So Nick Clegg has apologised for promising not to introduce tuition fees, and then promptly doing just that. Not that he is sorry for the fees themselves, just sorry for having broken the original much-trumpeted promise. The video below says it all pretty well, I think.



But I am almost as cynical about Labour's snide remarks about Clegg shedding "crocodile tears." Let's not forget that it was Labour who introduced tuition fees in the first place. And let's not forget that Labour was re-elected in 2001 on a manifesto pledge stating that it "will not introduce top-up fees and has legislated against them." By 2004, it had legislated for, in effect, the opposite. Universities were not allowed to charge what they wanted for Higher Education, but the fees cap rose from £1000 to £3000. In most people's understanding, this was a "top up" fee. The government also claimed that although the legislation was passed in 2004, the fees would not take effect until after the next election, thus sticking to the letter of the previous election manifesto, if not to its spirit.

Those within Higher Education, whether teachers or students, have lived through a decade of mendacity. The Liberal Democrats may be worse than others because their pledge was designed solely to energise the student vote, which it then cast away when they caught the whiff of power that they hadn't expected. However, it would be wrong to see Labour as the shining alternative. If there were an election tomorrow I would certainly vote Labour over Liberal Democrats, breaking the habit of a lifetime over this one vital issue. However, I would do so with my fingers crossed, and without any great trust.

Labels: Liberal Democrats, tuition fees, University Life

Over that long night and the strange following days of the general election, I blogged a few thoughts about the advent of a Liberal-Conservative coalition. With the media churning out editorials on the fact that the coalition has survived its first 100 days, I thought I would add my brief review to the mix.


Back then, I predicted that Cameron's government would prove to be more centrist than it might otherwise instinctively want to be, as it was kept in check by the Lib Dems. Yet - and I say this as a Lib Dem voter at the election - I have been baffled and disappointed by how little impact the Liberals are able to have on the Tories. Aside from a progressive increase of the income tax threshold to £10 000, I can think of no headline policies that have emerged from the Lib Dem side. Partially, this may be due to the fact that the two parties have indeed found a deal of common ground around the centre, especially with regard to civil issues. The classic example came when Kenneth Clarke, one of the more leftist Tories, revealed plans to reform the prison service, something the Lib Dems have long called for. When Michael Howard criticised the plans, he served to triangulate the coalition, away from Thatcherism, away from Labour's big state, and towards a more liberal civil society. Frankly, anything that Michael Howard rejects is likely to find favour with me.

Sticking with the positives, I have been surprised by how statesmanlike Cameron appears to be, supported by William Hague as Foreign Secretary, whose undoubted eloquence plays well on the international stage. On Afghanistan, in defending BP in the United States, in adopting a more forceful attitude towards Pakistan's partial permission of terror, Cameron and Hague have come across well.

However, to focus on civil liberties or foreign policy is to be talking about a mouse, when the elephant is dominating the room. On the issue of cuts, I remain quite pessimistic. Although I accept the premise that cuts have to be made, it is impossible not to imagine that the 40% knife is being wielded not with solemn determination, but with a degree of glee in some corners of the Conservative party. I also dislike the mantra of "efficiency savings" and "cutting waste" that comes from the political top. On the ground, an efficiency saving means a parent losing their job; what may be waste to the politician is a serious and valuable responsibility to the person performing a role.

But regardless of the language that smooths the great gashes in public spending, I have a very real fear that the cuts are making their marks most deeply on the young. Cuts in Connexions and the Future Jobs Fund will hurt those at the very bottom of the ladder, who may have dropped out of education prematurely, but who have not yet unfairly piggy-backed on a lifetime of benefits.

In a different area, the government's Higher Education funding policy is a mess, and the fact that 150 000 students will miss out on a university place threatens not only these individuals, but also the whole ethos - admirably developed by New Labour - that Higher Education should be accessible to all. On the news last night, I heard a young lad in tears, who had achieved two As and an A* at A-Level, but who had not been offered a place on the medicine course he wanted. He had no hope of getting an alternative place through clearing. The first in his family to aim for university, he had been promised that it offered the route to a premium career. He maintained his side of the bargain by getting excellent results; this government (and, to be fair, the last year of New Labour's) has not kept theirs. What message will this send out to those from poorer background who have never before seen university as something to aspire to, and who may not now do so again?

It seems to me that the big risk of cuts like this is that they are barbed with no possibility of reversal. Cut jobs in the civil service, or hospitals, or even schools, and staff can be re-recruited once the economy recovers. But cut funding for university places (or for for the environment and sustainability, another major concern of mine) and you cannot simply backpedal. Those who miss out on university this year, may end up never going; rural areas left to degrade and species left to decline may simply never return to their present state.

Nevertheless, at 100 days, it is fair to recognise that we are in the early phases of the government. Many of the "cuts" exist at the moment as paper hypotheses, and it is not until the October Spending Review that we will see more clearly what the future four years hold in store. Whereas Blair and Alistair Campbell seemed to follow each election by immediately planning for the next in pursuit of that "historic third term," the present government faces shorter hurdles, coming at an unprecedentedly rapid rate. The coalition has survived its first 100 days fairly well. But the next hurdle looms with the Spending Review. Then, as cuts bite early in the next financial year, it will arrive in the form of figures that show or deny a double-dip recession. In this fast moving political climate, the only thing that is sure is that the next checkpoint will arrive sooner than 100 days hence.

Labels: coalition, Conservatives, general election, Liberal Democrats, Politics

I cannot believe that I have just witnessed David Cameron standing on the steps of Number 10 as the new Prime Minister. I almost came of voting age at the 1997 election, and can remember the relief and celebration that met the arrival of New Labour on the scene, Tony Blair pressing hands through a sea of flags. The present moment seems so very different, no defining instant of change but an elongated process of negotiation, manipulation and indecisiveness, the latter on the part both of the electorate and the elected. Cameron made a powerful, persuasive and humble speech, to the background of boos and jeers. Those noisemakers probably suspect that his moderate words merely gloss over the fundamental values of the party he leads, a dormant ideological beast that is still feared by the public: a party of whom 43% were privately educated, of free-market millionaires, of those who believe that society is fundamentally broken, but that those who are the poorest are the least worth fixing with the aid of the state.

It is of course impossible to predict accurately what will happen next; we don't even know the precise terms of the Lib Dem coalition, or who will comprise Cameron's cabinet. But in a perverse kind of way, I fear that Cameron's government will actually prove to be rather more centrist in this first term that it might instinctively otherwise be. Remember that this is the party that wants to cut inheritance tax for millionaires and that opposes tax rises in order to reduce the squeeze on public services; this is a party that insists that the country is broken; this is the party that is resistant to the forces of globalisation to which they are nevertheless in thrall when it comes with money attached; this is the party that is least likely to impose stronger regulations on the banks.

The ironic thing is that we might well expect all these measures to be qualified or even cancelled under the alliance with the Lib Dems. Surely, one condition of the Lib Dem coalition will be that the tax break for millionaires will not appear in the first budget. Certainly, the vision of the Conservatives (who are, to be fair, certainly less right wing than before the Cameron era), will seem less provocative to the two-thirds of left wing voters who did not endorse the Tories last Thursday, now that they have the Lib Dems in tow.

As I posted previously, I do not see that Nick Clegg had any alternative other than supporting the Conservatives in forming a working government. But, strangely, I fear that Cameron as Prime Minister of a minority Tory party has a better chance of a second term (however soon the next election comes) than Cameron as Prime Minister of a fully-fledged, right-wing, Tory powerhouse. As the muted response to Cameron's place outside Number 10 implies, and as the election percentages clearly indicate, Britain is a progressive place that believes in a substantial and supportive public sector.

Without the Lib Dems, the old Tory party's genetic instincts may well have destined them to erode the latter in a way that might make them unelectable for another decade, as the Thatcherite repressed return in the full belief of their ideological right to govern, privatise and cut. With the Lib Dems tugging them towards the centre, though, the Conservatives may well have become not only feasible, but reasonable.

Labels: Conservatives, David Cameron, general election, Liberal Democrats, Politics

I have just heard Nick Clegg's statement about the election, in which he has repeated his statement that the party with the largest share of the votes, which also has the largest number of seats, has the mandate to govern. Logically, this must be the Conservatives, something Clegg actually openly confirmed by inviting Cameron to form the next government. In the turmoil of this election, and on the spur of the moment, here are a few thoughts about why he has made this manoeuvre:

• Clegg is playing the long game here. To form a coalition with Gordon Brown might be tempting in the short term, but would ultimately be politically disastrous, tainting his party with an allegiance with the old politics that he clearly distinguished the Lib Dems from in the Leaders' Debates.
• By throwing down the gauntlet to Cameron, Clegg may be anticipating that the Tories would be unable to form a working minority government, leading to the possibility of a second election in the not-too-distant future, at which the Lib Dems could hardly be expected to do worse than they have done today.
• Alternatively, if Cameron can in the immediate term get a government moving, he might need to call on Lib Dem support on some issues, against which the Lib Dems can extract the price of electoral reform. One must expect that the Conservatives will be more likely to be amenable to electoral reform now, given that they have gained the same share of the vote as Labour gained in 1997, yet not won the same overwhelming majority. 
• By aligning with the Conservatives at this point - even though it is impossible to see the Lib Dems entering into a formal coalition with them over the coming weeks - the Lib Dems are in an almost win-win situation. Either the Conservatives cannot make a minority government work, making for a swift second election, in which the Lib Dems can hardly be expected to go backwards; or the Conservatives will successfully push through some radical reforms, pulling the plug from public services, but without the large popular mandate required to do so, opening a greater space for the Lib Dems to occupy as the party of genuine change in the long term (especially if Cameron sticks to his plans to cut inheritance tax for wealthy millionaires). 

Labels: general election, Liberal Democrats, Politics