Stop the Cuts - National Demonstration

My own reading of the fees saga for the lib dems from what i have read is that clegg wanted to nove away from the scrap tuition fees stance begun under charles kennedy. Moves were made to do this way before the election but these moves were defeated by rank and file lib dem membership at party conference in a straightforward vote(lib dem constitution means policy is voted on by members at annual conference)

now having had the policy decided for them and being different to the other two parties they campaigned strongly on the subject among other issues. If elected with a majority lib dem govt he could have enacted it but he wasnt and i suspect at heart clegg is realistic about the cost of scrapping tuition fees and the practicalities of this especially in these times of austerity. So in coalition, presented with a review which seemed sensible and addresses longer term issues of funding he took a plunge and dropped the pledge. Basically what got him in the position of making a promise he couldnt necessarily keep was out of his hands and in his party's

now we have heard mention of 'real villains' of the piece and i think this is a bit ott. But if we are looking for villains how about the previous government for intoducing fees in first place then raising them later? this set the precedent both for fees and for voting in rises. They then set up the review the findings of which the latest policy is largely based on. This gradual increasing of fees was inevitable once fees were introduced in the first place and i am sure you can find plenty of mps saying so at the time.

So in my opinion the increase was inevitable, clegg was left no room to manouvre due to internal lib dem decision making processes and the subsequent lib dem handling of communications has been woeful. The protests seem a bit hysterical to me and the proposals whilst amounting to a significant increase seem reasonable in the method of paying off. Discuss

ps tynan dont go