“It is fair that students should pay more for their university education even though their parents’ generation didn’t”

That’s not the issue. It wasn’t fair, full stop, that their parents got free uni education, because their parents were most likely middle class and their education was paid for by the taxes of poor working class people.

“If those youngster come out to vote the Coalition will be in trouble”

I think we can breathe a sigh of relief then. What percentage of 18-24 year old actually vote?

1

No doubt we’ll be hearing a lot more of this “their parents were most likely middle class and their education was paid for by the taxes of poor working class people” line; particularly from LD’s anxious to justify the fact the party has sold it’s sould to the devil?

I’m the first in my family to go to Uni (in the 80′s when grants were being phased out), and my daughter has just started at Uni. If the “balance” of taxes expected from us vs. things which are subsidised by the state such as University fees, or the NHS, or education (expenditure for much of which can be presumed to a “public good”), then I want to know what’s in it for me?

I don’t want a knee jerk change of the whole system which stems from a fiscal panic, and economic policy many see as deeply flawed.

“I think we can breathe a sigh of relief then. What percentage of 18-24 year old actually vote?”

It depends which constituency you’re in and how active local parties are amongst the students. Students are often the deciding factor in council elections in university towns and they can be a sizeable minority in parliamentary elections.

Well, the lib-dems tuition fees fail is the sucker punch. I was reasonably happy with their performance in government up until that.

I voted for them in 2005, and 2010. Not sure I can vote for them in 2015 now. We’ll just have to see.

Labour needs to become a lot more civil-liberties-friendly, or the greens a lot more science-friendly, before I have a realistic alternative…

@1

So why don’t the LDs introduce a retrospective tax on everyone who benefitted from free University education pre-1997? Oh that wouldn’t be a vote winner would it… Your final paragraph gives you and the LD agenda away: it’s ok to screw over students/18-24 year-olds because they are less likely to vote.

Here’s an interesting result from the same survey:

The top rate of income tax at 50p in the pound on earnings over £150,000 a year should be raised to 60p in the pound

Agree 54%
Disagree 29%
Don’t know 17%
· There is an interesting trend by age: older people are far more likely than younger people to agree – 30% of 18-24s agree, rising to 69% of 55-64s and 68% among those aged 65+

@4 – “Labour needs to become a lot more civil-liberties-friendly, or the greens a lot more science-friendly, before I have a realistic alternative…”

Perhaps, except the Greens don’t stand in a lot of constituencies (such as mine) and I can’t see Labour ditching authoritarianism any time soon. What will you do if there’s no realistic alternative? Surely not vote for the Lib Dems again?

Most people I talk to are too angry to vote for any of the mainstream parties; it will be interesting to see what the turnout at the next election is.

Labour needs to become a lot more civil-liberties-friendly,

This is already planned under Ed Miliband.

@blanco, you claim that free education for the middle class was paid for by the taxes of the poor and working class. How can you possibly know that, given that tax isn’t hypothecated, and given that the top rate of income tax was much higher than it is now? It was only towards the end of Thatcher’s rule that the top rate was lowered from 60% to 40%, and it was higher still pre-Thatcher.

The truly progressive thing is to fund education through income tax, but more progressive income tax than we have now.

It is a nonsense to say that rich people who didn’t go to university should pay less tax or fewer fees than rich people who did. The rich should pay, whether they went to university or not. Let’s not be under any illusions about it, anyway: education benefits the whole of society, both economically and culturally.

@1
“I think we can breathe a sigh of relief then. What percentage of 18-24 year old actually vote?”

It’s not high, those that do were far more likely to vote Lib Dem than the average voter. If you can be blasé about the Lib Dems losing core support, then that suits me just fine.

@1 + 10,
44% of 18-to-24-year-olds voted in the last election (50% among males, 39% among females).

“That’s not the issue. It wasn’t fair, full stop, that their parents got free uni education, because their parents were most likely middle class and their education was paid for by the taxes of poor working class people.” An utterly uniformed opinion, not a fact. My parents were working class and I went to university only because I got a full grant. I was the first member of my family to go to university and it looks as if I will be the last.

I am a LibDem party member and supporter. In the world where I live our Party is a laughing stock amongst the other parties, the press and especially amongst the public, and deserves to be.

The Coalition is working well so far for the Conservatives, but our Party is being crushed by association with Conservative policies – with our LibDem heart being torn out. Education policy in schools. University tuition fees. Support for families. Trident. The list is obvious and gets longer each day. Does Nick Clegg believe in none of these policies any more, simply using them as pieces on a chessboard?

We need a leader who not only speaks LibDem but acts LibDem. I am not naive about how coalitions have to work with compromises – but what the LibDems in Cabinet are doing is not acceptable to Liberal principles and very damaging not only to our Party but to the country. We need leadership with some bottle to uphold what we believe in. How does our Constitution work with respect to removing our leader and having a new election to find one with principles?

13 Tony F

I don’t give much for your chances of ousting Clegg and his crew whatever the procedural hoops are Tony.

Of course, you could just take the view that the best thing might be to tear up your membership card and send Nick a letter explaining why?

Nick Clegg was voted in by our Party, that was democracy at work. The leadership is not a job for life as Ming and C. Kennedy will confirm. Ming’s sin of being a bit too ‘senior’ and C.K.’s sin of taking an occasional glass of amber nectar hardly compare with Nick’s renegging on most if not all LibDem policies.

I care for the Party and what it stands for. Tearing up my membership card and sending Nick a letter would be handing the Party over to Nick and his visions for the Party. I would be seen as ‘collateral damage’ as NATO describes the innocent dead in Pakistan after their bombing raids. There is no possibility of a “Tony F” or “Galen 10″ Party ever getting a majority in a General Election, so we find the closest fit and support our Party. The LibDems used to stand for values which mattered to people like you and me. At present it does not because of the un-LibDem outlook of a couple of ambitious politicians having a great time appearing on tv and driving round in ministerial cars ready to sell out whenever instructed.

I shall keep my powder dry and remain a LibDem without endorsing the Cleggerie of sell-out. There has to be a procedure for our Party to change its leader; it has happened enough times in recent years. Nick Clegg has no title to remain in office for the full term of this coalition government.

15

Don’t get me wrong, I understand your frustration… I just don’t rate your chances of prevailing in a contest against a sitting leader and team who are in government, no matter what the rule book says about the procedure for trying to oust him.

I quite realise the compromises anyone has to make in joining a party (hence perhaps why I’ve never been able to bring myself to join one…?), and that there is an argument to be made that you have to pragmatic and be inside fighting to change those aspects of policy you disagree with.

Given the current choices, the LD’s are probably the party which would have come closest to getting me to make the leap and join, tho’ I’ve never been attracted by the classical Liberal and orange book tendency. However, like many others I’ve been horrified by their actions since joining the coalition, and the extent of their dilation to the Tory agenda.

I doubt I’d ever be able to vote for them again, which doesn’t leave me with any natural political “home” absent anything but a damascene conversion on the part of the Labour party.

I wish you luck – I have a feeling you’re going to need a lot more than that tho!

Galen10 – I am with you all the way. The LibDems have been in the wings so long that some in the Party are prepared to sell their grandmother to keep their names on the headed notepaper – Clegg will even deliver.

Another pressure will be from the other parties and the media very happy with the present arrangement. The other parties are happy to watch the LibDems’ popularity burn because it will make their next election campaign much easier. The media (generally speaking) like the Tories and will not want any boat-rocking to impede Osborne/Cameron/Gove’s progress to bring about their objectives. The LibDems Executive will not question Clegg’s self-wish for political power at the expense of a deathwish for the Party until it is much too late.

As a footsoldier I can’t do much about it, any more than an unfortunate infantryman in Afghanistan. I am no mutineer and no traitor – the contrary in fact.

Perhaps the Democrats of the Lib-Dem marriage would consider returning to their natural home – Labour. That at least would allow us Liberals to issue and apply some sort of control order on the tories ?

18 Ted

“Perhaps the Democrats of the Lib-Dem marriage would consider returning to their natural home – Labour. That at least would allow us Liberals to issue and apply some sort of control order on the tories ?”

Eh.. you think the only thing preventing them is the fact that the SDP-ites are somehow preventing them? Seems a bit of a flawed argument to me. If the SDP hadn’t merged with the Liberals, the latter would have remained the mini-Me of British politics. Perhaps that would have been no bad thing given present circumstances; the Liberals never were much good for anything….. perhaps it would have benn kinder just to let them diminish.

I doubt many former SDP types will find much to attract them back to Newer Labour either.

The idea that a Liberal party somehow “cleansed” of the Democrat bit would be able to control the Tories more effectively is the funniest thing I’ve heard in a long time. Congratulations…you are officialy the first turkey I’ve heard of this year who is looking forward to Christmas.

19

We will know the real answer if Mr Clegg bottles it and joins the Tories. You’ve heard the rumours as well.

20

The more I learn about Clegg the more convinced I am his natural home is the Tory party; he’s a Liberal in the same way Blair was Labour, and he has about the same grasp on his principles it appears. Whether Clegg actually jumps ship is much more open to doubt I’d say – better to be a big fish in a small (and diminishing) pond than a small fish in a big one, however much he agrees with Dave.

The real answer, as I suspect most Liberals (or LD’s) must know in their heart of hearts, is that you are on a hiding to nothing as long as you are shackled to the Tories. Spitting image used to portray David Steele in David Owen’s suit pocket in the days of the Alliance, an image which was at once funny and damaging becuase it resonated with what people thought (even if it wasn’t actually accurate).

Fast forward to today, and you now have the equivalent: Clegg in Cameron’s suit pocket, or portrayed as the tea boy. It doesn’t have to be true to be damaging and corrosive to your future chances, and it is all the more damaging because it contains a nugget of truth; you sold yourselves short, didn’t get enough in the way of the concessions, got NO major cabinet posts, and have signally failed to act as any sort of brake on the Tories.

Now look into the abyss of electoral oblivion again and tell me again how much better off you’d be without all those Democrats holding you back.