The Guardian on Lib Dems and Tuition Fees. Another perfectly good tree, wasted

This weekend, the Guardian featured an article suggesting that the Lib Dem leadership were considering "selling out" on tuition fees in advance of the General Election. Which would be a big story, if only it was true.

As the article (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/nov/12/lib-dems-tuition-fees-clegg) makes clear, it says that even in secret, in advance of the election, in planning for any possible coalition, the Party were still planning to keep its pledge on not increasing tuition fees. It was also going to make including part-time students part of any deal. That would be a great deal for the Lib Dems to have achieved in any coalition. It doesn't rule out being able to go further, but defines the clear intention: we keep our signed pledge to students.

The abolition of fees was always something the Lib Dems would aspire and plan to do, if they were the Government. But if negotiating a coalition agreement, then you have things you HAVE to do, and things you WANT to do. Sorting those out in advance of any negotiations themselves seems simply good planning.

The only remaining question is that having come up with such a clear position on keeping the pledge not to vote to increase fees, the coalition has, as we know, now proposed increasing fees. That seems to be a weakness in the setting up of the coalition itself, is certainly a clear (and for many, unwelcome) u-turn, but is hardly the result of the "leaked" pre-planning .

There is more on this story at http://www.libdemvoice.org/guardian-nicholas-watt-smears-22059.html