79 Comments

• david clayton 9th Dec '10 - 7:32pm

  What a mess – and now the Lib Dems are the nasty party

• peebee 9th Dec '10 - 7:56pm

  http://www.kilburntimes.co.uk/news/have_you_seen_brent_central_mp_and_education_minister_sarah_teather_1_750175

  Don’t worry I will catch with her come next election with a few reminders about how she fooled us all….

• Alec Macph 9th Dec '10 - 7:59pm

  I lean towards tuition fees, but lean with equal angle away from opportunistically making a pledge when there was assumed to be no chance of being called on it and then doing an about turn a few weeks later.

• Rantersparadise 9th Dec '10 - 8:02pm

  3 of the strongest women in the party voted ‘for’. Wow. I thought having more women in the party meant you had people because they have experienced discrimination their whole lives understand the plights of the less….lucky.

  God I feel the fool for arguing for affirmative action because I wouldn’t want more of these kind of women..

  Sad.

• Michael 9th Dec '10 - 8:16pm

  What is abundantly clear is that Lib Dem MPs did not support the proposal to increase tuition fees. The vast majority of backbench Lib Dem MPs voting against or abstaining. I can only see 10 backbenchers voting for against 28 voting against or abstaining. It is clear that a large number of Lib Dem ministers would have liked to abstain or vote against. It is understandable that they want to remain ministers, not for power or money but to enact other Lib Dem policies and principles. Any politician wants to run things and influence matters. It is clearly an issue and about the only one that we got wrong in the coalition agreement.

  For me, the argument is not about graduate taxes/contributions. It is about £3 billion out of £700 billion – under 0.5% of government spending. Graduates pay roughly half the cost at the moment, it is not unreasonable that the other half comes from general taxation. And barmy for the Lib Dems to sacrifice 0.5% for so much political trouble. While it might be (I don’t know) possible to put this off the Government balance sheets like PFIs – in reality the increase in fees does not help Government finances until 2015 when the first students graduate and then only a bit.

  The Conservative principles are to have charges and fees like the poll tax and council tax. The Tories think a charge is fair. I hope that the Lib Dems will re-assert our principles to think percentages is fair – the phrase “the broadest shoulder to bear the heaviest burden” comes to mind. By my calculations someone on £27,667 pays 2.1% of the income over 30 years. On £41,000 – 1.8%. On £61,000 – 1.19%. And on £100,000 – 0.64%. This excludes calculations on having a sliding real rate of interest but those on high incomes pay off the loan very quickly. And of course the “middle” is squeezed most – with those on around £27,667 paying the most as a percentage. It is difficult to see why someone on free school meals who becomes a banker should be considerably better off than someone slightly

• ray pearce 9th Dec '10 - 8:32pm

  i will never vote libdem again.they are closet tories

• Alec Macph 9th Dec '10 - 8:49pm

  I thought having more women in the party meant you had people because they have experienced discrimination their whole lives understand the plights of the less….lucky.

  There will remain – in theory, at least – parity of access. I would have thought that feminist theory held that the discrimination/injustice experienced by their sistren was unique for that reason. If it goes onto hold that social class or household wage is a more useful marker then why not call it… oh, I don’t know… socialism or progressive politics or rooted in Chartism.

  Plus, these three ‘strong’ women hailed from middle-class to above backgrounds… assuming this move is going to disadvantage the street-cleaner’s kids, what precisely is their insight? There’s a much stronger case for at least two of them not having accrued sufficient life experience before becoming an MP, so not being able to resist the warmth of that big group hug Cleggie gave.

• Christine Headley 9th Dec '10 - 8:58pm

  @Rantersparadise

  All three of those women are ministers or Vince Cable’s PPS. While I applaud Jenny Willott for resigning in order to vote against, I don’t think it is reasonable to expect all the women involved in government to do so. Maybe Lynne Featherstone thought she could do more good in government rather than outside (and they would need to find another LD MP able to do her job). Yes, I too regret the way the vote went, but I don’t think your reason is a good one to hit them over the head with.

• Rantersparadise 9th Dec '10 - 9:01pm

  Yes of course Alec you have a point but I aways thought, hoped…assumed that regardless of your wealth or privileged background, as a woman or ethnic minority or disabled etc, you can empathise with been discriminated with so instantly-like me-you have empathy for struggle. Cause we’ve all struggled no?

  But I guess that when you’re lucky-nice mom/dad or with money-your reality is the only thing that you understand or seek to understand. It won’t go any further.

  I’m still gutted but it’s a big learning curve because I am still a feminist but maybe it should move more towards humanism?

• Rantersparadise 9th Dec '10 - 9:09pm

  But Christine, why are we, people who PAY membership, campaign at home etc and do all sorts given the same ‘story’ as in why we needed to do this?

  I’m waiting to see what they can do…or have done.

  I hear this all the time but see little evidence of what change was actually sustaining. It seems everything we have had on our ‘pledge’ to get done was actually what Cameron/Blair originally wanted anyway because he was a new kind of Conservative.

  It was hard enough going to uni-had no cash but knew I needed to learn more to have a chance in he’ll to not be stuck in crappy jobs-with the loans…..but now this?

  I see all the time young girls getting pregnant who are so bright or getting more into crime but have no hope at home and you hope free-ish education would give them that hope…?

  We thought the Libs would reverse what Nu Lab did..not make it worse. There are soo many areas that are dubious and could be can’t but are not being cut.

  Education is supposed to be the road to any man/womens life to freedom. We’ve gone backwards.

  This lot are bang out of order as women.

• Steve Simmons 9th Dec '10 - 9:12pm

  @Michael
  “The Conservative principles are to have charges and fees like the poll tax and council tax. The Tories think a charge is fair. I hope that the Lib Dems will re-assert our principles to think percentages is fair – the phrase “the broadest shoulder to bear the heaviest burden” comes to mind. By my calculations someone on £27,667 pays 2.1% of the income over 30 years. On £41,000 – 1.8%. On £61,000 – 1.19%. And on £100,000 – 0.64%. This excludes calculations on having a sliding real rate of interest but those on high incomes pay off the loan very quickly. And of course the “middle” is squeezed most – with those on around £27,667 paying the most as a percentage. It is difficult to see why someone on free school meals who becomes a banker should be considerably better off than someone slightly”

  I’ve been making that point ad nauseum for the last few weeks. The new system is fiscally regressive and is the complete opposite to the Lib Dem ‘aim’ of funding HE through progressive taxation. It is tory philosophy, pure and simple.

• David from Ealing 9th Dec '10 - 9:22pm

  Quite apart from the question of the fees is the change in how universities will be funded. The huge change in central funding for teaching will have huge implications for universities. Those who voted for the Browne proposals haven’t thought it through.

• Cuse 9th Dec '10 - 9:46pm

  Michael at 20:16 is right.

  This party is kidding itself. Your leader is using you to support Thatchernomics Part II.

  As a party – it wasn’t the policy. As a parliamentary party – it strongly voted against the plans. As a hierarchy, 2 of the 3 senior posts voted against. As an activist base, anecdotal evidence suggests there was strong distaste for the policy.

  Nick Clegg got his 17 co-conspirators to vote for – and now you’re to the right of the Tories.

  You have destroyed your next 20 years.

• RichardSM 9th Dec '10 - 10:06pm

  What a fantastic turn-out by the students today. They’ve marched for their cause and for democracy. They should all feel very proud of themselves.

  The 34 MPs that reneged on their electoral promise will be despised for the rest of their political careers, which hopefully, will end prematurely.

• Reader 9th Dec '10 - 10:21pm

  I don’t know why you’d be surprised. This government is (to coin a phrase) the last dribble of Thatcherism down the leg of British politics. The Thatcherite era is coming to an end, and the coalition reeks of the fin de siecle desperation of yesterday’s men. The next Labour government will be as revolutionary as the governments of Thatcher, Attlee and Campbell-Bannerman, and like those governments it will turn the impossible into the inevitable and usher in a new political reality that will dominate for a generation.

• olly 9th Dec '10 - 10:23pm

  @Michael
  “What is abundantly clear is that Lib Dem MPs did not support the proposal to increase tuition fees.”

  What is equally clear is that without the support of the 21 Lib Dems who voted “YES” the legislation would have been defeated. You can spin & wriggle as much as you like on this one but the Lib Dems integrity is now in shreds. You made the most blatent pitch for votes on the Tuition Fee issue and now you are being deservedly pilloried for such blatent lies and opportunism.

• victimoftheliberals 9th Dec '10 - 10:31pm

  thank you liberals for access to education based not on ability, but ability to pay. Back to the 1920s with Nick Clegg…

• doug 9th Dec '10 - 10:44pm

  Only eight backbenchers voted in favour (Beith, Brake, Bruce, Foster, Gilbert, Hemming, Laws, Ward) the rest are payrol ie ministers, whips and PPS’s. That is a pretty unsuccessful attempt by the party leadership to sell the policy to the wider parliamentary party.

  If you discount Huhne/Horwood out of the equation then the party has basically failed to persuade the other 27, six of whom stuck by the coalition opt out and the other 21 openly defied it.

• victimoftheliberals 9th Dec '10 - 10:52pm

  when are those party members who do not support their party leadership – who didn’t vote for this disgrace – going to resign the party whip?

• Peter1919 9th Dec '10 - 11:03pm

  Why would they resign the party whip for voting along the lines set out if Official Lib Dem party policy?

• Alec Macph 9th Dec '10 - 11:25pm

  There always is pragmatism, Ranters. I don’t think I was dealt too different a hand in life as Teather and Swinson, not least because I sit somewhere between the two agewise and hail from the less salubrious part of Dunbartonshire that Swinson does. The idea, though, that I’m better off in modern Britain than Featherstone is a bit silly.

  I must say I’m loving all these Ronnie “where I can at least do some good” Heaslop excuses. Considering the proportion of LibDem MPs who got into the Cabinet, that “only” eight Backbenchers voted for it strikes less a failure to sell it to the wider PP as it does that those MPs who got a glitzy position have hung onto it for dear life.

  I wonder how many of the Scottish LibDem MPs who voted against were bemoaning the Scottish Labour MPs who pushed through the last rise. The support of the unaffected matters only when it’s from someone else, eh?

• John Roffey 9th Dec '10 - 11:51pm

  I wonder if this will be considered a worthwhile victory when the L/D MPs who supported the measure realise the contempt with which they are held within the country at large, the violence, injury and damaged caused and the heir to the throne and his wife’s car attacked in what could have been avery nasty incident.

  I have said before that too many of the Party’s leading figures seem to live in a fantasy world and have no idea what the people think and what they are feeling – astonishing.

• Hywel 9th Dec '10 - 11:58pm

  Ministers could have voted against and kept their jobs

  There was a report presented to English Council of the FE meeting on 25th Oct which says:
  “When [Nick was] asked if any MP who voted against the Coalition proposal on Tuition Fees would be penalised in any way, he promised that they would not”

  (I’m making the assumption – reasonable I think – that English Party rep on the FE wasn’t just inventing things!)

• Alec Macph 10th Dec '10 - 12:12am

  Ah, Hywel, need I remind you about a certain pledge? Not to mention what both Clegg and Laws were saying behind closed doors before the GE. Things can be lied about reappraised.

  John, I’ll place responsibility for trashing HRH’s car on the trashers.

• John Roffey 10th Dec '10 - 12:41am

  @ Alec Macph

  NC and VC leading the argument for the new policy after they had made the pledge inflamed the passions, it gave the protestors total belief in the justness of their cause – a view shared by the majority.

  Yes, of course it was the HRH car trashers who were responsible, but if the passions of the students had not needlessly been aroused the protest would unlikely have been so violent and HRH would probably not have been put in harms way.

  It is dangerous to give just cause to protestors so early when so many contentious issues lie ahead.

• david clayton 10th Dec '10 - 6:52am

  this is probably only the start. There are many more cuts coming along which disproportionately affect the poor and powerless. The Lib Dems either remain positioned as the party of the rich and powerful…..or ditch Clegg. The former will lead to electoral insignificance – the latter may not.

• rankersbo 10th Dec '10 - 7:34am

  Is Mark Hunter still an MP?

• rankersbo 10th Dec '10 - 7:35am

  Ah sorry, he was a whip so acted as teller.

• simon wilson 10th Dec '10 - 9:03am

  If all those people who claim to have voted for us (but will not do so in future) had actually voted for us, the party would have a majority Government

• Tim13 10th Dec '10 - 9:35am

  Yes of course Alec you have a point but I aways thought, hoped…assumed that regardless of your wealth or privileged background, as a woman or ethnic minority or disabled etc, you can empathise with been discriminated with so instantly-like me-you have empathy for struggle. Cause we’ve all struggled no?

  No, Rp – my experience shows you have this completely wrong. Often they are the ones who will “kick the cat”! That is good theory, but doesn’t work out in practice.

  And the case of women is rather different – women are “struggling” or whatever verb you like to apply, from all over the social spectrum, and will have huge amounts more in common with men from similar backgrounds / families etc than with women from different social / ethnic / cultural backgrounds, and all will often struggle to understand needs from those different backgrounds.

• Tim13 10th Dec '10 - 9:38am

  Hywel that might have been said at an English Council meeting. I very much doubt if it would have happened in practice!

• Alec Macph 10th Dec '10 - 9:40am

  Definitely, John. For all the stated fears of the public, especially the young, being disillusioned with politicians, Clegg tapped into a desire for engagement. Moves like this have only gone to turn the politically inexperienced against participation more surely than SWP membership at university ever could.

  Simon, even if that’s so, your Party aint in majority. So, time to show some humility.

• Tim13 10th Dec '10 - 9:43am

  Interesting post, Reader. And I wonder whether there will be a significant faction of us from the Lib Dems with tat movement? Something many of us have fought for for 25 or 30 years!

• matt 10th Dec '10 - 9:44am

  Yesterday was an awful day for democracy and for the Liberal Democrat Party.

  Nick Clegg and his Ministerial Team, who lacked good moral fibre, have done immense damage to the party, that can take years to clean up.

  Trailing at 8% in the polls now, is only to get worse.

  The 21 Mp’s who stood up to the leadership, and kept their pledge to the electorate and voted against the fee’s should be commended.

  But you need to take the intuitive and take the next step, and that is to put in a vote of no confidence and remove clegg as leader of the party.

  The party is heading for many more car crashes over the next few months.

  Control Orders are due to be renewed next month, This will do even more damage to the party leadership and ministers, if they vote for the policy, as ALL of the ministers have voted against control orders since 2005.

  Renewing 8 New Nuclear power stations is going to be a car crash, as it goes against everything the liberal democrats believe in

  The party can not afford to be divided any more than it already is,

  And the party can not afford for the leadership, to ignore its membership again, and vote against the parties policies and its membership.

  Now is the to remove Clegg and take back the party.

  I fail to see why removing Clegg means the end of the coalition, I am sure there is nothing in the coalition agreement that says, Cameron can End Coalition if Clegg is removed.

  Cameron would not be game to call another election, for a very long time, after the scenes yesterday, He would be severely punished at the polls for calling another election and for the Impending Cuts.

  The time to back your party and steer it in the right direction is now.

  2015 Will be to late. It is futile to think people will have forgotten by then, The Media will never allow people to forget, When the next election is called, their will be clips of Cleggs Pledge, There will be the No More broken Promises Video, Then there will be clips from the civil unrest on the streets of London.

  Take back your party now, For the good of the party, the good of democracy and for the good of the country.

• David Evans 10th Dec '10 - 9:45am

  @ victimoftheliberals

  “when are those party members who do not support their party leadership – who didn’t vote for this disgrace – going to resign the party whip?”

  Never. They are the real Liberals.

• MacK 10th Dec '10 - 9:46am

  Why is it that Conservative and Liberal administrations always produce extreme violence on the streets? Answer: because they are deeply illiberal supporters of capital. Just think of Asquith and Lloyd George and the civil disorder which they produced. We thought that as a party you had changed, become a tad more left of centre but you haven’t. We never saw these levels of violent disorder under Tony Blair or Gordon Brown despite the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Already people are longing for the stability Gordon Brown brought to an extremely dangerous economic situation. You are learning the hard way that taking ordinary working people’s rights and money away from them will not make you popular. Saying that you can’t help breaking your pledge because you didn’t win the election is no excuse. You wouldn’t even be in coalition if you hadn’t lied to all those University Constituencies. And you did lie because books being published reveal that weeks before the result of the General Election you were already planning to dump your commitment not to raise tuition fees yet you continued signing your pledge in front of University Students. The tragedy for your party is that the tuition fee policy is, in the main, a Tory policy which you are taking all the obloquy for. It should not only be Cable that has to bear the brunt of all the antagonism: it is Cameron’s and Osborne’s policy. But they are nowhere to be seen and receive no criticism from the media. Has it really been worth breaking your party’s back simply to do Osborne and Cameron’s dirty work? Clever “Call me Dave” and “Boy George”. They have contrived to make the outrageous policy on tuition fees seem all the work of the Liberal Democrats. Get out of your Coalition now before you get the blame for the privatisation of the NHS.

• toryboysnevergrowup 10th Dec '10 - 9:52am

  Given that the Govt. vote was clearly whipped or otherwise coerced then the conclusion must be that no provision was made for Liberal Democrat MPs to abstain – therefore if the Liberal Democrats have honoured the coalition agreement then the only logical position is that the Liberal Democrats support the tuition fee proposals.

  The choice Liberal Democrat members is to support a party which supports the tuition fee proposals or one which has broken the coalition agreement – there is no other rational explanations much as the ditherers like Simon Hughes may like to think they are.

• Alec Macph 10th Dec '10 - 9:56am

  Tim, I too would hope that being discriminated against ‘cos of a immutable quality in yourself made you more sympathetic to others’ ill-treatment, but often it doesn’t turn out to be the case. See the battered women refuge movement which came to explicitly deny the presence of a significant minority of men whose wives abused them (Erin Pizzey admitted that her awareness 40 years ago of this was over-ruled).

  See HIV charities such as the Terrence Higgins Trust and HIV Scotland which were up-in-arms when Mark Devereaux, and others, were convicted of recklessly endangering their sexual partners by neither informing them of their infection nor wearing a condom.

  Even going back to the Suffragettes, it’s 50:50 on whether or not they were a bunch of middle-class women seeking the vote for middle-class women at a time when 40% of men didn’t, such as by setting fires which were going to be extinguished by firemen who didn’t have the vote. It’s also noteworthy the number of Suffragettes who went on to be Nazi sympathizers.

  Yes, there should be dedicated interests in anti-discrimination action, but feminism and multiculturalism and other -isms always have struck me as profoundly un-liberal ‘cos they require individuals to be placed permanently in little boxes.

• toryboysnevergrowup 10th Dec '10 - 9:59am

  David Evans

  And what sort of Liberal are Simon Hughes and those who abstained – traditional ones who cannot make a decision and want to be all things to all people I presume.

• Alec Macph 10th Dec '10 - 10:01am

  Renewing 8 New Nuclear power stations is going to be a car crash, as it goes against everything the liberal democrats believe in

  Chris Huhne does. Now.

  I cannot see what is un-l/Liberal and nuclear power, anyway.

• toryboysnevergrowup 10th Dec '10 - 10:02am

  Could Nick Clegg please tell us which other of the coalition agreement provisions are no longer valid and will be ignored. Will Huhne be removed before the volte farce on nuclear power?

• toryboysnevergrowup 10th Dec '10 - 10:12am

  Was Crockhart the only one on the payroll vote who voted against? If so he should be preserved as the last LibDem who made a sacrifice for something he believed in.

• Sesenco 10th Dec '10 - 10:20am

  I would like to take this opportunity to say a very big “thank you” to Stephen Lloyd MP, whom I helped elect last May. My efforts were not in vain.

  Just after the election, the “Grauniad” marked out Stephen Lloyd and Simon Wright as the two new Lib Dem Parliamentarians to watch. Maybe they were on to something. I do hope so.

• Alec Macph 10th Dec '10 - 10:26am

  Not *entirely* in vain, Sesenco.

  Also, was this the same Graun which thought that the LibDems were going to romp home with triple figure MPs, only to misjudge even its own North London base?

• matt 10th Dec '10 - 10:32am

  Has there been any reports that confirmed that Ministers where whipped into supporting the vote?

  If that is the case, then surly, for that reason alone, Clegg should be removed as Leader.

  If the Ministers where not whipped and they came to the decision alone to support the vote, then they deserve to lose their seat at the next election, I would also be intrigued to know what was promised to them, in return for supporting the policy, Paid Positions on select committee’s maybe?

• Tim13 10th Dec '10 - 10:41am

  No, Mike Crockart was not the only one – Jenny Willott also voted against, and resigned her post.

• mike 10th Dec '10 - 10:44am

  Interesting all the Welsh Lib Dems votes again which is good but then the increases don’t apply in Wales.

• glenw 10th Dec '10 - 11:09am

  I sent an email to Sarah Teather asking her not to vote for the increase.. I got no response.. Bring back Charles Kennedy- a man of principles, I feel detrayed by Cable and Teather- never trusted Clegg..

  I will never vote lib dem again!! I will now join the labour party

• David Pollard 10th Dec '10 - 11:11am

  None of the details of the student fee debalte are relevant. Blackbench MPs should have voted against to keep their pledge and LibDesm in government should have abstained as permitted by the Coalition Agreement. Here we re back at 6% in the opinion polls. “Or watch the things you gave your life to broken and stoop and build ’em up with worn out tools”. I’m with the 21!

• toryboysnevergrowup 10th Dec '10 - 11:17am

  Matt

  If those on the payroll vote who voted against had to resign I would have thought that this is a pretty strong indication that there was whipping or something that amounted to the same thing.

  This is either a breach of the coalition agreement or by some process (Clegg diktat) the Liberal Democrats have decided to support the Government’s position and it is now the policy of Liberal Democrats in Parliament.

  Given that both would appear to be against the agreed policies of the Party surely there has to be some challenge to the leadership – although I would count on Simon Hughes making such a challenge since he is incapable of making a decision on the underlying issue.

• matt 10th Dec '10 - 11:29am

  @toryboysnevergrowup

  I agree.

  I thought Simon Hughes would have voted against and then at least he would have had some credibility left and been able to possible take over the leadership. By Abstaining I think he has lost that chance.

  Chris Huhne, did’t make the vote, which would have left him untarnished by all this, however he is saying that he would have voted with the government.

  whatever happens, Clegg, cable and Alexander need to go before they do any more damage.

  Incidentally, Does anyone know how Alexander voted in the Scottish parliament on tuition fee’s?

• Alec Macph 10th Dec '10 - 11:57am

  Matt, I don’t think Alexander ever was an MSP.

• David Allen 10th Dec '10 - 12:16pm

  A key point, I suggest, is that this isn’t fundamentally a “social liberal” versus “orange booker” division. It is a division between the Ministerial bubble and the world outside.

  Lib Dems of all shades of opinion from the outside world, who speak to ordinary nonpolitical people on a daily basis, overwhelmingly understood that when you make a pledge to the voters, you had better keep it. The Lib Dems in government, busy with their red boxes and their endless high-power meetings, saw a different form of reality. For the first time in their political lives, it is not just speeches and byelections, it is individual career achievement, and it is making a real difference – though rather a small difference.

  As the Guardian leader today puts it, it is the achievement of Lib Dems in government that “the marketisation of higher education … has been softened round the edges.” As the Guardian also says, this is “a shaky basis on which to rally support.”
  http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/10/liberal-democrats-divided-tuition-fees?INTCMP=SRCH

  What we need to do is to drag our Ministers outside the Westminster bubble and away from their glittering careers. They need to understand that they got it wrong. And if they go on believing that their role in life is to push through an extreme neo-conservative agenda while softening it around the edges, they will go on getting it wrong.

• Rob 10th Dec '10 - 12:31pm

  LibDems have at last voted as a government for something progressive. I am resigning from Labour and will now join The LibDems because they are the progressive party who are honest, upfront and willing to take the necessary tough decisions.

• matt 10th Dec '10 - 1:36pm

  @Alec Macph

  “Matt, I don’t think Alexander ever was an MSP”

  Danny Alexander is the MP for Inverness, so surely he gets to vote in the Scottish Parliament? And their decision not to have tuition fee’s?

• Gibbs 10th Dec '10 - 1:37pm

  Will all keepers of the Blairite faith follow Rob and the parties be restructured accordingly?

• Anthony 10th Dec '10 - 2:26pm

  No Matt, he doesn’t vote in the Scottish parliament.

• Alec Macph 10th Dec '10 - 2:28pm

  Matt, frayed knot. His vote is only for Westminster… the Holyrood constituency most closely associated with his Westminster constituency is SNP-held.

• matt 10th Dec '10 - 2:43pm

  ok I stand corrected, I thought an Mp who holds a seat in a Scottish Constituency, would vote in Scottish Parliament, but obviously not. {Sill confused though} lol

  But regardless, I think his time as a Minister so far, has been disgraceful, in my opinion

  His abandonment of the sick and disabled and the shocking state of affairs with ATOS, DWP and the Work Capability Test.

  And his U-Turn on University fee’s, abandoning his pledge, and the general destruction of our Education System should be deplored

• mart 10th Dec '10 - 3:13pm

  Did you see John Hemming on The Daily Politics today? Hahahahaha, how could that man argue that he hadn’t broken his pledge? He was like a child who has been caught red handed, then tries to deny it was him. It was hilarious, Nick Watt was having a good laugh too.

• matt 10th Dec '10 - 3:46pm

  I personally find John Hemming as lacking moral fibre anyway.

  A millionaire, who already owned 2 properties in London, Fully owned (No Mortgage) A, constituency Home, And a Business Premises (Mortgaged) in Birmingham, from where he ran his constituency office.

  As he was not Eligible for Mortgage Interest payments on a 2nd Home Allowance in London, He Re mortgaged his London Property, used the Funds to Pay off his Mortgage on His Business premises. Then claimed the Mortgage interest Payments on the London property as Expenses.

  Now whether that is against Parliamentary rules or not, I personally find it distasteful, But that is only a personal opinion.

  I find it even more distasteful, that someone is willing to claim expenses in this way, to the cost of the tax payer, then have the audacity to vote for an increase in tuition fee’s and to cut teaching Budgets and the removal of EMA

• johng 10th Dec '10 - 4:15pm

  The front=page headline in yesterday’s Evening Standard was “CLEGG ACCUSES STUDENTS OF LIVING IN DREAM WORLD”. Maybe he could enlighten us as to which world he was living in when he signed the NUS pledge?

• MacK 10th Dec '10 - 5:32pm

  As a matter of interest could someone tell me what the mechanism is within the Liberal Democrat party for removing a Leader? For example, does it require a petition by a prespecified number of MPs or can any member initiate the process? Would it demand a special conference or would it simply be a case of men (and/or women) in suits telling Clegg they were going to have to let him go? I am not being disingenuous, I am simply curious.

• matt 10th Dec '10 - 5:43pm

  @Mack

  I asked this question before on another thread, and I believe to remove Clegg, they need 1 of the following.

  A Majority of the MP’s to put in a vote of No confidence

  or

  for 75 Local Parties, to hold a Local conference and for a Motion to be voted on to remove the leadership, Again they would need a majority vote from all 75 parties.

  That’s the answer i was given on another thread anyway.

• MacK 10th Dec '10 - 6:46pm

  @ Matt

  Many thanks Matt. I shall reflect on that.

• toryboysnevergrowup 10th Dec '10 - 7:29pm

  On the other hand we could just try using the recall mechanism in Sheffield Hallam, when and if it is introduced. That would achieve the same result.

• tony 10th Dec '10 - 8:58pm

  I am still confussed as to what they voted for, the detail that is and not ther headlines, now statments about disadvantaged getting this and not actually difining disadvantaged or what they get in a concreate way kind of do that for me please tell me this is not a blank cq that has been voted for.

• EcoJon 10th Dec '10 - 10:04pm

  @Rob 10th December 2010 at 12:31 pm

  The LP thanks you lmao.

• Carol 11th Dec '10 - 12:39pm

  Flabergasted at the lack of integrity from Liberal MPS! Especially disappointed with Norman Baker. I really believed in him and feel bewildered by his yes vote.

  However they try to dress it up, they are guilty of bare-faced lying to their supporters. You promised us that you would not just resist any increase in tuition fees, but would abolish them if you had the choice. How can we believe anything you say again?!?

  As a LibDem voter at the last election, I felt betrayed that my vote (I am pretty left-leaning but had lost faith in Labour) had been used in order to put the Tories into power .. not what I intended by any stretch of the imagination.

  Sorry but there is no way I will be used in this way again, and pledge (this pledge will mean something! :P) never to vote Liberal again. I bet I am not alone.

  Whilst writing, can anyone explain to me how this new system will save the government money? I might be incredibly off-mark but I can’t help thinking that if the government funds the student loans, how is it saving costs? Especially if we are to believe that students, although more heavily in debt than ever before, will be expected to repay less. As an accountant, I can’t make these figures add up? Can anyone enlighten me please?

• matt 11th Dec '10 - 1:07pm

  @Carol.

  “Whilst writing, can anyone explain to me how this new system will save the government money? I might be incredibly off-mark but I can’t help thinking that if the government funds the student loans, how is it saving costs? Especially if we are to believe that students, although more heavily in debt than ever before, will be expected to repay less. As an accountant, I can’t make these figures add up? Can anyone enlighten me please?”

  It is my belief, that this policy change was never about saving the Government money, Indeed as you point out, it could cost the government more.

  What it is really about is creating the 1 thing that ALL TORIES love “Elitism” The Tories hope that Students from Poorer Backgrounds will be put off by the amount of debt.
  It is their hope that Universities will go back to how they where in the 80’s, Mostly used by the privileged and upper middle, classes.

  The only way that Tory Fat Cats and their chums, gets richer, is by having an abundance of poorer lower paid workers.

  You only have to look at the cuts and policies already announced by the Tories, They are all aimed at reversing the progresses made in the last 13 years of a Labour Government.

  Labour had their faults and made many mistakes don’t get me wrong.

  But it was a labour Government that dragged our education system out of the sorry state of affairs that the Conservatives had created.
  Labour Reduced class sizes, provided more resources so pupils where not sharing books, and provided more funding so more schools where able to offer 6th form Education and A-Levels.

  The Tories where not interested in Progresses in State Education,
  Most of the Tories supporters sent their children to Private Education to gain their A-Levels then on to Free University Education.

  Abolishing EMA and Student Travel which is a lifeline to many underprivileged students which helps them too stay in education and study past G.C.S.E’s is another clear example of that.

  It is truly shocking what has already happened and will happen to our Education System, and we have Liberal Democrats to thank for allowing the Tories to carry out this destruction

• Carol 11th Dec '10 - 1:25pm

  Thanks Matt. You are so very right! I was half hoping that I had done my sums wrong but maybe not. One advantage to this from the government’s point of view is that the costs of student loans are, I believe, off balance sheet whereas university funding is not.

  The rich get richer and the poor get poorer … what a nice, fair society we find ourselves in.

  I for one was heartened to see students out on the streets protesting. I would love to join them, but have to confess to being put-off by the police tactics of kettling. As a mum, I can’t risk not being home at a certain time and this tactic makes it very difficult. Of course, there is also the violence to consider (most of which I have witnessed from the police, sadly).

  At risk of sounding a bit conspiracy-theorist, I also ponder why a police van was left abandoned in a sea of protestors and why the heir to the throne was directed right into a group of protestors … is this part of a propoganda war? Or am I just getting paranoid now lol?

  Kudos to all those people who are joining the protests!

• matt 11th Dec '10 - 2:53pm

  @Carol

  “At risk of sounding a bit conspiracy-theorist, I also ponder why a police van was left abandoned in a sea of protestors and why the heir to the throne was directed right into a group of protestors … is this part of a propoganda war? Or am I just getting paranoid now lol?”

  I am sure you are not the only one who has been wondering the same thing.

  I am convinced that was at least the idea with the police Van.

  The Prince Charles thing I really do not get. It is widely known fact that Prince Charles has a severe Paranoia about being shot, since his sister Anne was taken hostage that time, and his uncle Lord Mountbattern was blown up by the IRA. It has always been well reported on Charles’s Fears.

  Whilst the Prime Minister is slinking into the shadows and using underground Passages to get from Parliament back to Number 10, and yet here we have the heir to the throne, being driven through the streets of London, in a Vehicle without blacked out windows or ballistic armour, And a window open.

  Something stinks about it all that’s for sure

• hywel carr 11th Dec '10 - 5:00pm

  The BBC keeps reporting that there were only FIVE LibDem abstentions with THREE absentees. I know that Chris Huhne and Martin Horwood were in Mexico – but does anyone know who the third absentee was and why?

• Ian Campbell 11th Dec '10 - 5:04pm

  We keep being told that we are all in this together. So surely all graduates should pay back their tuition fees, existing as well as future graduates, starting with the Lib-Dem MPs who broke their pledges.

• Galen10 12th Dec '10 - 5:39pm

  Shame on all of those who voted for this measure, AND those who abstained. This is one former LD voter who has learned an important lesson: never again. You have lost my vote for good.

• Nick Foot 12th Dec '10 - 8:24pm

  Just adding my name to the list of people who will never vote LibDem again.

• Mike Falchikov 12th Dec '10 - 10:36pm

  Astonished at people who don’t understand how Scotland works. Westminster MPs do not have a vote in the
  Scottish Parliament – why should they? When the SP was first elected in 1999, there were a small number of sitting
  MPs elected to the SP, who held a dual mandate until the next British election in 2001when they stood down from
  Westminster (e.g. Deputy 1st Minister Jim Wallace, who was MSP for Orkney and MPfor Orkney & Shetland for those
  two years). There are currently 2 Labour MSPs elected to Westminster at the recent election who will stand down
  from the SP before the May 2011 elections. Danny Alexander was not elected to anything until 2005, by which time in any case Scotland was supposed to have solved its problems with tuition fees. Learn a bit about how devolved
  government works before sounding off.

• John 13th Dec '10 - 11:09pm

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGbiMmp5S18

  What £9000, are you having a joke?

• Jim Hardaker 25th May '14 - 8:51pm

  That people were so outraged about this shows what a high regard Lib Dem supporters held their party in.

  Other parties break their pledges left, right and centre and hardly anyone bats an eyelid.

  People expected more from the Lib Dems, and that’s the key issue. They clearly saw us as a more honest and more principled alternative to Labour and the Conservatives and now that we’ve shown them that isn’t the case it’s going to take years to win back their support.