An outstanding Indian student from Birmingham, who was refused a place at Bristol University to read economics, was the victim of a "reservations" policy being practiced in the United Kingdom's educational sector, it has been disclosed.

Nineteen-year-old Rudi Singh, the brother of Worcestershire opening batsman Anurag Singh, was refused admission to Bristol University despite securing five "A" grades in the advanced level school examinations, which confirmed him as one of Britain's brightest youngsters.

Singh's problem was that he had been a student at the fee-paying King Edward's Boys School in Edgbaston, Birmingham, which marked him out as the privileged son of well-off middle class parents (both his mother and father are doctors).

Bristol looked at his personal details on the application form and rejected him without even offering him an interview. The university favours children from less privileged backgrounds, even if their academic grades are lower, a policy that invokes memories of the V P Singh government's reservations policy supporting children from economically and socially challenged communities.

Fortunately for Singh, Cambridge offered him a place. Bristol has refused to discuss the Singh case, but admits following a strategy backed by leftist Higher Education Minister Margaret Hodge, of preferring state school pupils to those from fee-paying private schools with better grades.

Before she entered the Labour government as a Minister, Hodge was leader of the "loony left" Islington local council in London, which was famous for driving down educational standards in the borough.

At one point local schools in Islington were ordered to offer boys a choice between knitting and the English language because this was seen as a way of avoiding sex discrimination and typecasting girls.

Mrs Hodge, the daughter of German Jewish immigrants, has since gone from strength to strength in the Labour establishment. She has now told education chiefs working under her that it is important to select undergraduates for future potential rather than "raw" achievement.

Her views have been applauded by admissions officials at Bristol, who insist that state-educated (government school) pupils may have more ability than those from the independent sector, despite a lack of academic qualifications.