GORDON Brown's outburst against elitism raised a few eyebrows this week.

It's true that the top universities ooze snobbishness, from the strange rituals to the even stranger clothing, but what are Oxbridge's ancient sleepy spires compared to Bailrigg's duck pond.

Founded in the radical sixties , Lancaster's red brick university was once a glorified polytechnic full of northern upstarts and real ale bon viveurs but these days our local seat of learning regularly finds itself ahead of illus trious neighbours in the academic premier league.

And what's on the drawing board for our down to earth university?

Academic chiefs have looked at exciting plans to rebuild much of the campus and out go the prison corridors, rabbit hutch room design and the popular communal showers.

In their place we can expect shiny new en-suite rooms with internet connections and cable TV.

Rare luxury indeed and, naturally, it will come at a price.

Citizen Smith remembers fondly the days when students attired themselves in charity shops and thought it a compliment to be mistaken for a tramp. Have today's students really changed that much?

Or are the Bailrigg bigwigs plotting to recruit a new type of academic? Are the university's car parks going to be full of Range Rovers unpacking Jeremys and Jemimas, who might not be the sharpest tools in the box, but think it a great wheeze to slum it up north?

Are green wellies going to replace Doc Martens on the city's student feet?

In short, is elitism coming in to fashion as a financial necessity here while, elsewhere, it is being targeted as a social evil?

The "On the Buses" saga is a more local example of elitism. There are car owners and then there are those poor unfortunates who don't own cars - usually students, the elderly and single parents.

Let's face it, those students who don't have the use of daddy's Maserati may be a little disappointed to find their wellies filling with water as they wait for a bus.

Why, everyone is asking, would the council take the loopy decision to close the old bus station and replace it with street clogging bus stops which take Lancaster's already convoluted road system one step closer to anarchy, before even being certain that they can afford a new station.

It's like taking the roof off your house before you've got enough money to buy new slates.

But does anyone care, who uses buses these days anyway?

Deregulation was supposed to create a public transport nirvana but locally what's happened? A number of competing bus companies have been replaced by a private monopoly which is unwilling to chip in a single shiny shilling towards the cost of a new station.

And there's even talk of opening up the derelict relic of a station once more while they scratch around for the funds.

The losers time and time again are the frustrated users of public transport - a group often treated as an underclass - who are left to live with the consequences of decisions made by a Mercedes driving elite.