Here's some scorching prose from Robbie Millen on the Bristol University entrance row, from last Thursday's Times that I've only just noticed. (Paper version, links don't work, blah blah.) This is a story that seems to appeal to lots of people, definitely including me. Anyway here's about the first half of it:

There is no one more impossible to reason with than a stupid person who is ignorant of his stupidity. Correction: there is no one more impossible to reason with thatn a stupid person who is ignorant of his stupidity because it has been disguised by forceful teaching.

Bristol University abounds with such people, the slow-witted but straight-A products of private schools. So does Edinburgh, Newcastle or any university that has been glitter-dusted with social cachet. These people may be good on the rugger fields or useful on the May Ball committee, but in academic terms they are a waste of space. A stupid person, who has been well-taught in the science of passing exams, is inoculated against thinking, immune from picking up new ideas, and a bore for tutors. They add nothing to the life of the mind; the purpose, lest we forget, of university.

They are currently very angry that Bristol wants fewer of them. But the university should not be afraid that the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference, the bastion of creamy-voiced whining, has declared a boycott, crying foul over alleged discrimination. Rather, Bristol should be glad to shake off its dated image as a drinking den for blazered Sloanes and Alice-banded bimbettes.

Let Bristol go farther to find bright children from state schools, pupils who have been boycotting the place for years, put off by its reputation. A pox on quotas and top-down silliness about targets – but any fool must recognise that a B from a bog-standard is worth an A* from St Cake's; and any tutor would rather teach a student with untapped potential than some dried-up husk from a hothouse school.

That's telling 'em. There are several more paragraphs of class warfare to follow, and the good bit is that, lefty though Mr Millen is, he still interrupts the flow of his invective long enough to pour scorn on on centrally imposed quotas. Let the universities decide for themselves. He's just giving them the benefit of his advice. Great stuff.