That was bad, but a) it wasn't really a flagship policy in the way it was for the Lib Dems, and b ) Labour hadn't made a big thing of being holier-than-thou and going on about "no more broken promises".

 

Tuition fees is definitely not going to go away for the Lib Dems. The main damage isn't actually the policy itself, it's the signal it sends out. The thing people detest the most about politicians is when they lie and when they give up their principles for the sake of getting "their snouts in the trough" of power, so even people who agree with tuition fees or are indifferent to them will have totally lost respect for the Lib Dems over the issue.

Signing that promise has proved to be a massive mistake. The whole affair was badly handled and the Lib Dems were well and truly stitched up by the Tories. After all, before the election the NUS had been supporting a graduate tax. The reforms introduced by this government are a graduate tax in all but name. Unfortunately the Lib Dems allowed the Tories to portray it as a broken promise rather than explaining the reforms properly and labelling them as a graduate tax. I am convinced that it was a deliberate ploy by the Tories as an attempt to ensure the Lib Dems suffered more than they did. So far it has been successful.

I'd question whether it really equates to a graduate tax, the salary threshold you start paying it back from wasn't increased by enough to compensate for the fact it's three times more to pay.

I'm sorry for the students caught in the money trap, as Ive expressed earlier my views, but ONE policy in 5 years (on a principle already established under Labour) is hardly a major crime in the scale of things and compared to what MP's in the other parties have done over the last 30 years. That's just being pouty, and the policy can be reversed by any of the 3 parties. Money where mouth is.

 

I'm reminded of the gag where the millionaire asks a woman to have sex with him for a million pound, and she thinks about it and says "OK".

 

Then he asks her to have sex with him for a fiver. "No!" she exclaims, "What kind of woman do you think I am?!".

 

"I think we've already established that", he says, "and we're just haggling over the price".

 

Tuition fees, as established by Labour, and pushed further by Tories. Selective memories.....

I'm sorry for the students caught in the money trap, as Ive expressed earlier my views, but ONE policy in 5 years (on a principle already established under Labour) is hardly a major crime in the scale of things and compared to what MP's in the other parties have done over the last 30 years. That's just being pouty, and the policy can be reversed by any of the 3 parties. Money where mouth is.

 

I'm reminded of the gag where the millionaire asks a woman to have sex with him for a million pound, and she thinks about it and says "OK".

 

Then he asks her to have sex with him for a fiver. "No!" she exclaims, "What kind of woman do you think I am?!".

 

"I think we've already established that", he says, "and we're just haggling over the price".

 

Tuition fees, as established by Labour, and pushed further by Tories. Selective memories.....

Except this isn't a silly anecdote, this is a policy which prevents whole groups of society from going to university. You can whine all you like about it being the Tories pushing it further but the simple fact is that it wouldn't have passed without the Lib Dems abandoning their flagship policy.

I'm sorry for the students caught in the money trap, as Ive expressed earlier my views, but ONE policy in 5 years (on a principle already established under Labour) is hardly a major crime in the scale of things and compared to what MP's in the other parties have done over the last 30 years. That's just being pouty, and the policy can be reversed by any of the 3 parties. Money where mouth is.

 

I'm reminded of the gag where the millionaire asks a woman to have sex with him for a million pound, and she thinks about it and says "OK".

 

Then he asks her to have sex with him for a fiver. "No!" she exclaims, "What kind of woman do you think I am?!".

 

"I think we've already established that", he says, "and we're just haggling over the price".

 

Tuition fees, as established by Labour, and pushed further by Tories. Selective memories.....

Except it was their ONE BIG POLICY! Like Danny's said - you don't spend a decade being a load of self-righteous and pious so and sos and go on about restoring trust in politics before u-turning on the one policy the vast majority of the public knows you for. That isn't compromise. That's the kind of policy that ought to be a red line, and it was a huge, huge tactical error on Clegg's part to think THAT was the policy to compromise on to show the Lib Dems were 'grown up and coalition involved compromise' - given the Tories didn't sacrifice anything equally big in exchange, it just made them look craven.

 

Do you honestly really not see why there was a reaction to this that wouldn't have been the case had the Lib Dems negotiated over the personal allowance/pupil premium etc?

Except this isn't a silly anecdote, this is a policy which prevents whole groups of society from going to university. You can whine all you like about it being the Tories pushing it further but the simple fact is that it wouldn't have passed without the Lib Dems abandoning their flagship policy.

Although I will say that it only prevents groups of society from going to university if they don't understand how tuition fees actually work. It really does break my heart a little that the reaction on the left has probably put a lot of parents off allowing their children to go to university when they otherwise should have done because they think the debt's up-front/compulsory to a degree.

Although I will say that it only prevents groups of society from going to university if they don't understand how tuition fees actually work. It really does break my heart a little that the reaction on the left has probably put a lot of parents off allowing their children to go to university when they otherwise should have done because they think the debt's up-front/compulsory to a degree.

 

Do you not think a bigger factor in that is politicians and the media constantly sending out hysterical messages that any debt is evil, that we can't afford to have even a small deficit otherwise we'll all go bankrupt? :P It's not exactly surprising in that kind of climate that people believe they can't afford to take on debt from tuition fees, even if this particular type of debt is extremely manageable because of the repayment scheme (exactly the same as government debt is).

Edited March 9, 201411 yr by Danny

I don't think anybody outside of the Tories says you can't afford to have even a small deficit 'otherwise you'll go bankrupt'. Just that if you've had a really bloody huge deficit for a long time, sense says that generally you'll have the leeway to have another large deficit when needed in the future for stimulus if you try and make up for that large deficit now.

 

Plus, for the record £100bn (or whatever pitifully small decrease from the peak we're at now) is by no means a small deficit if we're getting into side points :P

 

And no, outside of snark I don't think it's a bigger factor at all and it's nowhere near being so. We're talking about cases where kids who'd have gone to university on 3k tuition fees are now not going to university on 9k tuition fees because their parents think they can't afford that. The (understandable) scare-mongering around the time the policy came in has definitely had an effect - granted, it's anecdotal evidence, but I've definitely heard of cases where straight A/AAB students were told by their parents they weren't going to university because they couldn't afford 9k. A 'debt is evil' attitude isn't responsible for that - otherwise they just wouldn't have gone anyway under 3k. A big headline figure combined with a lack of education as to exactly how that debt is paid off (which many on the left understandably didn't mention at the time when campaigning against the policy) scared a lot of people off. Luckily enrollment numbers have returned to the levels they were at before, but still...

Except it was their ONE BIG POLICY! Like Danny's said - you don't spend a decade being a load of self-righteous and pious so and sos and go on about restoring trust in politics before u-turning on the one policy the vast majority of the public knows you for. That isn't compromise. That's the kind of policy that ought to be a red line, and it was a huge, huge tactical error on Clegg's part to think THAT was the policy to compromise on to show the Lib Dems were 'grown up and coalition involved compromise' - given the Tories didn't sacrifice anything equally big in exchange, it just made them look craven.

 

Do you honestly really not see why there was a reaction to this that wouldn't have been the case had the Lib Dems negotiated over the personal allowance/pupil premium etc?

No it wasn't. It wasn't one of the policies highlighted at the beginning of the manifesto. The BIG POLICY in that sense was the increase in the tax allowance to £10,000 - a policy which has been delivered.

I'd be interested in how many people would have mentioning the £10,000 allowance if you asked them before the election to name a Lib Dem policy.

I'd be interested in how many people would have mentioning the £10,000 allowance if you asked them before the election to name a Lib Dem policy.

There we go. Whether or not they put it front and centre, as if Clegg wouldn't have known it was the one policy the Lib Dems were identified with in the public mind.

all of which goes to show that general elections are run on soundbites and media reports, not actual facts.

 

I made my views perfectly clear. Any further education costs which may or may not put off working class young people from achieving, are bad and only help the rich continue to run society and help their own offspring. Criticising Lib Dems and not also the Labour Party is hypocrisy: all the arguing seems to be about is the amount, not the policy. I'm criticising the policy. Have a word in the shell-like godtastic ear of Miliband about the issue and see what the response is...?

 

If it's of any consolation, had I gone down the "pay-later for uni fees" route, as I've never actually earned an average wage (working for local government as I have for the majority of my life, in skilled graduate-type posts except for a brief period in 2008/9 before 5k was removed under equality-harmonisation, my job having previously done by a woman rather an unconvincing argument) my repayments would have been fairly minimal and only kicked in over the last few years.

all of which goes to show that general elections are run on soundbites and media reports, not actual facts.

 

I made my views perfectly clear. Any further education costs which may or may not put off working class young people from achieving, are bad and only help the rich continue to run society and help their own offspring. Criticising Lib Dems and not also the Labour Party is hypocrisy: all the arguing seems to be about is the amount, not the policy. I'm criticising the policy. Have a word in the shell-like godtastic ear of Miliband about the issue and see what the response is...?

The response being lower them back down to 6k. And given you don't care about numbers anyway, are you going to vote for the party with the good policy?

My issue isn't per se with the policy (I've long been open that it wasn't so much the fees going up that angered me - that would've been fine and justified if it had been done for the same reason they were brought in originally, to improve standards. What did get me out on the streets was the fees tripling at the same time as the 75% cut in the teaching grant and the 100% cut in the teaching grant for humanities. Paying three times as much for the same quality of education, or worse? Wrong in so many ways). My issue is with the utter hypocrisy of it all, from the most self-righteous party of them all pledging to restore trust in politics and decrying the betrayals of all the big parties and then...oh. And some of them still have the nerve to be as pious as ever now!

I judge every election on the policies on offer, whoever puts out the policies that most reflect my opinions on issues will get my vote. I'm not a party activist for any party.

 

Politicians go back on election pledges all the time. ALL politicians do it, Labour party included, because events and circumstances change along with priorities based on current most-important-to-sort issues. Seems to me like it's a case of trying to justify a grudge against one party based on something all parties do. As I said, Libdems forced to assist in sorting out a mess not of their causing, and personally I dont agree with their actions, but there you go, shock horror pious ministers election promises not perfect in politics headlines. Just like all of them, then. At least on one issue, not bad considering theve never actually been in power (just jointly), I'd consider that a relatively good strike ratio compared to the other two's broken promises of the past.

 

I'm glad students seem to be happy with 6k, then. I know students in my day wouldnt have been......

But your original point was that it was a non-Lib Dem policy, and whatever mangled excuse you can come up with you can't deny that they have to take full responsibility for a policy which wouldn't have been passed without them.

as does every governement and party that didn't do what it said it would and did do what it said it wouldn't. Name me a government that has a 100% spotless record....

 

My point wasn't that they are blameless (I don't agree with it!) but that a coalition is about compromise. You go into a coalition not compromising and putting your foot down the coalition falls apart. It's a calculation which policies you can push and which you can't. Ask the MP's and the voters would they prefer they didn't up the fees, I'm fairly sure the answer would be a resounding "yes". Had the Libdems won the election outright, one can speculate that the policy wouldn't have gone forward. Had they entered into a coalition with Gord, one can speculate that the fees would still have gone up to 6k (perhaps) and the Libdems would also have voted for that.

 

Curse those pesky Libdems for not going with the party booted out of office.

 

I presume the intention to introduce course fees for students was in previous Labour manifestos and everyone was jolly happy it happened because they said they would introduce it and did so that's alright then. On a scale of political c*ck-ups in the lifetime of a government (assuming Lib-dems continue to get the blame for the policy) I'll take a 3k-whinge and raise you an invasion of Iraq, a failing economy, a banking sector unregulated, a massive housing bubble. Kind of puts it into scale, really....

 

The last three are all applicable to the current lot, so well done on that one.

 

Obviously coalition is about compromise but decent compromise doesn't generally involve a complete u-turn on the only thing a sizeable minority of voters know you for. At least the other two parties are a bit more subtle about it.

 

(and for the record, fees initially were pretty much the only way of keeping the university sector afloat after the massive expansion of the old polytechnics and no expansion of funding to match - tripling them while actually cutting budgets is in no way the same thing as much as you'd like to pretend)

 

Anyway, if we could get this back on topic it'd be lovely.

First debate going on now.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-26754273

Edited March 26, 201411 yr by Danny

Has anyone been watching since the start? Who's looking better?