Hat tip to John Prescott (http://twitter.com/johnprescott)

Just four months before his ascent to the cabinet, David Willetts published a book that showed how his baby boomer generation “stole their children’s future – and how they can give it back.”

So there is great piquancy in his clearest indication yet that students could be forced to pay higher tuition fees – a move which would condemn subsequent generations to a grim financial future.

In The Pinch, Willetts explains that the baby boomers have attained a position of power and wealth at the expense of their children. Yet his comment that the current cost of students’ degree courses are a “burden on the taxpayer that had to be tackled” shows that he himself holds no remorse.

He has not pre-empted the recommendations of Lord Browne’s independent review into whether fees should rise from £3,225 a year. But he did say that students should consider fees “more as an obligation to pay higher income tax” than a debt.

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