The People's Republic of South Devon

Betrayed? Exeter students march against the Coaltion’s cuts to higher education after being promised ‘new politics’ during the election campaign

Much has already been written of the damage that the tuition fees vote last week will wreak upon our nation’s universities and colleges but there was another victim that also deserves our attention – public trust.

For me, the tuition fees vote finally destroyed the honourable and appealing concept of there being ‘a new politics’. The general election was fought against the backdrop of the biggest scandal to rock our Parliamentary democracy in generations – the deliberate and systematic abuse of the expense system. The election was supposed to usher in a period of politics whereby government would somehow become cleaner and purer. It was an elaborate and timely concoction and one that, like many, I hoped would come true.

No party did more to play on the spirit of the ‘new politics’ than the Liberal Democrats. The TV debates saw Clegg look down the camera lens and appeal to millions of people to put their trust in him – “it is time for promises to be kept,” he preached. And enough believed him that polling stations closed with queues of voters still unable to cast their vote so huge was the demand.

The problem was that Clegg’s new politics was a sham. It has been proven to be little more than a façade. Once in power, the promises and positions of trust he and his party fought the election on were eroded one by one – though not necessarily with the consent of his party. I happen to think that pledges made at elections are important. Of course no one should doubt that forming a coalition would not entail compromise but it should not involve an abdication of principles.

Shedding policies on the economy, on VAT, on schools, on defence, on energy, on welfare, on electoral reform, on health and many more are, Mr Clegg argues, is the necessary real politic of life in a coalition. Manifesto pledges are one thing, but personal pledges are another. Breaking a promise made to an electorate who put their faith in the Lib Dems to stick to their word is not only a compromise too far it is a stab in the back of all those who wanted so hard to believe that a new politics would be somehow different.

My fear is that having been whiter than white, the unrobing of Mr Clegg and (some of) the Lib Dems as liars (see this fabulous YouTube video for more…

will not only have a profound effect on the electoral chances of the Lib Dems in Devon and across the nation but on our fragile political system as a whole.

Trust is hard won but easily lost and in Mr Clegg – whose people brand as a liar will haunt him and his party for decades to come – trust has been lost. Not misplaced though, deliberately over-ridden and nowhere more apparent than in breaking the NUS pledge on tuition fees.

I signed a personal pledge as Labour’s candidate in SW Devon that I would vote against any increase in fees if I was elected. It was the same pledge my Lib Dem opponent signed and indeed that every successful Lib Dem MP signed too. The pledge was unequivocal and clear – there was no small print or exit clauses. Breaking it is clear and apparent betrayal.

But here it should be said that many Lib Dem MPs did indeed stick to their pledge and good on them. Adrian Sanders, a regular contributor to PRSD, stuck to his pledge. Others, disappointingly, like Cornwall’s Stephen Gilbert, put his party’s pact with the Tories before his pledge to the people and voted for increased fees. Voters will not forget this betrayal.

I believe fundamentally that fees of £9,000 a year are wrong. I believe, even more profoundly, that cutting teaching grants to universities at a time when we need better not less teaching is a profound economic mistake. Britain is at a cross-roads in how we shape our economic future for the next century. In cutting funding and condemning our higher education sector to cuts, redundancies and international slump, the Tories and Lib Dems have struck a cruel blow that we, as a nation, may not recover from. I believe it is that important.

But the tuition fees vote did something else too. It woke a sleeping giant – the public. The British public likes fairness. It’s not a party political concept, it is an inbuilt belief of all of us. Tuition fees hikes and cuts are inspiring a new awakening of activism – not necessarily party political (though Labour’s membership across Devon is sky rocketing) but community activism based on fighting for something people believe in. Across our county people are organsing and mobilizing and that is a good thing. We need this activism to hold the government to account and to fight the cuts and rhetoric that would have us all believe that there is no alternative but to slash and burn.

So, when confronted with utter betrayal by the Lib Dems and a merciless cutting of public services by the Tories we all have three choices: to join the cutters, to roll over and accept it or to fight them. I know what my choice is – what is your choice?

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