David Cameron is a muppet.

I have to agree with you. Yes more needs to be done to help people from lower socio-economic background with the potential to do well, IMO not just those whose families are on benefits and not just those from ethnic minorities, but all poorer people. Universities are by definition institutions of academia and have a duty to try and attract the best they can. The problems are in the comprehensive education system, family attitudes towards education and resources etc. People should be judged on merit. Positive or negative discrimination is still discrimination. I find it wrong that people are still told they can go here or there, do this or that based on their skin colour.

Ouch! How long did it take you to come up with that gem?

People should be judged on merit. Positive or Negative discrimination is still discrimination

Irrespective of this (because this is clearly just Cameron trying to appear to care) he is an idiot. Remember when he said "Too many tweets make a ****?" he should have just replaced the first four words with "I'm a" would have been perfect

I didn't have Cameron as a Guardian guy. I bet he regrets reading that article now!

No I don't think the educational circumstances are the same and I agree it wont be easy but the state needs to improve. But at the same time I don't believe a university should just accept someone simply because they have had a hard life. I speak from the point of view of someone who comes from a lower socio-economic home (both my parents are cleaners and we live in a council house) and if a university accepted me on the basis of my background I would find it highly insulting. I think extending bursary and scholarship schemes is a far better way of showing people that could be put off going to university by cost is brilliant idea and more info needs to be made available on that front, so people aren't put off on that front. I believe that would help significantly; particularly educating the parents on these matters as they may try to put their children off the idea of university because of cost. I also think that rolling out more extensive access schemes would be a good idea. I know Leeds, York and Cambridge in particular have access schemes which take into account background and extenuating circumstances. Students are given extra help, may qualify for more financial support and offers can be altered. I shall end my rant now

I know Cambridge, York and Leeds offer access schemes which take into account extenuating circumstances surrounding attainment, and applying through one of these schemes can mean that once you are assessed they may offer entry requirements to you a grade or two below their normal requirement. That isn't discrimination it is assessment of potential and I think more schemes like that are needed. I also know that Durham University offer a points system when assessing applicants. If you went to a crap school they allocate more points and they ask for more information and assess your application a different way. If you have a certain level of points they some times interview or ask for more information surrounding your individual case. There are ways around blanket discrimination and it needs to be based on individual assessment.

Why must people turn everything into a labour vs Tory situation? You can never accept it when people say something mildly negative against Cameron. Which is just silly. Realise that people have different political views to you, don't fight it just accept it. Debate about policies sure, but allow people to critise one party without getting all pissy.

Why would he say 'I'm a a ****'?

"At least 26"

Not true. Criticsm of Cameron is perfectly acceptable in some cases. But it verges on bashing most of the time, in an effort for people to try and be cool and edgy and it really does annoy me.

And it is a party thing. 9/10 Criticsms of Cameron come from Labour supporters and are levelled at him because he is Tory. Of course it's a Party thing.

But every time someone slates a Tory on here, one is guaranteed to reply with 'well yeah, but Labour did this!!'. It's just unnecessary, if we bash the Cameron you could at least reply with why we are wrong, rather than just bring it into a 'my party is better than your party' type of thing.

I'm pretty sure the proportion of conservative (and other) MPs from ethnic minorities is significantly worse than the proportion of Oxford students from ethnic minorities. I'd be interested to see ethnicity statistics for employees of the conservative party, too.

Genius- like it...would really enjoy seeing Cameron (or any politician for that matter) trying to respond in a way that didn't undermine their own argument.

I didn't have Cameron as a Guardian guy. I bet he regrets reading that article now!

That be a Guardian, I think. He's a man of the people, on the tube and everything.