"WHEN such a lot is at stake, there's no time for games," Worcester MP Mike Foster declared about last night's 'top-up' fee drama. "We have to get money into universities and widen access for students from poorer backgrounds."

We don't disagree, in principle, but this isn't the way to do it.

Education isn't simply a right, it's a national necessity. The strength and depth of Britain's talent needs to be developed like never before during the coming decades.

And that isn't going to happen when a huge number of families decide they don't want to be saddled with huge debt before adult life also confronts them with the prospect of mortgages and children.

Last night's cliff-hanger was, in reality, a defeat in victory. Let no one tell you otherwise.

Unseemly arm-twisting and deal-making might be part of the parliamentary process, but it has left the Bill, and the nation's belief and trust in New Labour and the Prime Minister, gravely damaged. No amount of spin will alter that fact.

The idea that the whole nation should, in theory, be exempt from paying for its pool of doctors, scientists, engineers and teachers is a nonsense.

Imagine the health service funded the same way, with only those who gain the most being required to pay for it.

One of the purest measures of a society is how it looks after its people, regardless of colour, creed or bank balance.

To many, the Higher Education Bill smacks more of the Tory Party in the mid-80s than it does of the values that many loyal, traditional Labour would hope to recognise.