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Last year I attended a talk by Tim Gardam, the former Principal of St Anne’s College, Oxford, addressing precisely this issue. The bottom line is that the colleges cannot admit students who do not apply or who do not meet the entrance criteria. The problem lies not with Oxford but with the state schools which tell pupils that they aren’t good enough, or wealthy enough, or white enough to earn places. Oxford spends around £1,000 of each student’s annual fees on outreach work to counter these prejudices, but they persist. An entire department works very hard to come up with new ways of increasing accessibility and diversity, but the obstacles are not of Oxford’s making. Until schools start telling pupils that they ARE worthy of places and start preparing them for entrance, the problem will continue. Oxford does not need to do this work – it could fill all places without it – but it feels obliged to carry out the work which schools should be doing because it believes in these youngsters. Lammy, as usual, has hit on the wrong target, and it would be a national catastrophe if Oxford and other universities compromised their standards to appease small-minded politicians.