Are the Lib Dems going to have anyone left voting for them by the end of this parliament? It will look really bad if they support the reviews findings.

“are in government with a golden opportunity”

How exactly, is their opportunity “golden”? If they ignore the review, they’ll be pilloried for ignoring the advice of experts. If they approve of it, they’ll be lambasted for going back on their word. The Tories outnumber them 1 to 5. The Coalition Agreement allows them to abstain on fees – but to actively vote No, I don’t see how they could do that whilst remaining part of government.

Then again, according to Sunny and Labour, voting records don’t matter. Ed Miliband can vote against an inquiry into the war, can vote for ID cards, can vote for tuition fees, and all the rest of it – but it doesn’t matter, because he can give a speech a few years later denouncing himself.

So it doesn’t actually matter what the Lib Dems do over this. This is just a bat to hit them over the head with, and rather than attacking the Tories or Labour, both of whom want higher fees, you’re going for an easy target to give your members something to do. It’s also a failure of your own lobbying – both now, and in the past, when under your watch Labour brought in fees in the first place.

Slightly OT, but by all accounts Nick Clegg is planning to send his son to a faith school despite asserting that he is an atheist, and this is in the light of his own party’s apparent opposition to faith schools.
@1 I doubt if many of the libdems’ core supporters will be left
@2 After 1997, LP’s share of the vote decreased, and I have no doubt that a lot of voters were disgusted at their introduction of tuition fees.

Well according to a poll in the Sunday Times 53% support the cutting of more universal benefits. Perhaps the Left should support such cuts and call for the money saved to go towards higher education?

I’m no Clegg supporter, but he doesn’t have a choice about the faith school element of this. He will have agreed, when marrying his catholic wife, to let his children be brought up catholic. All catholics wanting to marry out of the faith have to insist on this. It’s a despicable arrangement, but an oath none the less. As to whether he had to pick that particular school, and not a RC school closer to home – that’s another matter.

@4
Isn’t the cut in universal benefits, proposed by the condems,supposed to be for paying for the economic deficit? And, as per my post @3, it was the LP who introduced tuition fees in the first place. My point is, that speaking with a forked tongue seriously damages your level of support in elections.

“Students were, of course, excluded from the review panel”

Indeed, of course. For you are in education: an admission that you are not yet sufficiently educated.

Once you’ve been educated then you can join the adults in making decisions.

@7

“Indeed, of course. For you are in education: an admission that you are not yet sufficiently educated.

Once you’ve been educated then you can join the adults in making decisions.”

Non-graduates not entitled to make any decisions ever, then Tim? World to officially be run by former students only?

Or does the decision-making lobe in your brain activate as soon as you end education, whether that’s after finishing school at 16, gaining your PHd, or somewhere in between?

To make sensible decisions, one would need to be a good deal more rational (or perhaps less glib) than your post.

“one would need to be a good deal more rational (or perhaps less glib)”

Less insulting or snarky, perhaps.

“Now the Liberal Democrats … are in government with a golden opportunity to stop a price hike ”

No they haven’t. They have as much chance as they did of getting their graduate tax idea implemented, ie close to zero.

@blanco

“The Coalition Agreement allows them to abstain on fees”

This is why the Coalitions Agreement is a dishonest piece of paper. If the LibDems abstain then the government will still have a majority. This is the LibDems having their cake and eating it. As #1 says such behaviour will quite rightly be ruthlessly exploited by Labour at the next general election (and all local and assembly elections too): you cannot trust any promise the Lib Dems make.

No Richard. Broken promises. Glad Labour kept their word on not introducing topup fees, then. Oh wait…

@4

Right now I’d be very leery of any poll published by a News Corp. organ. Murdoch is using the same push polling techniques that he perfected in the US.

@9

“Less insulting or snarky, perhaps.”

Well yes, that too.

@blanco

Thanks for the LibDem apologist viewpoint. Good job the vast majority of voters live on planet earth not planet LibDem, go back to your constituencies and prepare to lose them.

Indeed, of course. For you are in education: an admission that you are not yet sufficiently educated.

Really? How about PhD students? Those in adult education? Folks learning a foreign language? Being in education can mean that your not sufficiently learned in one area; it doesn’t mean yer as thick as a bank.

“Being in education can mean that your not sufficiently learned”

That’s exactly what it does mean: that you yourself have recognised that you are not sufficiently learned. That you are extending yourself to become more learned is exactly that admission.

Tim – Yes, but that doesn’t preclude you from being informed, learned or a Gol’ darn expert on another subject. I’m not in in education but I’m a total idiot. My sister’s in education but she’s a bleedin’ genius. Let’s say Albert Einstein had wrapped up his jolly theories and gone to do an Adult Ed. course in media studies. He’d be in education but he’d still be educated.

@ 17

“That’s exactly what it does mean: that you yourself have recognised that you are not sufficiently learned. That you are extending yourself to become more learned is exactly that admission.”

Jesus wept, are you still pursuing that? The question is: not sufficiently learned for what? I’ve finished education, but I’m not sufficiently learned to fly a jet plane. Even when I was in education, I was sufficiently learned to debate the ins and outs of university funding.

I can’t believe you need to be guided through this like a five-year old. Is it really so difficult to understand that there are more states and levels of education that “educated” and “not educated”?

“Even when I was in education, I was sufficiently learned to debate the ins and outs of university funding.”

I disagree.

“I disagree.”

So I see. Another thing I’d already learned while in education was that responding to somebody’s point by saying “I disagree”, or “well I’m sorry but you’re wrong”, or indeed “Yeah but you’re still only a student so till you get to the REAL world you should STFU” is fatuous and fails to get anyone anywhere. Obviously we all follow different learning curves.

@Chaise

To be fair, whilst an undergraduate I had a very rosy, idealistic view that my education should be funded by the taxpayer. Looking back on it, and now not only being in debt to pay for it but also paying taxes to fund current students, I see what a waste of public money 99% of uni is. Less than 1 day’s worth of contact hours means essentially a lot of spare time to get drunk, get high, get laid, and get into more debt.

Students are the main beneficiaries of higher education, the economy and the country really do not need more graduates unless they’re in medicine, science, engineering. So subsidise those useful degrees, and make all the others pay; but also follow the German system in providing respectable routes into vocational work, and (somehow) remove the cultural stigma attached to those who didn’t go to uni, and start making it okay for people to not go, even for middle class people to not go.

Less than 1 day’s worth of contact hours means essentially a lot of spare time to get drunk, get high, get laid, and get into more debt.

True dat. Most degrees are a waste of time (and, crucially, cash).

Political Dynamite responds to this here – http://politicaldynamite.com/2010/10/how-can-we-stop-a-rise-in-university-tuition-fees/

The Liberal Democrats have let all of the students down, a very bad move considering a vast portion of their support comes from students. I’m happy to say that so long as the Liberal Democrats are led by Nick Clegg I will not be casting them a vote. A message to the Liberal Democrats: “grow a pair and stand by your principles!”