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| You have come across: Home > News | 4th December |
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 Top-up fees: Clarke concedes review into effects on Labour majorities27 Jan 2004
The Education Secretary has made a further concession ahead of tonight's crucial Commons vote on university top-up fees. Charles Clarke has agreed to hold a review into the impact of top-up fees on Labour MPs' majorities in an attempt to persuade more of them to vote with the government.
Mr Clarke has already persuaded Nick Brown, the former Labour Whip who had been leading the rebels. "I was worried about losing votes by voting for something we said in our manifesto we wouldn't do," he told journalists outside the Houses of Parliament. "But Charles Clarke has assured me that he will look into it in a year's time, and if it turns out that people like me are going to lose votes then they'll think again." When asked if he might lose votes and any public respect he once had by doing a U-turn/being bought off/being persuaded by Gordon Brown (delete as appropriate), Mr Brown declined to comment. Other rebels are also being "persuaded" to back the government. A group of 30 Labour backbenchers have reportedly been told they will be sent on a fact-finding mission to the middle of a jungle, where they will be coated in jam and left to debate the rights and wrongs of social justice with the native wildlife if they do not vote with the government. Upon hearing of the news, ITV immediately tried to commission "I'm a rebel backbencher, get me out of here" to almost universal contempt. However, not all rebels are proving to be as easy to persuade to back off. Former Labour minister Glenda Jackson was flown to Strasbourg on Friday, where she had her luggage and return ticket stolen by government loyalists, her wallet and passport taken by the Whips and her trousers and one shoe by a Spanish MEP. She was then pursued through town by an angry mob of spin-doctors, accompanied by a local journalist who was told he was reporting on a charity jogging event, and, after half an hour, abandoned in the red light district to find her own way home. Emerging bruised from Westminster underground station today, wearing the remains of her outfit and a sack, the former actress told our reporter how she had been forced to busk her way back to the French coast, where she hid in the back of a lorry transporting asylum seekers and "a small quantity of cheap French wine" to the UK. Despite her ordeal, however, Ms Jackson said that she would still vote against the government tonight, although she did concede that she would have to return home to shower and change her clothes first. Related Articles Iain Duncan Smith offers Blair "ousting" counselling 19 Jan 2004
Children to be charged for primary school education9 Jan 2004
Labour: Big Conversation a success5 Dec 2003
Magazine: Supporters of top-up fees gather29 Nov 2003
Queen's Speech: Bored Blair decides to create his own opposition26 Nov 2003
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