I'm still not sure of the benefit of turning Polytechnics into Universities, they were created for different roles and I think they work well at them. But you are completely right about the poor planning - it seems like it was done in a huge rush.
We badly needed more Universities and the best way todo that was to give the Poly's the right to change. We do need places where you can learn to be a plumber, electrician and so on though.
They are a mess and go against Labour's traditions as well, one more thing putting pressure on Blair...
I don't really care about Tradition. What would bother me though is that they said they wouldn't in their manifesto.
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