CommentIsLinked@LDV: Alix Mortimer – Why is Clegg picking this quarrel now?

Lib Dem blogger and LDV-editor-on-sabbatical Alix Mortimer writes for CiF about tuition fees and the Lib Dems.

I wish people would let go of this idea that the pre-tuition fees era was some sort of egalitarian utopia. No system ever is.

Even so, Nick Clegg’s suggestion that scrapping tuition fees be downgraded from a firm Lib Dem policy commitment to an “aspiration” makes me uneasy, and not just because of the Labour-flavoured wording. I cannot imagine why he thinks this particular quarrel is worth picking now.

Read the piece here.

Alix says: “Please note that the headline and byline are, as customary with CiF, absolutely nothing to do with me!”

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10 Comments

  • After months of Nick performing better in media interviews, it seems as if he went massively off message in selling the Fresh Start. As Alex Wilcock has noted the package itself is great. The leader’s presentation of it has botched the message and created a scrap with his party for absolutely no electoral gain! Talk about plucking disaster out of the jaws of victory.

  • Herbert Brown 23rd Jul '09 - 7:16pm

    I know he’s not the safest pair of hands in an interview situation, but can it really be just a cock-up?

    Or is he just trying to get his own spin on the document so thoroughly publicised that the party will have to follow suit?

    Or could he even be looking for a “Clause 4” situation in which he can confront and defeat a supposed rump of muesli-knitting, sandal-wearing, leftie activists, and thereby reassure all those wavering Tories in the Home Counties?

  • roger shade 23rd Jul '09 - 9:30pm

    Tuition fees and care of the elderly are really two signature policies for the Libdems. In Scotland we made them a condition of a coalition,they are inmensely popular. Yes Nick we do need to balance the budget but we can use taxation as well, taxation on higher incomes and free University education are fundamental to social mobility.

  • Liberal Neil 23rd Jul '09 - 10:07pm

    Nothing in the ‘Fresh Start’ document or Nick’s interview says that we are changing our policy on tuition fees.

    Some of the reportage has suggested that that is what he means, but he hasn’t actually said it.

    It will be far better if we could debate the content of the actual document and have a sensible debate about what our priorities are in light of the difficult economic situation.

    There are a lot of people in the party, at every level, and particularly on the Federal Policy Committee who have supported and are likely to continue to support retaining our current stance on tuition fees.

  • @Neil

    I’m not going to doubt your commitment on the tuition fees issue.

    However the problem is that this is the last chance “the party” will be have to influence the manifesto which will include commmitments to particular policies.

    What will be the democratic process for deciding that? Particularly given the view of your FPC colleague Linda Jack about the “sidelining” of FPC.

    And, with my campaigning hat on, when will we actually know what we will actually be campaigning for in the manifesto so we can actually go out and do some?

  • “In Scotland we made them a condition of a coalition,they are inmensely popular.”

    Free care for the elderly wasn’t a condition of the coalition but came later.

    “taxation on higher incomes and free University education are fundamental to social mobility.”

    In which case the mid-late 1970s should have been the dream time for social mobility.

  • Liberal Neil 24th Jul '09 - 12:20am

    @Hywel – I usually agree with Linda on policies but I don’t agree with her take on Nick’s comments or on the downgrading of FPC.

    We are in a genuinly difficult period. We will ahve to produce a manifesto for the lection and we are committing ourselves to it being properly costed (again). However we reall do not know what the financial constraints will be at the tme of the election nor what the scale of structural deficit is likely to be.

    In that context it is genuinly difficult to say exactly what we will be able to afford to commit to at that point. What this pre-manifesto aims to do is to set out our general priorities (many of which do not cost money) and the principles we will apply to the final manifesto decisions.

    As I understand it (and being a new member of FPC) we will be fully involved in the process of prioritisation leading up to the finalisation of the manifesto, as has been the case previously.

    My experience of this FPC so far suggests that they will want to take a very active role in this discussion, and that we will want a very full discussion about priorities, the costings relating to them, and the timing of commitments.

    Realistically Nick is right to say that we will not be in a position to commit to immediately implement all the policies we would like to. But that dosn’t mean we won’t be able to deliver several of our key policies.

  • Herbert Brown 24th Jul '09 - 8:25am

    “However we reall do not know what the financial constraints will be at the tme of the election nor what the scale of structural deficit is likely to be.

    In that context it is genuinly difficult to say exactly what we will be able to afford to commit to at that point.”

    Think about what you’re saying.

    An election manifesto potentially has to cover a five-year period. What sense does it make to say that we’re still 8 months away from an election, so we don’t have the information to make broad policy decisions?

  • Liberal Neil 24th Jul '09 - 10:07am

    But we HAVE made ‘broad policy decisions’.

    The document sets out, in broad terms, what out priorities will be.

    What we have delayed is the final allocation of resources between those policies.

    At the time of the election we will have to make a judgement about how we expect the public finances to pan out over the five year parliament and produce costed proposals that fit.

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