Nick Clegg went into Coalition talks with Labour demanding "a commitment not to raise the cap on tuition fees". It means he changed his mind on the issue three times in as many weeks.
The Lib Dem leadership went into Coalition talks with Labour demanding “a commitment not to raise the cap on tuition fees”. The exclusive revelation in this week’s New Statesman means that the Deputy Prime Minister changed his mind on the issue three times in as many weeks.
The New Statesman today reveals:
“Nick Clegg and the other Lib Dem negotiators called for “a commitment not to raise the cap on tuition fees” (a watered-down version of their manifesto pledge to phase out tuition fees over six years), a cut in the number of government ministers, a four year fixed-term parliament and “a commitment to no public subsidy for nuclear power stations”. All of these pledges have since been broken by the government.”
It was revealed in Saturday’s Guardian that the Liberal Democrats were drawing up plans to “abandon Nick Clegg’s flagship policy to scrap university tuition fees” two months before the general election. But on April 13th, Nick Clegg recorded a YouTube video for the annual NUS conference in which said “I really think tuition fees are wrong”. Just a day later, the Lib Dem manifesto pledged to:
“Scrap unfair university tuition fees for all students taking their first degree, including those studying part-time, saving them over £10,000 each.”
It now appears that Nick Clegg changed his mind on the issue three times in as many weeks. The revelation will place further pressure on Nick Clegg after his decision to support a near trebling in the level of tuition fees from £3,290 per year to £9,000. The New Statesman also confirm that “the Lib Dems never had any intention of sticking to their election pledge to delay spending cuts until next year.”
30 Responses to “Clegg wanted Lib-Lab Coalition to commit to cap on tuition fees”
jee_24
I don’t know why anyone would want government to support arts and humanities?
Culture isn’t culture when supplied by the government, just as the government can’t give charitably. It is a contradiction.
Duncan Stott
Will,
If manifestos are to only list commitments based on the party’s realistic prospect of power, the Green Party, UKIP, or any other minor party may as well not bother publishing one at all.
But that isn’t what a manifesto is. It is an idealistic document stating a full vision of future policies for the country. Manifesto commitments are broken by all parties because their ideal can turn out to be unrealistic.
So on tuition fees, the Lib Dems’ ideal is to scrap tuition fees. But that’s only possible with an ideal result for us.
I don’t understand your U-Turn 2. Which secret document are you referring to?
Alex Ross
Clegg wanted Lib-Lab Coalition to commit to cap on tuition fees http://bit.ly/bQe9tL
Daniel Henry
Will, I agree with Duncan.
It’s a total mess that we ended up breaking our pledge but to accuse Nick of intentionally deceiving was wrong, and I think your reasoning is mixed up.
“U-turn 1: The hard line in the YouTube video and manifesto publication on April 13/14 which was at odds with the secret document decided a month earlier.”
The manifesto and “secret document” do not contradict.
The manifesto was what we’d do with a majority government, while the “secret document” was how we should approach a coalition if we had to make a compromise.
(And even this “secret document” wanted to keep the cap and therefore the pledge to vote against raises)
“U-turn 2: The initial negotiation with the Tories where they reverted to the plan in the secret document (since adopted).
U-turn 3: The negotiations with senior Labour representatives where they wanted a “commitment not to raise the cap on fees””
Both negotiations followed the “secret document”.
Our negotiation recognised that abolishment of fees was too much too ask, so we decided to aim for loans for part time students and a commitment not to raise the cap. This was the same for BOTH negotiations. No u-turn so far.
“They then, of course, reverted to the position in U-turn 2 (technically a 4th U-turn) in the Coalition document paving the way for £9k fees.”
Up until the Browne report we were still fighting for what we aimed to negotiate in the “secret document”, that fees would not be raised. Unfortunately we failed. This resulted in the one and only U-turn, where our leadership bit the bullet and accepted the rise in tuition fees, breaking the promise we made to vote against such rises.
So while it’s humiliating that we’ve been forced to break our promise, over-exadurating the crimes of our party doesn’t help things. The “secret document” did NOT contradict our pledge to vote against rises in tuition fees. We intended to keep that one right until then. (And a sizeable number of our MPs still will.)
Chris
@jee_24
“I don’t know why anyone would want government to support arts and humanities?
Culture isn’t culture when supplied by the government, just as the government can’t give charitably. It is a contradiction.”
One your moron because this is talking about government supporting *university courses* not art in general. And two your philistine.