The man with the chequebook is your student

　　With their famous names and skilled workers, Britain's universities are in the same state as its motorbike-makers and banks were half a century ago. One clung to state handouts and the idea that people had no choice: it disappeared. The other decided to sell to the world and deregulated. For all the City of London's recent travails, it is surely a better model for Oxford, Cambridge et al than the likes of the BSA Triumph.