The Big Society, we are told, is Government policy and mandates for a massive increase in volunteering. In order to work, the Big Society needs lots of volunteers. Which fits well with the ethos, promoted by many middle class parents, who laud the Big Society, of the Gap Year.

So why not have everybody in tertiary education who is not graduating "this year" take a BIg Society Gap Year and Volunteer. It seems a simplistic and stupid idea but it really is a form of protest that has huge advantages.

First, it takes almost all fees out of the system for a single year. Which shows the Chancellors where their economic interests actually lie.

Second, in a few years time (just as Nick and Dave are expecting to have an election) there will be no graduates. Which provides an instant problem for Business (which we are told needs lots of graduates) of a short supply of graduates. Thus raising the price a graduate is worth. Yes, Businesses are likely to want to keep costs down. But when there are no graduates to bargain with the problem is a little one sided.

Finally, it panders to the pretensions of the Big Society, showing how the whole idea is, in fact, a huge ideological smokescreen. Yes, a Gap Year is "acceptable" and yes Volunteering is "desired". But when an entire section of society takes a year off to volunteer then it becomes a tool of protest that Cameron created.

So what would three years of undergraduates (entrants, first and second years) actually do for a year? That is, what would almost 2 million people do for a year? What would the University towns and cities do without their spending for that year?