has, she said, no plans to replace grants by loans, and would like to remove the need for a parental contribution, though she admitted that this could not be done very quickly. The first priority of Mrs Williams’ party is to increase all higher education by 50%, giving equal emphasis to both humanities and science, rather than boosting science at the expense of humanities.

Nigel Whitfield

Digital TV doesn’t need more smut regulation

Last week’s report from the Mothers’ Union into the ‘sexualisation of children’ proposed a raft of measures to stop the horror of children finding out that people have sex.

Some of these, perhaps, might have some merit, but as I mentioned here before in regards to internet censorship, the vast majority of households in the UK do not have children.

While overly sexual images on billboards might well be worth addressing – though I think far more so in terms of the attitude to women that they represent, rather than their effect upon children – do we really want to end up in a situation where everything has to be sanitised in case a child might see it? Wouldn’t it be better if parents exercised more control and people didn’t grow up told that sex is dirty and awful?

As far as TV goes, seldom does a week pass without some storm being whipped up by a tabloid newspaper, over raunchy dance moves, or people alluding to a rude word rather than saying it; I’ll leave aside for now the mind-boggling hypocrisy of the Daily Mail, often at the core of such moral panics, and home to a web site full of images designed to do little more then titillate and sexualise.

One of the proposals is that Ofcom should be stricter with what’s shown on TV, particularly pre-watershed, and there have been suggestions in the past that this could even mean things like the famous Brookside lesbian kiss might not be deemed acceptable.

Here’s a thought: the TV is not an electric child minder.

More relevant to this blog, though, is the fact that in not much more than a year from now – which is less time than it would take to introduce any legislation – television in the UK will be completely digital.

And, as far as I’m concerned, digital TV does not need smut regulation. It does not need to have regulators meddling with programme content to please a bunch of latter-day Mary Whitehouse figures.

That’s because digital TV already has parental guidance, and programmes are flagged according to their content. Many set top boxes can be programmed to ensure that people can’t see certain channels, or types of material. And I’m sure with a little thought, someone could make a nice extra profit out of honing the interface on a TV or set top box to make it extremely simple to use – it’s not always as straightforward as it should be.

By the end of next year, everyone who’s watching TV in the UK will be doing so via a platform that supports parental controls and guidance. Wouldn’t it be far cheaper – and far more in keeping with ‘light touch regulation’ if people like Ofcom and Mumsnet left our TV programmes alone, and instead explained to people how to use parental controls, and take responsibility for what’s viewed in their own homes?

Freedom to snog

Earlier this week, two men were asked to leave the John Snow pub in London, because staff objected to them kissing each other. To say there’s been a big reaction is something of an understatement. After a mention of the incident on Twitter, it’s been picked up by both mainstream and gay media. There are planned “snogathons” at the pub, even a Guardian live kissing blog.

But, it seems, some in the gay community are not happy. And to me, that’s even more disturbing than the idea that, in 21^st century Britain, two men can be ejected from a pub for what – by all accounts – was a fairly chaste event, and certainly something that you can see many straight people do.

What’s the problem?

There has been a massive amount of support from people for Jonathan Williams and James Bull, from both straight and gay, and many people say they’ll never visit the John Snow again. For myself, I’m certainly unlikely to, even though it’s just across the road from an office in which I work regularly, and I’ve enjoyed going there in the past.

But, if a straight couple can do something in a bar in public, then so too can a gay couple. The law, thankfully, no longer allows discrimination on the grounds of sexuality. I’ve never seen a sign at the John Snow saying “no kissing allowed” and plenty of people have told how they have kissed members of the opposite sex, without being asked to leave. So I don’t honestly think there’s much doubt that this happened solely because of their sexuality.

That, though, is not how some readers of the UK’s gay web sites see it. The two guys concerned have been variously described as militant, as yobs, and it’s been suggested that they were being aggressive, were practically having sex with each other, and even in one repellent comment on So So Gay that their actions were “almost inviting the couple to be queer bashed.”

One can only imagine what sage advice these people might have offered Rosa Parks…

Sorry? They were doing what?

They were yobs. Asking for it. Practically having sex. So say some of the commenters – though the couple concerned say they were doing nothing of the sort. Why are so many other gay people quick to judge, and suggest that obviously they must have been? Because no one would have complained otherwise? If you think that, then you really are living in a bubble.

And if their words aren’t good enough, how about the other straight people who said they had no problem, and were also ejected from the pub for sticking up for people? “Snogging, but not heavy petting” one of them told the Guardian, doing a better job of standing up for us than some of the gay people I’ve seen commenting online.

So so political

One of the things that I’ve noticed over the years (I’m 43, if you care, which is about 150 in gay years) is that when I express opinions, other people will very often say “You’re very political, aren’t you?” in a tone which leaves me in no doubt that they don’t see that as a positive thing.

How have we reached a stage where the reaction to an incident like this is for other gay people to say things were better in the 1980s? That gay rights has been a bad thing? That we’re too militant? I suspect that the current trend in media and politics of decrying “human rights” as a bad thing certainly doesn’t help, but actually it’s been going on for longer than that.

Back to the ghetto

One common theme in some of the complaints seems to be that, well, they’re in Soho, they could go to a gay bar. And they shouldn’t do things like that, because there might have been children, or they might have upset someone, and we must be sensitive.

Yes, there are gay bars. But you know what? Not everyone wants to go to a gay bar. We don’t all want to go somewhere where everyone eyes us up as we go in, wondering if we might be worth chatting up, where the music’s so loud you can barely be heard, and a pint of beer is well above £3.50. It’s hardly conducive to chatting on a first date.

And, aside from anything else, “We’ve got Compton Street, why do you need to go somewhere else” is hardly an argument for equality. It’s an argument for not integrating, for keeping gay people separate, and for marginalising ourselves.

Unfortunately, it seems to me that all too often, when I’m accused of being “very political” the people saying that think that, well, they can hold hands on Compton St, and go to gay bars, and nice gay shops, and go clubbing and get drugs, so everything must be ok, mustn’t it?

Sorry, no it’s not.

Ramming and thrusting the gay agenda

Gosh, I must be militant. Bet I’m the sort of person who’s wrecking it for all those meek people, aren’t I? What with wanting people to kiss, and forcing them to accept us. It’ll be – as someone hilariously suggested in the comments to one of the news reports – buggery on the counter in McDonald’s next.

Except, of course, it won’t.

I don’t think it can be more clear: discrimination is wrong. There is nothing unnatural about being gay, and a company should not treat gay people any differently than they would straight people.

If straight people can kiss in a pub, so can gay people. If they can’t, neither can gay people. Telling gay men they’re obscene, and physically throwing them out of a pub, just because you don’t like it is hateful, and disgusting.

And kissing someone, and not meekly complying when a drunk person tells you they don’t like what you’re doing does not – or should not – make you a militant. It makes you someone with enough self respect that you’re not going to be treated like a second class citizen.

Would anyone even be questioning this, if someone had complained to the bar staff about a mixed race couple kissing? Of course not; but somehow, too many gay people have allowed themselves to swallow the line that we’re just that bit different, and we have to make allowances for how other people might feel at the sight of two men being affectionate.

Suggesting that people should just go to a gay bar if they want to kiss is little more than saying “Get back to the ghetto, boys, we mustn’t frighten the straights.” It’s an argument against equality, and an argument against a more open, accepting society.

Remember the 80s?

If some people are to believed, the 1980s and 90s were much better; we didn’t have this silly equality business, and no one bothered the gays. Aside from the police, raiding not just bars, but even private homes where they thought people might be committing indecent acts – it wasn’t actually legal for two men to have sex with someone else in the house until this century. Or the newspapers, whipping up hysteria about AIDS and painting it as a gay plague.

There were laws that meant you could, in theory, be arrested for chatting up another guy in the street. For ‘causing a breach of the peace’ by kissing or holding hands in public.

There was no freedom from discrimination at work; nothing I could do except put up with a boss who knew I was gay, but would spend every car journey pointing out the breasts on women and asking me to comment on them.

There was section 28 too, and an unequal age of consent. There was the Spanner case, and many other deeply unpleasant episodes.

And there were people who were angry, and did things. Outrage had a kiss-in in Piccadilly Circus; Stonewall lobbied hard on the age of consent. People came out and fought against Section 28, or took cases to the European Court that led directly to the level of equality we have now.

But, amazingly, some people seem to think we should wind the clock back. I know not everyone can be confident, and open. But I also believe that the best way that they can become so is not by forcing people to be out, and visible, but by those of use who are confident not hiding who we are. Not equivocating in job interviews when asked about partners, not pretending to be two mates when you go out for a drink, and want to hold hands. Not refraining from kissing, if it’s appropriate.

The personal is political

Sometimes, a snog is a snog. Sometimes, intentionally or not, it’s more than that. It’s a statement that you will love whom you want, and you’ll be open and honest about that.

It’s 2011. We are past the point where people complain that a black and a white person can’t kiss; that catholics and protestants can’t kiss; that English and Germans can’t kiss. It’s about time we realised the same is true of gay people, as well.

Patrick Whitfield, November 1967 – 5th March 1991

Twenty years is a long time; almost half my life now, but some things continue to shape our lives for many years after they happened.

I was going to write something new about this, but decided instead to repost something buried away in an old version of my website. You may also want to read a related post from last summer, with my thoughts regarding the lack of charges in the Ian Tomlinson affair, which contains a bit more about the PCA investigation.

There is one member of the family that merits special mention; Patrick Whitfield, my late twin brother. His death and the events surrounded it changed my outlook on many things. When bad things happen, you may suddenly realise that the things you believe in really aren’t quite what you thought.

Patrick died when his life support system was turned off on the 5th of March 1991. He had sustained fatal head injuries, resulting in brain death, after “leaving a police van through the rear doors, while it was in motion.” He was taken to Addenbrookes hospital in Cambridge, where my mother and I waited from Thursday until Tuesday the 5th, though it was clear from Friday the 1st that he would not survive.

Unanswered questions

As is usual when there is a death in custody, an investigation was conducted. And, as is the case in the UK, that was carried out by another police force and, as family, we’re not entitled to see the results of that investigation. The officers involved in stopping my brother, who had failed a breath test, would not answer questions at the inquest. The investigating officer told us “There’s nothing secret in the report, but it is confidential.” The Crown Prosecution Service wrote suggesting that “although an offence had been committed, it was not of sufficent gravity to merit prosecution,” and Cambridgeshire Constabulary spelt our surname wrong when they wrote to offer condolences.

Social justice

This horrific experience, and the careless attitude of assorted state agencies, fundamentally changed my view of many things. I was unemployed at the time, and since I missed signing on because of being in hospital, and then arranging a funeral, I lost all benefits. I was told by the unemployments office that you are allowed one day not looking for work in the event of a death in the family. If I’d known I was going to be away for longer, I should have filled in a holiday form!

It may be that the officers involved did everything by the book. Perhaps the book is wrong, or perhaps they did make a mistake. But without being allowed to see what the investigation revealed, we will never know.

We need an open and accountable police force – that doesn’t mean a witch hunt, it means answers to simple questions, like “Who said what to whom on the night? Who did what, and when?”

We need a social security system that doesn’t withdraw benefits from people just when they need them. When bad things happen to people, they should be supported – not told to fill out a holiday form. It seems to me that bureaucracy is so intent on keeping figures down that it’s more important to stop a claim than consider whether or not someone needs help.

Inquest is an organisation that campaigns about deaths in custody.

Libraries matter – why it’s important to support yours

Another diversion from the main topic of this blog, but an important one, I think. Tomorrow – Saturday 5th February 2011 – is the Save Our Libraries day of action. Library services across the UK are facing dramatic cuts in their funding, and in many areas, it seems as if they’re being picked on as a soft target for local authorities who want to make cuts without damaging what they see as the real frontline services.

Of course, these are tough times (though arguably, not quite as much as the Government is keen to pretend, or they’d surely not be intent on changes to forests and the NHS that will likely cost, rather than save money). But while there might indeed need to be some tightening of purse strings, savagely cutting library services to the degree proposed around the country is, I think, counterproductive.

My library story

I grew up in the 70s, with my brother, in Winchester. We weren’t poor, but nor did we have cash to spare. And joining the library was the way we got many of our books. The first book I can remember borrowing from the library was a Hardy Boys mystery – I think it was “The Mystery of the Spiral Bridge.” And I really don’t think it’s exaggerating to say that that started me on a lifelong love of reading; I voraciously consumed many of the Hardy Boys mysteries, and moved on to better quality content.

I stuck with the library when it was being refurbished, and moved temporarily out of the magnificent building on Jewry Street to a dark and gloomy temporary home on Parchment Street, and followed it back to the old building, learning how to find things in the Dewey index for homework and later university.

As a teenager, with a developing interest in electronics, the reference library on North Walls was where I’d go to look up information in back issues of magazines, or find the circuit diagrams of TVs and radios, in my attempts to get them working again.

At boarding school, I became a librarian, cataloguing all the books in the library we had in Junior House, and perhaps it was hanging around the library that started my involvement with the school magazine, which – among other things – led to the work I do now, writing and editing for the IT press.

I may not use the library as much now as I did when I was younger – to be honest, it’s years since I borrowed a physical book, and a few months since I checked out an eBook – but I don’t believe I’d be the person I am now, had I not had access to all the wonders of the library when I was growing up.

More than books

Today, of course, libraries are about more than just books; I know some people decry this, and think it’s dreadful that you can borrow DVDs – back in the 1970s, of course, it was vinyl LPs, tucked away in a corner in Jewry Street.

But there are other very important things they do too. The brilliantly refurbished Clapton Library, just round the corner from my flat, has computer terminals, and space where people can work.

It’s all too easy for people who have relative wealth, and the space that it brings, to forget that many, many people have neither. And while the ‘tsars’ of digital inclusion talk about providing computers that cost £100 and internet access for £9 a month, they forget that for many, that’s still more than they can afford.

As successive governments seek to provide more services online, and many companies make their best deals available only to those who can buy via the internet, libraries are important for much more than just access to knowledge on paper.

They can provide a vital way for people to access services, and they can also provide the only space where someone living in cramped, overcrowded accommodation will be able to access the information they need, in the atmosphere they need, to study and try as hard as they can to make things a little better for themselves, by succeeding at school or college.

Things like that are hard to quantify, let alone put a monetary cost on. But that doesn’t mean they’re less important. Everyone should have the best opportunities to succeed, and for many, especially in deprived areas, libraries are a vital part of that. You might not see the effect for years – but if just a few of those kids using the computers, or doing their homework in the library grow up to be doctors, and lawyers, or whatever else they want to be, it’s worth it.

Libraries can be a social space too, enabling other important work; a couple of weeks ago, Stamford Hill library was host to a Healthy Living day, with people on hand to give advice about exercise, diabetes, coronary care, and lots more things – and all in a much more relaxed atmosphere than a doctor’s waiting room.

Make your voice heard

So, you may not use your library yourself; you might be lucky enough to be able to buy all the books you want, and to have internet access at home. You might think that they’re dumbing down because they’re not always silent temples of learning any more.

But please, don’t ever think that they’re not important. Stand up for your local library service. They really are vital, to all sections of society. Just because they don’t produce instantly measurable results doesn’t mean they’re not worth funding.

Links:

Voices for the Library

CILIP

The Bookseller’s Fight For Libraries Campaign

Censorship – Won’t someone think of the adults?

The Government, doubtless with the most honourable of intentions – for they are, all of them, honourable men – has decided that pressure should be put upon the UK’s internet suppliers to filter out pornography, to protect the children of the nation, amidst concern that British children are becoming too sexualised, too young.

It’s, frankly, hard to know where to start with this absolutely insane, illiberal and impractical proposal. Let’s first start with the idea. Filtering of child porn works so well (in terms of stopping people seeing it; I doubt it does anything at all to stop actual child abuse), the theory goes. Some children see porn on the internet, and children seeing porn is a bad thing, so the filtering should be extended to all pornography, and anyone who wants to see porn should have to ‘opt in’ if they wish to have an uncensored (I’m sure the government would prefer the word “unfiltered”) internet connection.

“Think of the children”

The usual cry will go up, and in principle, I don’t think it’s a good thing for children to see porn. I think there are many things that they should be protected from. But a quick trip to the website of the Office for National Statistics shows that a mere 28% of households in the UK contain dependent children. So, for the sake of those, the other 72% are to have their internet access censored.

Wouldn’t it be better to ask parents to take some responsibility, by opting in to censorship? (And, of course, people from some countries may argue that being a little less hung up about sex isn’t necessarily a bad thing.)

There is one thing that seems pretty obvious to me. The sexualisation of children will not be stopped by controlling what those in childless households do in the privacy of their own homes.

Without playing down the horrors of some porn, it’s by no means the only influence on how children develop.

Far bigger, surely, is the impact of the high street, where big stores run by wealthy millionaires  with an eye only to their bottom line peddle sexualised clothing ranges for children, urging them to be a “future trophy wife”.

What of the titillating pages of the tabloid press, that now resorts to such base tactics as “we have to print this filth to show you how bad it is,” alongside their steady trickle of ‘upskirt’ photos and critical articles about women who don’t look quite as thin or gorgeous as they’re supposed to?

There are many, many influences on children, and I honestly can’t see why the government should be censoring my internet connection, instead of cracking down on the far more visible influences, or urging parents to “opt in” – they’re your children, if you want them protected, you should take the lead, not demand that what I do is filtered and sanitised to protect children that I’ll never meet.

Technologically inept

As with so many great government ideas, this one may well founder – or tangle itself in knots – when it comes to technical issues. Child porn sites aren’t huge in number (as a proportion of the internet as a whole). That can’t be said for other sexual content.

And just about every filtering scheme has its problems; the great Australian censorship project has filtered out material that’s not – according to the politicians – covered by its remit.

Anyone who works in a corporate office will have found some sites blocked by firewalls, often rather spottily. In one office, I can’t access a site that I run, which features no nudity, but I can happily access the Gaydar dating site, which has plenty.

There will – inevitably – be sites that are censored that should not be, and if the lists are operated by ISPs or private companies, it’s going to be very difficult to find out if you are on their list or not. We will have censorship without any transparency.

Some companies will have their businesses ruined, as they’re wrongly classified. And, as with any censorship system, mission creep is almost inevitable. Would Wikileaks suddenly find itself on the list? What about a site used to plan student protests?

When you start from the position that everyone’s net connection should be censored by default, you start down a very slippery slope.

Social costs

And that’s before we consider the other aspects of this. Back in the 1990s, there was a proposal from some of the more illiberal elements within the Metropolitan Police that certain newsgroups be removed from internet service providers in the UK. The excuse used, as ever, was child pornography, and protecting the kiddies.

Aside from being fairly unworkable, the actual list contained plenty of newsgroups that were nothing to do with pornography, including gay discussion groups, and those for people interested in alternative sexual practises (such as SM or watersports). In short, it was a blanket attack on a far wider range of groups than people were led to believe.

Imagine a teenager, curious about their sexuality – gay or straight – trying to find out information online. Will that be censored too? Certainly, there have been plenty of incidences of sexual health information being blocked by some internet filtering packages.

Do we really want a situation where a teen living at home can’t find support from online gay groups? Or has to ask their parents if the internet can be uncensored, because there are things they have to look at?

And it’s not just there too; the system proposed means that internet providers will have to record whether or not their customers want an uncensored net or not. How secure will those records be? Will they be as safe from prying eyes as mobile phone bills are from tabloid newspapers?

When the default is “clean,” do we want a situation – and I’m sure it will happen sooner or later – where during a background check for a job, or a messy custody dispute, a slimy lawyer makes inferences about someone’s character because they’ve “opted in to pornography” ?

Illiberal, immoral and repulsive

I’m sure I could think of many other arguments why this proposal is wrong – besides the fact that it won’t work, it’s intrusive, it’s an invasion of people’s private lives, and it places the onus of protecting children not on their parents, but on everyone else.

For a party that professes not to believe in ‘big government,’ the idea that anyone who wants to look at legal adult material will have to register to do so is surely a clear example of the nannying that they so decried when they were the opposition.

To censor the internet for all households, because a few amongst the 28% with children do not want to take responsibility is not a solution.

It’s time to stop shroud-waving and screaming “think of the children.”

Won’t someone think of the adults?

See also:

Revert to Saved: UK Government to block porn
PC Pro: Internet censorship: the slippery slope starts here

Universities must be more than just degree factories

A diversion from the main subject of this blog, but I do think this is an important topic – and key to why I am able to do what I do here, and for a living.

On the whole, I’ve had an extremely good education. First, kindergarten and prep school – my grandfather owned a prep school in Winchester (the now-closed Nethercliffe).

After that, I attended Lord Wandsworth College, as a ‘Foundationer’, a scheme the College ran to provide assistance with fees for those from families without two parents, and in financial hardship.

That excellent education – and it was of a quality that I think should be available to everyone, not just the few who can gain assistance with fees, or have a wealthy family – enabled me to gain a place to study Computing Science at Imperial College.

As a student starting in 1986, I received a full maintenance grant. There were no tuition fees, and no student loans; those who, like me, started a their course in ’86 were among the last to graduate before loans were introduced for the 1990/91 academic year.

(A brief aside: looking at the fees for Imperial, including student halls, I reckon that to do the course I did, you’d be spending almost £60,000 all in. My late twin brother went to Cambridge; between the two of us, we’d have had to take on over £100,000 in debt. I honestly think that would have ruled university out for both of us, as I believe fees will for many).

Messing around

I don’t think it’s terribly boastful to say that actually, I’m quite clever. I’m not a genius, but I could almost certainly have done better at Imperial than a third class degree, if I’d applied myself.

I didn’t. I spent a lot of time doing what it’s fashionable – especially amongst those who haven’t gone to university – to call ‘messing around.’ There’s a sneering tone adopted by some commentators on the student protests which suggests that these people aren’t really studying, or they’re not doing ‘proper’ courses. And “why should we pay for people to doss about for three years?”

Frankly, if it wasn’t for all the ‘messing around,’ I wouldn’t be doing the jobs I’m doing now. At best, I’d probably be cranking out technical documentation for a computer company. I certainly wouldn’t be writing the sort of things that I do, and helping to explain things to the many people who have, over the years, told me that they appreciate the information I’ve been able to share with them, in a wide range of print titles, or online.

What I did at Uni

By the end of my first week at Imperial, I was learning how to work the computer typesetter for the college newspaper, Felix. I learned how to do page layouts the old fashioned way, with scalpel and gum. On the college radio station, I learned how to present, and how to edit programmes using a chinagraph pencil, razor blade, and splicing block.

I did all this in some of my free time and also, yes, in some of the time when I should probably have been attending lectures.

But honestly, I don’t think it matters.

Sure, I got a third, when I could have done better. I also learned the rudiments of press and radio production, and discovered that I loved writing.

I interviewed Shirley Williams and someone from the South African Embassy. I got to see inside some parts of the BBC, and met people who had followed the path from student media to professional media. And most important of all, I realised that what I really wanted to do was not what I’d thought I wanted to do at sixteen, when our system of A levels forced me to make a choice that could have defined my life.

I didn’t want to just work with computers. I wanted to be a journalist. And, eventually I succeeded, with my first job on the now-defunct Computer Buyer magazine.

Why this is important

Much of this happened, I’m convinced, because I didn’t have a bank manager looking over my shoulder. I didn’t – as so many students do now – have to spend evenings and weekends working, to find money to live on, or to worry about paying back fees.

I was able to take time at university to explore other things, like the student media. Other people spent their time in different ways – in the dramatic society, or other groups and social organisations. For some of them, it was just a pastime, but for many others it has been a way to discover real skills, that lead to or enhance a career.

When you have to spend all your free time earning money, that’s not possible. And I firmly believe that denies opportunities and chances to a lot of people, and stops them fulfilling their potential.

I think that’s a very important point, all too often lost. The debate about how education is funded is vitally important (and one, really, that’s been being dodged by governments of all colours, for years). Freelance writing – what I do now – isn’t necessarily a road to immense riches, but in good years, I’m pretty certain I’m contributing more tax now than I would be if I were in another profession.

Some people might write this off as sentimental ramblings of a lefty with a privileged upbringing, and say “oh yes, we couldn’t do without the alumni of the Cambridge Footlights, could we?” but that is cherry picking, I think. Many people – including myself – benefit from university in ways far beyond their degree course. Even just from my time at Imperial, and the studen media there, I can think of quite a few people to whom that applies.

When you have an educational system that forces people into narrow choices when they’re very young, as ours does, surely universities ought to be a place where people can broaden their horizons, rather than continuing down a narrow path set when they were an adolescent?

And if that means that someone who sets out to do one thing doesn’t get a great degree, but discovers a real aptitude for something else, is that really such a bad thing?

If we continue to saddle students with debts and bills, then I fear that my generation will turn out to be one of the last very lucky ones, to be educated freely, unburdened by constant worries about debt.

Our universities will have been turned from places of education into factories for degrees, awarded to people who were forced to make choices about their life before they really knew all the possibilities open to them, and who will saddle themselves with debt in the process. And that really is worth protesting about.