Universities Promise Hooray Henries A Ready Pool Of Servants

Britain’s snobbier universities - including Oxford and Cambridge, obviously – assured well-heeled parents that their establishments were already overflowing with cash-strapped scions of the shopkeeping class, guaranteeing that there would be no servant problem greeting their guffawing heirs when they are ushered out of the Rolls brandishing their Coutts cheque books.

“For many gifted state-school oiks, being a gentleman’s gentleman for three years is the only job they will ever get a crack at,” smiled universities minister David Willetts. “And if your agreeable trust fund is happy to pay them £9,000 a year, you can enjoy watching them fight tooth and nail as they queue up to be interviewed.”

Burn the ironic t-shirt, slap on the Brylcreem and they scrub up OK

Gonville Bromhead, a spokesman for the Russell Group of universities, which are better because they got their charter from a medieval inbred, added: “£9,000 is more than they’re worth, naturally, but it does rather ensure that one’s man will have been brought up to speak the Queen’s English, what? A lot of them are jolly brainy, too, and will gladly sit one’s bothersome exams if threatened with a damned good hiding.”

“Less than £9,000, though, and one runs the risk of getting some ghastly northern bursary claimant who grunts like one’s head gardener,” he warned, “And that would be quite, quite beyond the pale, old boy. Goes without saying.”

In the modern world of academe, of course, female domestic staff are also widely available for hire at Britain’s top educational establishments.

“Not only can your horse-faced daughter have the lady-in-waiting she’s always longed for,” beamed Mr Willetts over a Pimms, “But your lusty heir can sow his wild oats with the servants to his heart’s content, then simply pay to have his scullery-maids’ unborn bastards dealt with in the time-honoured fashion – namely, by paying one of the world’s top medical researchers to warm up the old coat-hangar.”

Later, prime minister David Cameron moved swiftly to fend off criticism that any chancer with a bulging wallet could exploit the two-tier system he was creating.

“My goodness, no. This scheme isn’t for the oafish sons and daughters of money-grubbing tradespeople from the provinces being able to buy their way into university,” he laughed. “They can carry on going to Exeter. Students on these extra places will not be funded by wealthy individuals. No, their funding will come either from businesses, such as the banks of which their daddies are directors, or from charitable foundations, i.e. their trust funds.”

Nick Clegg, meanwhile, has announced that he has grave misgivings.