Former Liberal Democrat MP Dr Evan Harris has made the extraordinary claim that to get rid of fees "the answer is to vote more liberal democrats into power".
Former Liberal Democrat MP Dr Evan Harris made the extraordinary claim on Radio Five last night that:
“If you want to get rid of tuition fees, the answer is to vote more liberal democrats into power, not less, because the only way… If you want to get rid of tuition fees realistically the only way to do it…
“If students want to get rid of tuition fees it’s more Liberal Democrats they need, not Tory and Labour.”
This, despite the fact that it was only because of Liberal Democrat MPs that last night’s votes on tuition fees – trebling the cap to £9,000 and raising the lower limit to £6,000 – passed, by a majority of 21. Harris was debating Left Foot Forward’s Will Straw and leading Conservative blogger Shane Greer on the Tony Livesey show.
Listen to it:
Here is the roll of shame of the 34 Lib Dem MPs who broke their pledge by failing to vote against the government:
Danny Alexander
Norman Baker
Sir Alan Beith
Gordon Birtwistle
Tom Brake
Jeremy Browne
Malcolm Bruce
Paul Burstow
Lorely Burt*
Vincent Cable
Alistair Carmichael
Nick Clegg
Edward Davey
Lynne Featherstone
Don Foster
Stephen Gilbert
Duncan Hames
Nick Harvey
David Heath
John Hemming
Simon Hughes*
Mark Hunter
Norman Lamb
David Laws
Michael Moore
Tessa Munt*
Sir Robert Smith*
Andrew Stunell
Jo Swinson
Sarah Teather
John Thurso*
David Ward
Steve Webb
Stephen Williams*
* abstained – still a broken pledge. Chris Huhne and Martin Horwood were both absent in Cancun; only 21 of the party’s 57 MPs voted against the fees rise.
73 Responses to “Evan Harris: “If you want to get rid of fees vote more Lib Dems into power””
RupertRead
RT @TomHarrisMP: Priceless! @DrEvanHarris: "If you want to get rid of fees vote more LibDems into power!" http://bit.ly/hAlZmb (via @iai …
Steve Rooney
Chris Phillips,
Spot on. I wish the social democratic voices in Labour all the very best in their battle against the neoliberal New Labour old guard. As things stand, though, Labour offer very little in the way of an alternative. Hope it doesn’t stay that way.
Ryan Duffer
RT @TomHarrisMP: Priceless! @DrEvanHarris: "If you want to get rid of fees vote more LibDems into power!" http://bit.ly/hAlZmb (via @iai …
Jean Rolt
RT @gary_hughes: Utterly bizarre: “@kiramadeira: My head nearly exploded reading this http://bit.ly/hAlZmb Breathtaking”
Evan Harris
@ 18 Mr. Sensible
I was concerned by the article you cite – and the opinion poll of debt aversion is a main reason to oppose the policy – but
1) The IFS latest study – 8th December refutes some aspects of the million+ study since the Govt changed the policy post Browne to make it more progressive. See http://www.ifs.org.uk/bns/bn113.pdf
2) the cost to the tax-payer of subsidising loans is in Govt accounts as “Resource Accounting Budget” – see my article here http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/political-science/2010/dec/09/tuition-fees-liberal-democrat which covers this after I raised this with Treasury to check whether the RAB amount – at 28% is reasonable (and Office of Budget Resp have I think approved it), and also that RAB impacts Govt debt not fiscal deficit.
Evan