Those around the world who pay attention to these things will have noticed that Tony Blair has been having a difficult time with both his party and his cabinet over war with Iraq. The row over the financing of universities may have passed them by. But that argument, more even than war, has exposed issues that go straight to this government's divided heart. On Iraq, Gordon Brown has kept his head down, giving Tony Blair rather more public support than might have been expected. But the universities, especially those with any claim to elite status, turn the chancellor into a rampaging Jacobin, bitterly at odds with the prime minister. The chasm between old and new Labour is widest over education. New Labour wants better schools and universities; old Labour says it does, but actually puts a notion of equality far ahead of efficiency.
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