Who’s not being straight now?

Public Services

David Cameron suffered a torrid time at Prime Minister's Questions alongside the embattled Nick Clegg and Vince Cable over tuition fees today.

David Cameron suffered a torrid time at Prime Minister’s Questions alongside the embattled Nick Clegg and Vince Cable over tuition fees today. In heated exchanges with Ed Miliband, the prime minister claimed that under alternative proposals for a graduate tax:

“… people on £6,000, £7,000, £9,000 would have to start paying back.”

However, under the National Union Students’s plans, graduates earning less than £15,000 will be exempt from the tax, as re-iterated in NUS president Aaron Porter’s letter to Nick Clegg this week:

“… you’ve argued that your proposals are fairer because graduates would only start paying back when they earn £21,000 as opposed to £15,000 in our proposals drafted in 2008.”

On Sunday, Mr Clegg accused Porter of “not being straight”, and on the Daily Politics today Baroness Warsi went further, accusing the NUS of “peddling a lot of myths” – yet this is exactly what Mr Cameron is guilty of.

Speaking on Sky News this lunchtime, Porter ramped up the pressure on the Liberal Democrats, saying:

“They have two clear choices: they can be loyal and keep their promise to the Conservative party, or they can be loyal to students… The anger will continue for the next few days and again beyond the vote.”

Update 1700hrs

The full transcript of today’s PMQs is now online; featuring Democratic Unionist Party MP for Belfast North Nigel Dodds’s question to Mr Cameron:

“In light of his experience of the World cup bid in Zurich last week, can the Prime Minister tell us what his view now is of an organisation that engages in the most convoluted and bizarre voting arrangements, that says one thing and then votes exactly the opposite way, and that has a leader who seems more interested in power and prestige than accountability…

“And after he has finished with the Lib Dems, can he tell us what he thinks of FIFA?”

It’s the way you tell ’em!

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15 Responses to “Who’s not being straight now?”

  1. william haymes

    RT @leftfootfwd: Who's not being straight now? http://bit.ly/ffjiIl

  2. Bill Kristol-Balls

    He’s a cheeky so and so that Aaron Porter, what with being a member of a party who screwed students twice even though they had 3 figure majorities in the HoC (compared to the 57 LD MPs) and did it at a time when the government was rolling in £££ (compared to the current situation as expressed by Liam Byrne).

    Makes as much sense as dumping your missus for cheating on you only to start going out with an ex who did the same thing (twice).

    Times are tough kids, if you want a degree and no debt I suggest part time work and the Open University is the way forward.

  3. Mister Jabberwock

    The difference with a graduate tax is clear –

    you can NEVER pay it back; it is an on going obligation so is much more onerous than a debt;

    it has no relation to the cost or value of what you receive so the provider (the university) has no incentive to up its game;

    it is easily avoided – simply go and study abroad, borrow the money and repay later out of the tax you would otherwise have to pay.

  4. Anon E Mouse

    Under “The National Union Of Students” plans? What planet are these people are? At least they have an opinion I suppose unlike the dithering Ed Miliband.

    How long before Labour comes to it’s senses and ditches him for Alan Johnson or his brother?

    With all the problems the coalition is under over this and the cuts in general, for Labour to have slipped to 39% behind the Tories at 42% shows that the wrong man has been “elected” leader of the party and the sooner this incompetent “Son of Brown” is kicked out on his ear the better.

    Labour wouldn’t get rid of Brown and look what happened. Miliband had his chance and blew it…

  5. MICHAEL SPARLING

    https://www.leftfootforward.org/2010/12/david-cameron-tuition-fees-pmqs-whos-not-being-straight-now/

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