Tony Blair, when not trying to save the planet or fight the just wars of the Middle East, is making his stake to be Britain’s leading philanthropist. The government will give £1 for every £2 donated to English universities in an attempt to embed a "culture of charitable giving" across higher education. There is nothing wrong with former students and businesses donating money to the universities – from a business point of view it may well be a wise investment. However, the government claiming it will “embed a culture of charitable giving” by giving away money that was raised by the tax payers in the first place is absolute nonsense.
How can Mr Blair confuse the redistribution on taxpayers’ money to elite universities as “embedding a culture of charitable giving?” It is not charitable on the part of the government, that’s for sure - merely a smokescreen method for the government to plough more public money in to the education system. If proof of this was wanted, Diana Warwick, chief executive of Universities UK said - "This is a new and creative initiative which will provide a terrific boost to university finances. The endowment scheme will be a very welcome addition to the pubic funding universities rely on.”
For “new and creative” read “another clever stealth tax from the Treasury.” For “terrific boost to university finances”, read “terrific boost to university finances, a third of which will be paid for by the tax payer.” For “a very welcome addition to the public funding universities rely on”, read “we can not believe our luck, more money for universities - a third of which will be paid for by the tax payer but they won’t think it all that bad as it’s been dressed up a some sort of social responsibility initiative.”
The only embedding of charitable giving this scheme is doing is forcing us all to give our money to universities. Now we're all philanthropists and we didn't even know it.