Thursday 20 September 2012

Tuition fees - some apology!

Nice to see that at last Nick Clegg has seen fit to offer an apology over the tuition fee fiasco but does that make it all better. I suspect that he is not helped by his party colleagues who obviously don't share his stance. Vince Cable was on radio stressing that he had been against the pledge all along and there was some lib Dem mp (who I had never heard of) on Jeremy Vine today saying that an apology wasn't necessary because a third of students were now paying less than would have been the case. It really is pathetic. We all know that using normal Lib Dem election tactics they had decided that there were student votes to be won on the issue and they targeted university towns trying to buy votes with their personal pledge never believing they would have a sniff of government and as a result would not have to deliver. It would have been far more honourable to have fought as hard on the issue as they have done on House of Lords reform.Vince Cable seems to want his cake and to eat it. We are told that he is a central player in his party and government but as soon as anything unpopular happens he is the first to try to distance himself.Perhaps the time has come for him to start accepting some collective responsibility or to return to the back benches although I suspect that if that happens it will be shortly ahead of the next election to ensure he has as much time as possible in his important government post before demonstrating his principles to voters. So Clegg's apology is too little too late but at least better than most of his colleagues.

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