What a mess we seem to have got ourselves into over tuition fees. How on earth did we get here?
I can only speak for myself. I joined the party because of its policies on green issues, clarity of thought on civil liberties, regard for international law, opposition to nuclear energy and renewal of Trident, and tuition fees.
This latter policy was very important to me.
I don’t come from a privileged background. At school I was one of the kids on free school meals and to go to university I had a full grant.
I hated free school meals because everyone knew who the kids with free school meals were, but I loved my grant cheque because no-one knew how much it was. Funnily enough, quite a lot of the middle class kids resented those of us who got the full whack because we weren’t dependent on our parents. ( As an aside, this raises an interesting thought: had my family been better off, would it have been more difficult for me to have gone to university if I had been dependent on my parents to top up my grant – would the financial support have been conditional? For young Muslim girls in particular the answers could be quite interesting).
So for me, getting rid of tuition fees was a no-brainer. I hugely valued my grant cheque (well beyond its financial value) and the thought of others like my young self no longer receiving this help was not acceptable, and anyway if the offer of a move away from tuition fees and back to the old system was on the table then that was what I wanted.
I voted to get rid of tuition fees and signed the NUS pledge. I did it in good faith. I accept that the funding of universities was not an issue that was then on my horizon.
However, the country did not vote for us in large enough numbers (how many of the 50,000 on the student march voted Lib Dem?) and we were forced ( I use the word advisedly) into a coalition with the Tories – any other option in the circumstances would have been daft.
I voted for the coalition deal at the special conference, with huge reservations about the negotiated abstention on tuition fees, but put the sinking feeling to one side – the bald fact is that the electorate did not give us a mandate to get rid of tuition fees.
And after all, given the litany of our other policies being accepted it would have been churlish to have said no – cutting off our nose to spite our face, when the facts change then so do I, politics being the art of the possible etc.
I took the decision to support those MPs who decided to exercise their negotiated right to abstain.
The events of the last few days or so have forced me to think harder about this difficult issue.
I ask myself three questions:
1. Was the grant cheque the incentive to go to university or was it the schooling I was fortunate enough to have had, at a south west London state school?
2. Would I have gone to university knowing that I would have to pay back my costs when I could afford to do so?
3. Should I pay something back now that I can comfortably afford to do so?
The answer to the first question is that unquestionably the decision to go to university arose out of my experiences at school and my academic ambitions – not the lure of the cheque.
The answer to questions 2 and 3, after very careful consideration, is yes; the real barrier would have been to find the money upfront.
Therefore the really important point for me is that we must concentrate our efforts on giving disadvantaged children the confidence to apply for a university place, and that means giving them the opportunity to get the qualifications they need – this must be a priority. The leadership has got this much right.
However, the government must monitor the uptake of university places by young people from disadvantaged backgrounds carefully, to ensure that unintended consequences are dealt with. There is a safety net in place of £150m, but little detail, to my knowledge, of how and to whom it will be deployed.
How smug the opposition benches are. Yet, why are Labour not being held to account for introducing tuition fees? And who commissioned the Browne review and outlined its remit? No wonder Labour wouldn’t put a palatable coalition deal on the table – they knew the scale of the problems they were leaving behind and preferred to carp from the opposition benches rather than deal with it. What is Labour’s proposal? Where is their response to Browne?
We should be pushing Labour for answers, not pulling ourselves apart.
Personally, I can’t take seriously any opposition to the government’s position which isn’t backed up by an alternative proposition. To do Vince Cable justice, he did argue hard in favour of the graduate tax option – albeit in vain.
So let’s hear it from Labour.
Shas Sheehan was the Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate for Wimbledon at the 2010 General Election
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59 Comments
A lot of those 50k voted Lib Dem!
The number of people who voted for you is irrelevant. Where people did elect a LD MP, they expected them to follow their *personal* promises.
Rethinking now is no good. Maybe you shouldn’t have signed the NUS pledge out of here opportunism.
Labour now say they support a graduate tax. Yet a graduate tax would offer a huge incentive for graduates to go and work abroad where they do not have to pay it. I would also prefer a graduate tax, but I do not know how you get round this point.
I think at the very least the Lib Dems should have blocked the proposals to lift the cap to £9,000. They should have kept the existing policy and waited until economic conditions make alternative policies more viable.
The reason why they did not do this is because they have signed up to the stringent cuts program of George Osborne. If you oppose the current policy on tuition fees, you also need to make the case against the scale of these overall cuts, because otherwise cuts have to be made elsewhere.
Agreed Geoff – yet there’s another problem to what you’re saying. If the taxpayer were to fund the gap in tuition fees and no other cuts are agreed upon you would have to pay extra money in interest payments to the banks.
Some of this party have got to get real – when you inherit a big deficit there is little room for manoeuvre. I agree a pledge is a pledge – it was a hijacking by the NUS (that’s another matter – we don’t want to be in hoc to these union interest groups like little poodles – we can safely leave that to Labour). Unless of course you’re saying that all you have to do is spend money and disregard everything else.
What a wild proposition – that the Lib Dem position isn’t as important as Labour’s failings. It doesn’t really matter what Labour thinks right now, they’re in opposition.
The people that voted Lib Dem voted for this policy. Now we’re in power we can’t deliver on it, indeed the coalition is proposing a massive hike in fees. It’s fine for you to sit there and apply your free education to the subject and decide, on balance, that everything is OK really, but you’re not young, poor and confronted with debts knocking on the door of £40k. If you don’t think that’s going to put people off then you don’t remember how big numbers like that sound when you’re young and poor – it’s an astounding level of debt to start your working life with. £150m is not going to solve that problem.
This is the same old toss – older people that got everything for free wanting the young to pay for their lifestyle and retirement.
Vote Soylent Green!
@John
“Some of this party have got to get real – when you inherit a big deficit there is little room for manoeuvre. I agree a pledge is a pledge – it was a hijacking by the NUS (that’s another matter – we don’t want to be in hoc to these union interest groups like little poodles – we can safely leave that to Labour). Unless of course you’re saying that all you have to do is spend money and disregard everything else.”
Oh come off it. Don’t blame the NUS for the signing and then breaking of an unconditional pledge by a bunch of ‘innocent’ politicians (I wanted to use a stronger word, but I suppose politician is the worst insult I could think of).
“Some of this party have got to get real – when you inherit a big deficit there is little room for manoeuvre”
Everybody was aware of the size of the deficit during the election…. indeed it is lower than forecast. THere was plenty of time to ammend the policy for negotiations… they didn’t. Why? They wanted votes.
In addition the current government has been so incompetent that a study by the HEPI (Higher Eudcation POlicy Institute) has found that the current proposals not only make no difference in terms of real money to the cap in fees (because of inflation), but they actually save the government NO money. That means the deficit will not be lowered AT ALL by this policy of raising fees.
How sad that its come to this…
‘We might have sold out on everything, but hey… look at Labour! It’s all their fault!’
It doesn’t matter how you wriggle, squirm and finger point. All anyone sees is a party that sold out for a seat at the big boys table.
green issues – sell the forests
clarity of thought on civil liberties – what are they again?
regard for international law – meh
opposition to nuclear energy and renewal of Trident – well… umm… Just a few power stations & we’ll update the nukes later.
tuition fees – quick, blame Labour!
Labour got any figures and policies on that leviticus? As for all this finger-wagging – vote for someone else
“is a safety net in place of £150m, but little detail, to my knowledge, of how and to whom it will be deployed.”
This measly sum is a joke, the £150million would only fund 5555 Students on a 3 year course at £9k a year.
“We should be pushing Labour for answers, not pulling ourselves apart.
Personally, I can’t take seriously any opposition to the government’s position which isn’t backed up by an alternative proposition”
Why should the coalition be pushing Labour for answers? Labour are not the ones in power, your party is.
Labour do not have to provide an alternative policy, That is not how opposition works,
If and when an election is called, Labour then has to present it’s policies to the electorate for them to vote on.
Your are really doing your party injustice by continuing on with this waffle.
The Liberal Democrats are implementing this policy, so it is their responsibility to justify
A) why they are doing it
and
B) How they believe it will benefit the country
and
C) If it is fair and progressive.
By constantly dodging these questions and throwing a tantrum about what Labour would have done differently, shows immaturity in the party and highlights the fact that it is not suitable to be in government.
“3. Should I pay something back now that I can comfortably afford to do so?
The answer to questions 2 and 3, after very careful consideration, is yes; the real barrier would have been to find the money upfront.”
May I ask, which fees system do you intend to use to calculate the amount you should pay back?
“I can only speak for myself. I joined the party because of its policies on green issues, clarity of thought on civil liberties, regard for international law, opposition to nuclear energy and renewal of Trident, and tuition fees.”
Thats why I switched my vote at the age of 53 for the first time and Nick Clegg and Vince Cable have ensured that the Liberals will never receive my vote again. Your party were the hope for the poor and under privileged and your party gave up its pledges and principles for power. Hell hath no fury like a switch voter scorned
.
Of all the Lib Dem candidates who stood for parliament, how many signed the pledge and how many didn’t?
How many of those who didn’t sign the pledge got elected?
Shas – The reason you and others got into the mess you did was because you gave a very public pledge when your leadership had already renaged on your party’s tuition fee policy and party manifesto commitment – it really is that simple. It had nothing to do with the economic situation as claimed by your leadership as a fig-leaf to hide their cynical decision which appears to have been kept secret from pledgers like yourself.
I’m a lot older than you and came from a poor background and also didn’t pay uni tuition fees and got a grant to maintain myself while there.
Yea free school meals were traumatic and my lone parent mother paid for them rather than have me identified and humiliated as being very poor. Even in the general poverty of Glasgow Gorbals there was a hierarchy and unemployed Irish labourers and their families occupied the lowest level – in many ways they mirrored the situation of modern economic immigrants perceived by equally-poor ‘natives’ to be stealing jobs and housing, uneducated and not able to speak the language..
As I matured and reached secondary school I began to realise that education could provide an escape from poverty and that became my burning ambition. I was in the top academic stream which meant I would have been able to get an office job or train as a draughtsman or get a high-level engineering apprenticeship. Lots of job areas were closed to me as a Roman Catholic but thankfully that is one scourge which has slowly been lessening over the decades in Scotland and has been a major blot on the country – feelings can still run deep but are seldom articulated which makes it harder to excise them.
Without the grant and tuition fees paid then I would have gone down that road and wouldn’t have been the first person from my family to stay at school beyond 15 and go to uni.
Possibly I would have made it later – who knows. And hopefully I might have been able to financially assist my children to go to uni – again, who knows.
As it is, all three made it with a combination of grants, loans and parental help and all have got good first degrees with one going onto do a PhD.
The real question is Shas, could all this happen today with the current level of fees. Will young people still be willing to go to uni with the large debt level they will leave with. I understand the argument about making it less painless to pay-off this debt but it is just another pressing burden on personal finance especially when the housing situation is so difficult.
I too have searched my conscience and feel that most would-be students appear to be prepared to pay a certain percentage of uni costs but I cannot accept a government basically slashing uni funding and leaving students to pick-up the majority of the shortfall. I am a socialist and could never vote Tory or indeed LibDem but I have a lot of respect for radical Liberalism and recognise its importance in our political tapestry.
You ask what is Labour’s proposal – well quite simply the role of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition is to test government policies. Where you will see their policies is when they suggest amendments to the relevant bill in Parliament.
However, you certainly have the makings of a politiciam Shas when you state: ‘the bald fact is that the electorate did not give us a mandate to get rid of tuition fees’. That is correct but I know that the electorate most certainly didn’t give any party a mandate to triple fees and the public are very adept at spotting a politician attempting to wriggle off the petard they hoisted themself onto for short-term political gain ie the tution pledge publicity wheeze. Sad thing for the LibDems is that a lot of people, especially students, appear to have believed them and made the mistake of thinking it was a pledge they could take to the bank 🙂
But the worm in the democracy apple is the secret LibDem coalition committee which was redrawing policy in the event of a coalition government. Danny Alexander had decided months before the personal BUS pledges were signed that the party’s coalition policy was to be junked. Did the pledgers know this or was it kep secret from them by the party elite?
I suggest that your obserbation that Labour wouldn’t put a palatable coalition deal on the table has more to do with the fact that they were well aware of the top-level informal negotiations going on behind the scenes between Tory and LibDems surrounding a possible coalition come the GE.
I think history will show that these talks did take place and the details will slowly emerge, as they always do, with politicians who can never stop blowing their own trumpet for very long as long as there is some personal advantage.
I would also concede that Labour was possibly exhausted after its period in power which lasted long-enough to fall out with just about everyone and I believe this is a factor that can damage a government no matter the political hue.
Labour also probably took the cynical decision that the Tories in coalition would ultimately destroy the LibDems or, at the very least, cause a major split in the party which would remove them as an electoral force and coincidentally provide a home for the resultant diaspora within the Labour Party. I know that the vast majority of my LibDem friends could sit more easily within the Labour Party than in the Tory ranks.
Of course senior LibDems who have tasted the fruits of power in government would possibly join the Tories which would be the death knell for the party.
However, time will tell.
I’ve never heard so much rubbish talked about a single issue. It’s just getting absolutely tedious.
The bizarre thing is that it’s still officially Lib Dem policy to _abolish_ tuition fees, which makes it even more ridiculous to try somehow to pin the blame on Labour. What are the Lib Dems saying? We’re trebling fees now, but our policy is to abolish them altogether. The “new politics,” indeed!
I am getting a little tired of Lib Dem whining about what Labour would do.
Asa has been pointed on ad infinitum Labour did not win the last election, does not form the government and knows there will be no election for 5 years (according to the new rules…..). If I was a Labour member I would be very pissed of if policies were being announced for an election 5 years hence.
There is time for Labour to formulate a policy in time for the next general Election and, hopefully, we will see a little more sense from them that has been exhibited since around 2001.
It is a bit rich since the Lib Dems did (and still do) have a policy that they are now arguing again. I also remember that before the election noone really had an idea what the Tories believed in on a number of issues – one of them being tuition fees.
Instead of boring us with articles about Labour – sort your own policies out and then you may start seeing your popularity increasing!
If you answered ‘Yes’ to your question 3, ‘Should I pay something back now that I can comfortably afford to do so?’ then why do you go on to support the Government’s proposals which don’t ask you to.
I agree that those of us who had a free (to us) higher education and are now in a position to comfortably do so should pay more.
I despair that the Government isn’t asking me to, and that future graduates will pay the whole cost while I paid very little.
Surely it is far better for all graduates to pay something like 2% on income above the average than future graduates pay 9% above £21K?
A very thoughtful contribution from ecojon – I really enjoyed reading it ! I am a Lib Dem Councillor, and will remain within the party even if I lose my seat back to the Tories next May.
I am not at all happy with the U Turn on Tuition Fees, and am no fan of the Tories either. My natural position is on the Left of the Party. HOWEVER, the deal reached with the Tories was clearly the only game in town, and I would rather the Coalition, as against a totally unbridled right wing Tory Govt. ALSO, although my 2nd vote would always go to Labour, for many years now with that party “what you see is NOT what you get” !!! – They and Blair totally threw away a chance to change so many bad things about this country once and for all, and that was a tremendous shame, and wasted opportunity !!
Shas,
You start your article with “What a mess we seem to have got ourselves into over tuition fees. How on earth did we get here?” Answer – seems like a classical example of groupthink to me.
As for paying the cost of tertiary education back, you probably ought to take a look at the OECD’s recent report on the subject. One of their conclusions is:
“Even after taking account of the cost to the public exchequer of financing degree courses, higher tax revenues and social contributions from people with university degrees make tertiary education a good long-term investment.”
In other words, the £2.9bn “saving” on university teaching being made by the coalition isn’t a saving at all, but will have a negative impact on the economy and social fabric of the country taken over the medium to long term.
Supporting the coalition position on tuition fees is not only a flat contradiction of what the vast majority of our candidates promised at the election and what is (still) party policy, but will also do nothing to help the economy either.
@Shas Sheehan The answer to questions 2 and 3, after very careful consideration, is yes; the real barrier would have been to find the money upfront.
Thanks for an honest, thoughtful article. Not many politicians are prepared to be as honest about how their opinions develop over time, but I wish more were.
@Geoffrey Payne
Yet a graduate tax would offer a huge incentive for graduates to go and work abroad where they do not have to pay it
It’s worse than that. The point of a graduate tax is that the rich subsidise the poor. Unless we wanted to offer education to EU students for free, we’d have to give them the option to pay upfront. Legally, we’d then have to give rich UK students the same option. Which would mean students of rich families could get out of subsidising the poor. But students from poor families who ended up getting well-paid jobs wouldn’t.
If you oppose the current policy on tuition fees, you also need to make the case against the scale of these overall cuts, because otherwise cuts have to be made elsewhere
You are right that this is a matter of choices. If we raised taxes in order to protect state subsidies for students going to university, that’s still a conscious decision to give priority to student finance over reversing cuts in, say, welfare or legal aid.
Of course, slowing the pace of the cuts wouldn’t help at all. At best, that would just delay these difficult decisions for a couple of years.
“Yet, why are Labour not being held to account for introducing tuition fees? And who commissioned the Browne review and outlined its remit? ”
1. Labour lost votes after the “top up fees” debacle and the Lib Dem mantra at the time was about broken promises.
“We will not introduce top up fees and will legislate against them” was a lie Labour told to help get elected.
“I pledge to vote against any increase in fees in the next parliament and to pressure the government to introduce a fairer alternative” Is a lie Lib dems told to help get elected.
At the last election Labour were considered by many floating voters (the ones who win an lose elections for parties) as dishonest due to lies such the one ablove. At the next election the Lib Dems will be considered in the smae light.
2. Labour comissioned the review and would be obliged to respond to it IF THEY WON THE ELECTION OR WERE PART OF A COALITION. As it is now they have years before they need any settled policies and can spend some time debating them.
“If you oppose the current policy on tuition fees, you also need to make the case against the scale of these overall cuts, because otherwise cuts have to be made elsewhere”
Presumably you missed the report by the Higher Education Policy Institute which suggested that the new policy might not actually save the government any money at all?
Detailed arguements about tuition fees are irrelevant. LibDems signed a pledge in public and should stick to it. Backbench MPs should vote against any increase, LibDems in Government should abstain as allowed by the Coalition Agreement. THE INTEGRITY OF THE WHOLE PARTY IS AT STAKE!
Bombard LibDem News, Simon Hughes and Tim Farron. The party has a chance to get something positive out of this, but only if our MPs take united action.
I have been involved in two local by-elections back-to-back. In the month since the student fees story broke, quite a few people on the doorstep are now saying they will not vote for us because of it. A month ago, national issues were not raised, people knew the defict had to be dealt with. Its the breaking of a signed pledge which has done it.
Very good post Shas Sheehan; it is cheering to read some practical common sense.
In the comments I note, the same lads are embroiled in the usual purer than thou arguments.
When the crunch came it was obvious that we couldn’t deliver on free tuition, it is to Vince’s credit that he has put together a good compromise deal.
I am glad you were able to get a grant; many of us had to work our way through part time university. I think the figure for part time F/HE is as much as 40%. I am proud that LD input means that part time students will no longer have to pay up-front.
Elizabeth
With the abolition of the Education Maintenance Allowance for 16-18 years olds from families on benefit there are going to be far fewer kids from poorer backgrounds who will have the qualifications to go to university anyway. I remember David Laws supporting the abolition of EMAs before the election – I thought that his belief must be an aberration in a party that has as one of its founding principles that every individual should have the opportunity to develop their abilities to the fullest extent possible, but apparently not. Was that just a soundbite that Nick used over and over again about the life expectancies of people in the poorest and richest wards of Sheffield? I know from the direct experience of my family how important the EMA can be to the future educational chances of students in receipt of it, and I just cannot understand how a policy that has been so effective in helping young people onto the first steps out of poverty can be junked with the assistance of Liberal Democrats.
“When the crunch came it was obvious that we couldn’t deliver on free tuition …”
How many times is this lie going to be repeated, for God’s sake?
Labour won’t say anything – the less they say, the less there is for people to pick holes in, confront and reject.
Fees didn’t play a part in why I joined the party, and I don’t think free university is particularly fair – why should Lawyers and Accountants get free training in the form of a degree while so many people in manual professions have to pay for their own training courses upfront?
If the cap would have been uniform and lower, I would support a small rise in fees. an increase by £500 a year, for example, would not have the shock value that a trebling of fees has. Yes, I know there are measures in the bill to make the situation fairer for poorer students, I know the repayment level is higher and grants will be bigger and part timers will be covered. But what attracts attention is that figure of £9,000. Or £27,000 before you’ve even considered living costs.
The 18 year old me was scared of £3,000 a year – what if I didn’t like the course? I’d drop out and still be in debt. What if I didn’t get one of these fabled graduate jobs (I still haven’t – I wear a hi-viz jacket and a hard hat to work)? £9,000 a year plus living costs, the equivalent of buying a brand new Ford Fiesta every year for 3 years, would have put me off entirely.
Regardless of how fair the other measures are, it is the headline figure which will put people off. Not just from poor backgrounds but from middle-income families too, who won’t get the same grants but whose parents still may struggle to support them.
We could have been so radical……. 2 year courses, more apprenticeships and ‘less degrees for the sake of degrees’, removing the unfairness behind legal adults being judged on their parents’ earnings, spreading research grants beyond the Russell Group and attracting employers towards newer universities, which have done so much to regenerate so many towns and cities…..
I know Labour don’t have a policy – but I don’t care about Labour. When they do have a policy, I usually don’t think much of it either. But WE could’ve had a real radical policy – yes maybe with some fee increases, but for good reason. Instead, the divide between elite universities and the rest will continue, research-based companies will still gravitate around the elite universities and ex-polytechnics will struggle to break out of the bottom of the league table.
So, if somebody puts in an amendment to stagger a fee rise over a number of years, or to stop this 2-tier cap, or to limit it to say £4000 or £4500, I’d be very supportive. As it stands, I’m out.
A Graduate Tax would be a dog’s dinner for the reasons given above, and a few more. Would graduates of prestigious universities be taxed more highly than those from upgraded FEs? Would you pay more for a first than a 2.1, and more for a 2.1 than a 2.2? If an institution suffered a loss of reputation, would your tax band be lowered? And what about careers that are poorly paid but require a degree to enter, eg, social work? Would they be exempt?
George Kendall, once again, rubbishes the party’s deficit reduction policy and aserts that the Tory one was not only right all along but inevitable. George, if your analysis is correct, Vince Cable must have been either an economic illiterate or a cynical opportunist to commend and campaign for the party’s policy which it now turns out was complete rubbish. Or maybe Vince was right. And Cameron and his sidekick Clegg were just looking for an excuse to redistribute wealth and power in favour of the rich.
AAS
what evidence do you have that it was a lie?
And do you seriously think there is any chance at all of either of the other two parties doing anything to reduce fees, let alone get rid of them, when they are in power?
having said that, for me the issue isn’t tutition fees, it’s the pledge. I was a ppc, I signed the pledge. Had I been elected I would therefore have had to vote against an increase – even if I thought the rest of the ideas are better than we have now (which they are). End of.
Yes this is a mess. But not one created from evil intent. What do they say? The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
I find it very disconcerting that so many people who had the benefits and the privilege of a free University Education, now feel it is ok to totally change the way we fund HE and to cut the teaching budget by 80% and dump all the costs on to the student, with a life long debt.
I can accept that a university education can not teach some people moral fibre, but I would have hoped, at least it would have taught them the value to society and the value to the economy a university education can give.
Have Liberal Democrats really managed to stray so far from the path, in such a short period of time, all for the taste of power and for a few meaningless positions in cabinet which just allows the Tories to use them as canon fodder.
I Repeat this link
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/nov/17/ifs-withdraws-tuition-fees-approval
I posted on and has been discussed on
https://www.libdemvoice.org/false-claims-of-betrayal-do-the-nus-no-credit-22103.html
Are most Lib Dem MPs and PPCs just unaware and simply believe what they are told? Are they taken into a room and bombarded with mind numbing rays? Or do they not just give a damn?
Why is the withdrawal of EMA not widely discussed? I have raised it several times on this forum but have never seen any justification (or reply) for it. Gove admitted that the money saved from EMA was going towards the Pupil Premium. Come on any Lib Dem MP or activist let us have your opinions on this please.
As for the tuition fees, neither of my children, one graduated and one in second year would have gone to university with the new fees and that is fact and if these fees had been in place I doubt the author of this article would have either. I came from a poor family as well. that amount of debt would just not have been considered. What Lib Dems forget when they slate the NUS is that all these students also have parents who voted for you because of the pledge so multiply the students lost vote by the number of parents to see what this has cost you in votes.
You are now in Government. All your ‘policies’ while in opposition are being revealed as the sham they always were. Welcome to responsibility- enjoy.
I quite agree Anne: the Pupil Premium is an important policy, but it is not a substitute for the Education Maintenance Allowance, and for it to be part funded by the abolition of the EMA is a disgrace and something that Liberal Democrat MPs and peers should oppose – but probably won’t.
It is also worrying that Nick Clegg is trying to hurry and push the vote forward, too happen before Christmas.
I think he realises that the longer this diabolical situation goes on, the worse it is going to get for the Liberal Democrat Party.
Opinion Polls are already starting to show that support for the cuts are seriously starting to wane, especially the cuts that are aimed at the poorest people in society.
People are also starting to realise that the figures supplied by the government where also very misleading.
For example The 21k payback threshold is based on wages at 2016 levels and not on 2012 as the coalition led us to believe.
The IFS were also led to believe by the Government that the threshold would be raised every year in line with earnings and inflation, as Browne Report proposed, rather than every five years, as the government is proposing now.
The longer this situation goes on, the worse it gets for the Liberal Democrat Party, the more Liberal democrat activists and councillors come forward and defend these u-turns on Tuition fee’s, with spins and foul Tory Guff’s, they add another nail to the coffin.
Liberal Democrats should be ashamed of what is happening to our education system.
To Abolish EMA to fund the Pupil Premium is a disgrace
To Cut the teaching budget by 80% and lump the cost on to the student is shameful.
To triple Tuition Fee’s is an abomination.
Madam, this is total humbug. Your promise to the electorate that you have betrayed that electorate on (the tuition fees issue is one of many) was not conditional. Your manifesto pledges did not depend on electoral arithmetic, or your silly personal agonising. If you have integrity in life then you do not publicly agree with, let alone endorse something you profoundly disagree with. Doing what the LibDems are doing is what makes politics rotten. And yes I honestly did vote for the LibDems, but never again. They are the wretched old politics that we, the electorate, thought we were voting to get rid of.
@Mike Shaw
“I know Labour don’t have a policy – but I don’t care about Labour” Well said. I didn’t vote for them I voted for the Lib Dems.
@Mrs B
Spot on I wish you had won your seat. The pledge is about integrity. Some elements may be better, but even the rise to £21K seems a little hollow now we know it will not be index linked. Link this with EMA loss and it is apparent that for those on low incomes University will once again be a step too far.
Mrs B – I sympathise with you and all the other PPC’s as well as most of those elected on the whole issue of the pledge as long as they didn’t know that policy had already been changed.
But I cannot accept that this particular road to electoral hell was paved with good intentions. A leadership clique including Clegg and Alexander had decided by March that the party policy and manifesto commitment on tuition fees had to be ditched.
They cynically kept that secret from the pledgers and the electorate to win votes and that really is what’s sticking in people’s throats. I am a Labour Supporter but I really think it harms democracy if the LibDem party is destroyed through this and all the other nonsense that’s coming down the coalition pipeline.
Why oh why, didn’t they realise the hostage to fortune they were giving – it was complete political ineptitude. All they had to put in the pledge was that it was dependent on the LibDems forming the Government on their own and they could easily have inserted a caveat that it couldn’t be guaranteed in a coalition government situation as that government’s policy would need to be negotiated after the election.
I also have a quiet smile at the angst coming from some LibDems re the NUS boxing them into a corner. In reality it was your leadership that boxed you into a corner but if you genuinely believe the NUS blindsided you then gawd help you in your dealings with the Tories who are the real masters at it.
Just in case anyone forgets what Clegg actually said at the time of the pledge here it is and I know the words will be painful to many principled party members although the spinners and mouthpieces will just close their eyes as it’s obvious they have already closed their rational thought processes: ‘Labour and the Conservatives have been trying to keep tuition fees out of this election campaign. Despite the huge financial strain fees already place on Britain’s young people, it is clear both Labour and the Conservatives want to lift the cap on fees . . .
The Liberal Democrats are different. Not only will we oppose any raising of the cap, we will scrap tuition fees for good, including for part-time students . . . Students can make the difference in countless seats in this election. Use your vote to block those unfair tuition fees and get them scrapped once and for all.’
One thing Clegg did get right – students will make a difference in countless seats . . . . at the next GE.
Interesting article but like you Shas i was from a poor background- i was actively discouraged from going onto higher education by my parents – something i regret them doing – and subsequently i missed out on free university education.
However i did go as a mature student and had to pay tuition fees which had been brought in by Labour – i didnt resent them for doing it and this attitude of Labour brought them in doesnt wash any more , theyre here to stay and the vast majority of families i know who have children at university know its a fact of life – however much of a bug bear it is.
The pledge was clearly made as a gesture , as LDs never really thought they would face the possibility of being made to honour it – ( we’re not fooled) but the u-turn was appalling and the LD mps who were elected had that on their manifestos and to rip it up within a few months was a scandal and the party deserve everything it gets over this
Its pointless asking Labours policy as oppositions cant formulate Government policy and thanks to the forthcoming Bill wont have to until may 2015 – so you LDS having sold your souls have to face judgement on your actions in getting into bed with the tories.
Your partys actions on tuition fees are reprehensible – You made a pledge and youve let so many people who voted for you down – people will be reminded about what youve done or more likely they wont forget
The self-delusion amongst Liberal Democrats since the tuition fees debacle beggars belief.
I voted Lib Dem in 2005 and 2010. I will never vote for them again.
This coalition reminds me of the story about the scorpion and the frog.
The scorpion (Tory) asks the frog (Lib Dem) to carry him across a river. The frog is afraid of being stung, but after reassurances, the frog agrees, thinking that the scorpion won’t sting mid river.
Sure enough, in mid-river, the scorpion stings the frog.
When the frog asks the scorpion why it broke its promise, the scorpion states, “what did you expect? I’m a scorpion; it’s in my nature.”
There are going to be an awful lot of dead Lib Dem frogs at the next General Election, funnily enough I suspect that, with the boundary changes being pushed through, most of the Tory scorpions will survive, no doubt using the dead bodies of the Lib Dem frogs as floats and stepping stones until they are safely ashore and they have a working majority in their own right.
It is shocking how easy it was for a relatively new political party to become corrupted by power and how lackadaisical its membership is with each new betrayal by the Lib Dem leadership.
But how are the Lib Dems EVER going to have any influence if not in coalitions?
Labour and the Tories may both be scorpions trying to attack the Liberal frog – but I’d rather get half way across the river than not bother to cross it at all.
I don’t support a party to moan from the sidelines – without coalitions, the only way Lib Dem policies ever get acted upon is when somebody else pinches it and claims it as their own. In Government, we have Lib Dem policies being enacted specifically because they are Lib Dem policies.
This doesn’t mean we have to support all the Tory ones, and this doesn’t mean anyone has given up on the manifesto. But getting bits of it implemented is better than getting none of it implemented – and the alternative would’ve been a damn sight worse than what we have now.
If the possibility of winning elections and implementing what you stand for in government doesn’t appeal to you, then join the English Democrats or whatever party Rainbow George is organising these days. You can whinge to your hearts content about how terrible politics is and how all politicians are scum. For those of us who understand that compromise and reassessment of ideas is natural in politics, especially in coalitions.
What do you all expect, all Lib Dem policies and no Tory ones? For the manifestos to actually be the same thing? We’re supposed to be a party that supports Proportional Representation – how can we possibly attack the idea of compromise if we favour PR?!
I suspect most of these “lib dem voters” are actually Labour trolls who can’t quite get their head round the concept that the Lib Dems are an independent party who would dare to form a coalition with a party that wasn’t Labour.
97% of people in the 60s voted Lab or Con. 64% in 2010 voted Lab or Con. Coalitions are here to stay. Get used to compromise, it isn’t going to go away – it just might be with different people. We’ve compromised at local and devolved level for years, this government isn’t that shocking to me.
If you want 100% lib dem policies with no compromise, then vote Yes in may, then vote lib dem in 2015 so we can have another coalition and a referendum on real PR……then we might get somewhere towards implementing everything that the anti-coalition mob want us to implement now. Simple.
Stop trying to defend the indefensible, the Lib Dems gained electoral advantage from this brazen policy of speaking with a forked tongue.
If you want electoral reform, stop this nonsense of defending this U-turn and move along. People will identify electoral reform with the Lib Dems BS on this issue, that’s not what the electoral reform debate should be about but many people will want to give the Lib Dems a bloody nose, stop defending this nonsense or you will lose the electoral reform vote.
If you don’t want to hear Liberal Democrats defending the Liberal Democrats then why are you reading and commenting on Lib Dem voice articles?
I don’t think many people are defending the raise in fees at all, but defending the decision to compromise to get some of our policies onto the statute books. If you think a Tory minority government was a better option then fair enough, it’s not my view but you’re entitled to it.
@ Mike Shaw, I’m pointing out that defending the indefensible will cost you the electoral reform vote, if you guys don’t want to heed that advice, it’s up to you.
As far as I know the electoral reform society have no ties to the lib dems at all. I’m sure it has a campaign strategy which probably goes along the lines of avoid politicians like the plague.
If either side gets party-political in the electoral reform debate, it’ll just put people off even turning up to cast a vote. Self-interested politicians telling people to vote a particular way won’t win anybody round.
Before giving me advice on what to say, perhaps you should look at your own house first. Andy Burnham has dictated that no CLP is allowed to campaign for electoral reform, a Labour policy!
@ Mike Shaw, I voted Lib Dem at the last election, so the get your own house in order comment is wide of the mark, I am left of centre in principle but I voted Lib Dem for their attitude on electoral reform and the cuts, Vince caved on the cuts.
The more you guys try and defend this U-turn, the bigger hole you dig. I’m not a Lib Dem party member, I’m not a Labour party member, but the wallowing over this issue needs to go to the member forums, the U-turn cannot be defended here where everyone of any hue can comment and the more it gets defended, the sillier your party looks, move along.
Although I’ve never felt the need to mention it before, I also received free school meals, but unlike you, I loved them. I come from a big family & I was hungry as a child & as so appreciated free school dinners. I didn’t go to university I went to work , but all that is beside the point.
The point is the Fib-Dems made a pledge, which is a solemn promise & as so they should keep to it, no it’s or buts, it is a solemn promise.
Labour, wasn’t without fault, but who would have thought that a vote for the LibDems, would be a vote for the most extreme right wing policies, this country has ever known?
The minority CAN make a difference in a “Hung Parliament” if it wishes to, or it can sell it’s soul to the devil, as Clegg has, who will most probably defect to the Tory’s when the time is right.
@Sesenco “George, if your analysis is correct, Vince Cable must have been either an economic illiterate or a cynical opportunist”
Have a read of the following article, written in 2009, by a certain V Cable.
“A substantial fiscal adjustment is required, more than existing government proposals”
and
“a fiscal tightening to the tune of around 8 per cent of GDP over 5 years may well be needed. The current Government’s plans for a correction of 6.4 per cent of GDP over 8 years are optimistic.”
http://www.libdems.org.uk/siteFiles/resources/PDF/Tackling%20the%20fiscal%20crisis.pdf
@Anne
re: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/nov/17/ifs-withdraws-tuition-fees-approval
Not a good article. It spends the fist three quarters with quotations and analysis implying that the IFS was about to disown its description of the revised Browne proposals as more progressive than under the current system.
Then, slipped in, in the last couple of paragraphs, it actually quotes the IFS:
“A spokeswoman for the IFS said: “We don’t disown anything and we don’t think BIS misled us in any way. There are a couple of figures that we need to change slightly. We made different assumptions to the government.”
…
“Its not going to make that big a difference,” the spokeswoman said.”
George Kendall,
So you are saying that Vince never believed in the party’s deficit reduction policy (the one he promoted during the general election campaign) in the first place?
Not good, is it?
“I suspect most of these “lib dem voters” are actually Labour trolls”
Oh for heavens sake, is there any chance of a single thread appearing on LDV without a coaltion apologist popping in to dismiss dissent in this way? It’s tedious, unoriginal and does the party no favours whatsoever.
@Mike Shaw
I don’t think most people are here to attack the Lib Dems, more the actions of the party leadership which have put it at odds with Party policy and are forcing through a policy where individuals are going to have to chose between keeping a personal pledge (they were incouraged to sign) and their party’s whips.
Vince Cable has just made it worse this morning, he is deluded and has basically said that it doesn’t matter what is said in campaigns by the Lib Dems from now on they will change it come coalition time. In short no red lines, any and all words from the leadership are to be ignored…..
@ George Kendall
You cannot escape the fact that the tuition fees are not progressive and that by using the £21000 not on 2012 earnings has misled everyone. No amount of hiding from that fact and Cable’s ridiculous denials that he has broken his pledge will not hide the truth. The pledge said nothing about being a majority government but that he would vote against any rise in the next parliament and pressure the govt. for a fairer alternative, It is not fairer. a trebling of fees and a debt of £40000 fair? If Lib Dems were the government the white paper would not have been there to vote on anyway, or would it? In fact Cable’s comments have just made the Lib Dem situation worse. He also seems to think that because the fees will not affect the present students they should not be protesting, how ridiculous. On that premise nobody should protest about anything, but then that is what he and the coalition want as they push through the damaging policies on the poor, weak and vulnerable and indeed all our society. He is helping to destroy the Lib Dem party, a tragedy as we will have a two party parliament, We had hope in the Lib Dems and now there is no hope at all. What has happened to the man? He has just admitted that whatever you say pre election is a load of rubbish. The Lib Dems have destroyed any belief in politicians that the young people of this country began to have because of the Lib Dems and their false promise of new politics and a fairer society. We now know what was meant by new politics, a complete and utter sell out and more and more regressive policies.
@Sesenco
“So you are saying that Vince never believed in the party’s deficit reduction policy (the one he promoted during the general election campaign) in the first place?”
No. Have a read of the following paragraphs on deficit reduction from the manifesto:
“We must ensure the timing is right. If spending is cut too soon, it would undermine the much-needed recovery and cost jobs. We will base the timing of cuts on an objective assessment of economic conditions, not political dogma. Our working assumption is that the economy will be in a stable enough condition to bear cuts from the beginning of 2011–12. …
“We will establish a Council on Financial Stability, involving representatives of all parties, the Governor of the Bank of England and the Chair of the Financial Services Authority. This group would agree the timeframe and scale of a
deficit reduction plan to set the framework (not the detail) for the CSR and seek to promote it externally and domestically.”
http://www.libdems.org.uk/our_manifesto.aspx
@ Mike Shaw
“I suspect most of these “lib dem voters” are actually Labour trolls who can’t quite get their head round the concept that the Lib Dems are an independent party who would dare to form a coalition with a party that wasn’t Labour”
Here we go again, trying to stifle protest by insult! Independent party? Don’t make me laugh. People expected you to curb the excesses of both Tory and Labour but all you did was bring in extreme Thatcherite policies and become Tory.
Yes, I’ve just read Vince’s comments and they’re very unhelpful and totally undermine a lot of hard work by a lot of people before the election.
We need a clear narrative from the leadership that the manifesto policies are still preferable, but unachievable in current arrangement…..not the current line that everything we said before that the tories didnt like was actually rubbish.
It is not enough for us to monitor the uptake of university places amongst the most disadvantaged. We should be promoting the reforms that are being proposed to the disadvantaged as a step forward in affordability of tertiary education. I want more disadvantaged but able young people to attend university. If they understood the reforms they should be more not less likely to apply. We need to make a concerted effort to help them understand the reforms.
I’m sorry Shas.
But you and your colleagues can’t just attempt to change the terms of the debate now. You’ve betrayed your principles. An apology would be the least you could give.
Can I just recall several facts.
1) The Lib Dems took years to configure exactly how THEY as an opposition could feasibly get rid of tuition fees altogether when constantly asked what their plans were.
2) The current plans would be effecting those in 2012, meaning all years at university would not be under the current plan until 2014/2015.
3) Moreover, loans of up to £9,000 will initially LOSE the government more money than it gains, not to be gained back for ten to 20 years.
Both 2) and 3) do make me wonder how this is a necessary deficit reduction over an ideological change? And YES it is a coalition government based on compromise. But honestly, I would have said this would have been a bigger issue than the A.V. referendum considering the issues with deterring poorer students from university seeing the current economic climate. It also must be said that the cost of postrgraduate study (not funded by the government) is proportionate to, and will rise as well as, undergraduate degree costs- however with no funding from the government, and with no signs of the career development loan willing to offer more just to graduates, he diversity of university academics will return to the elite of 1970s, as for all non-funded academic postgraduate study!
In the words of Nick Clegg, though, ‘you can’t build a life on debt’.
What is really funny about all this, is that asking for “what are labour offering or done is wrong” or “it is all Labours fault” will not wash any more, you are the ones in government not Lab, neither may I add will saying “WE are different from Lab and Con”, the first chance in a long time this party had of showing the British public that this party and its members and politicians are different, YOU BLEW IT…
The party leaders have not stood firm on anything that I can see, if they had over tuition fees then maybe, just maybe, the party could have saved something, but now… nothing the party does will save it from the anger that will surely follow, and when the referendum for the alternative vote fails to get support… then what?
The British people want the truth especially at election time, lies about opponents in an election in order to save/get votes has been challenged, we should also have the right to challenge lies about party policies and recall of all MPs of any party that lies to voters, and yes re-elections.
If that is the only way to get the truth, then that is the way politics should be forced to go.
On top of the scandal of expenses, we still have to deal with the very carefully worded untruths of politicians, honour and morality should be expected and not the sleaze in the world of politics that seems to be prevalent.
To finish the party has lost the trust of the switch voter in earnest, and quite a few of the core vote, waiting to see what the referendum result is before acting will only show just how low the party will sink… you can take that how you will
It shouldn’t still need pointing out, but there are two distinct planks to the Lib Dems-versus-Tuition fees issue. The first was the manifesto commitment to abolish fees. That’s not a big problem. Everyone knows manifesto commitments are a more radical version of what will actually happen, and that they’re dependent on having the power to enforce them anyway. There’s no shame in not following through on manifesto pledges when in a coalition (although the extent to which the policy has changed from the the LDs’ original line is unnecessary, they frankly should have negotiated harder).
But the second issue is the signed pledge, and that is a big problem. It explicitly wasn’t another manifesto pledge, that the “coalition dictates” excuse can be wheeled out for. The wording of the pledge makes this clear – it states the MPs “will vote against any increase” in tuition fees. If they’d won a majority in the election, then why would there even be such a vote? The pledge was self-evidently written for circumstances where the party didn’t have a majority, and so saying it would’ve been enacted, but for the failure to win one, is complete nonsense. Then there’s also the issue of its overall importance. Note the difference between the pledge – “oppose any rise” – and the manifesto – “abolish”. Note the fact that it was paraded as a separate entity from the manifesto, with all the hoopla and press coverage surrounding specific individual signings of it. Note the way the hoopla was at its biggest in marginal university seats. All this seemed to indicate to most voters that the pledge was a key point and promise of principle, beyond and apart from the manifesto. One apologetic line in recent weeks has been “well it wasn’t one of our key manifesto goals anyway”, and it’s true, it wasn’t – but it was played as a much bigger PR device than those manifesto goals were, and that’s why the voters are more upset with its abandonment than they are with those of other manifesto policies.
There is just one question that needs answering :-
Under what circumstances can I believe a single word that comes out of a LIb Dem politicians Mouth?
If they sign in blood? If they pledge on the bible/Koran?
You tell me!
Forget the politics to most people this is a question of how we can maintain a democracy when there is no integrity in those we elect to lead! Promise heaven deliver hell!