Active discussions

Help protect children from gaming harms.

Take our survey

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Politics
Original poster

When Nick Clegg was on Mumsnet...

38 replies

LilyBolero · 14/10/2010 14:14

When Nick Clegg came onto Mumsnet, I specifically asked him how it was fair that 'middle' class people may not be able to afford university in future.

His reply...

I have always believed university admissions should be based on your grades and your ability, not your background or your bank balance. That?s why we have always opposed tuition fees, which push up the cost and make it harder for people other than the very wealthiest to afford to get a degree. We will scrap unfair tuition fees for all students taking their first degrees saving them over £10,000 each. We have a financially responsible plan to phase fees out over six years, so that the change is affordable in these difficult economic times.

That lasted a long time then.

OP posts:
PoorlyConstructed · 14/10/2010 14:51

SGM: They almost certainly aren't going to get more money though. The government is just going to pass the cost on to individual students and give the universities less from taxation.

StewieGriffinsMom · 14/10/2010 14:49

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Ladymuck · 14/10/2010 14:49

But the Libdem party didn't win the election. They came third. They have 57 MPs - less than 10% of the total. Why on earth do you think that as the smaller party in a coalition government they would have the ability to push through their entire manifesto?

Even in the rather remarkable situation that the Libdems had become the largest party and had formed a government, I suspect that they would have had a similar reality check as with the current government - "ooops the figures are worse than we thought".

PoorlyConstructed · 14/10/2010 14:46

sadly, that'd just mean the produced utterly substanceless manifestos (so that they can't be held to account on anything) and then elaborate on the policies in more detail off-manifesto.

southeastastra · 14/10/2010 14:42

i really don't understand how they can blatently say one thing and do something else.

they should make their manifestos law so if they don't do them step down. or summat

PoorlyConstructed · 14/10/2010 14:40

They also said they weren't going to, repeatedly.

I remember being very panicked in august 1997 when they announced it, and having to hastily find myself a uni place through clearing (as my 5th year higher results were good enough to get in). I was 16 when I started uni, as were many of my peers who'd also gone the panic clearing route.

It was always going to be a slippery slope.

It looks like universities aren't really going to get any more money despite the higher tuition fees anyway, as their HEFCE grant is probably going down by 80%. Basically, students are going to have to pay a lot more but universities won't be able to offer more in return.

Original poster
LilyBolero · 14/10/2010 14:36

It's not often you get such a blatant abandonment of policy though. Labour were wrong to introduce them at all (at the time I thought 1k a year was reasonable, as 3k could fairly easily be earned in a gap year, but it was clearly a slippery slope).

OP posts:
PoorlyConstructed · 14/10/2010 14:25

to be honest, no one should ever believe anything political parties say about tuition fees in a manifesto (or anywhere else in an election campaign).

Labour explicitly said they wouldn't introduce tuition fees during the 1997 campaign, by august they'd announced that they were introducing them in 1998. I don't see why anyone believed that the LibDems were at all serious about scrapping them.

SoloBlackWidowSpiderWebSite · 14/10/2010 14:22

I was that fool, but in my defence, I was a confused fool :( sorry!

GetOrfMoiLand · 14/10/2010 14:19

Nick Clegg is a power hungry fool.

Good luck to him when the election comes round - Sheffield Hallam will kick. him. out.

You FOOLS who voted for the lib dems

nameymcnamechange · 14/10/2010 14:17

Its embarrassing isn't it? So glad I didn't vote LibDem.

DeadlyNightShadeofViolet · 14/10/2010 14:16

He is a nasty, smary little liar.
I bet the LD's are happy that he is the face of the party Hmm

Unprune · 14/10/2010 14:16

Maybe David Cameron's musk got to him

Swipe left for the next trending thread