FRANK Dobson, that doughty son of York, is doing the city proud right now. The owner of the most famous beard in the Labour Party has started speaking a lot of sense through that greying scrub of facial hair.

The former Health Secretary was bundled out of the Government in 1999 to fight a hopeless contest as Labour's anti-Ken candidate in the London mayoral contest. He lost, left the political front with his beard singed and went quiet for a while. But now he is back and growling much good sense.

Mr Dobson is alarmed by what he sees as the Government's "new elitism", in particular with relation to secondary schools, higher education and so-called "foundation" hospitals.

In each of these cases, Mr Dobson fears that New Labour is moving too far from its roots by encouraging a hierarchy in public services. From hand-picked hospitals - including York District Hospital - to top-flight state schools, the Government is obsessed with hiving off the best providers; and by unspoken implication leaving everyone else to struggle on in a lower division with mud on their boots.

Mr Dobson was among the first Labour MPs to question the Government's wish to raise tuition fees for students. He is right to be worried about this. New Labour seem to believe that the "higher" in further education refers to the level of fees that can be charged.

Margaret Hodge is the Higher Education Minister, a title which indicates her brief covering universities and not a student-like over-indulgence in cannabis. Mind you, when you hear what she's been saying, you do wonder.

Last week Mrs Hodge raised the prospect of middle class families having to pay tuition fees of up to £15,000 for a typical three-year university degree course. In justifying this, Mrs Hodge asked whether it was right to ask the "dustmen to subsidise the doctor". This curious expression, presumably slicked from inside a spin-doctor's skull, refers to the subsidy of up to £4,000 a year even for students who already pay the full annual tuition fee of £1,100.

With respect to Mrs Hodge, her hypothetical dustman and doctor are beside the point. The people in the middle would have to pay for this, as they always do. Doctors are well paid and dustmen would receive State help.

As for everyone else, heaven only knows. As a father of three, I can only shudder. Three times £15,000 equals £45,000 - a sum greater than our mortgage. Will we have to take out another one, just to pay for the children to go to university?

The argument for higher charges makes a number of dubious assumptions. It blithely calculates that young people who go to university will all earn much higher wages, by ending up as City bankers or big bucks lawyers - and thus concludes that having them pay up front is fair. What about those graduates who find poorly paid work?

An accompanying assumption is that "middle class" parents - in other words, most of us - pack our children off to private schools anyway, so we should pay for university in the same manner. In fact, most of us send our children to the local comprehensive.

That a Labour Government should be shuffling towards an entirely private system of university education is astonishing. Such astronomical fees would put university beyond the reach of many. As Clare Short, the Inter-national Development Secretary, said this week: "It's a really bad idea - I'm against it."

An astringent irony in all this is that the Government ministers contemplating these charges themselves attended university in the days before tuition fees and when grants were still available.

So growl away, Frank - your city and your country needs you.

Updated: 11:16 Thursday, November 21, 2002