Why 'I agree with Nick'

I confess, dear reader, that my title is a little misleading. As I write, I do not agree with Nick, but I do agree with the pre-general election Nick. Do you remember those halcyon days? A time when Nick Clegg was feted as the new and refreshing face of British politics, when every major politician was keen to declare that 'I agree with Nick'?

To be honest, I have had a long-standing dislike for the Liberal Democrats. I find it difficult to put my finger on exactly what it is I have disliked about the party. I think it partly a reaction to a smugness that is very easy to exhibit when in permanent opposition, never having to face the real and difficult decisions of power. This was demonstrated most vividly by their so-called 'principled stand' on Iraq. There is nothing principled about standing against a widely unpopular war. At best, it is reflecting prevailing opinion, at worse, jumping on a bandwagon. But there is nothing especially principled about such a position. Of course, making a decision that you feel is right when opinion is against you, when you will be vilified for years to come, now that could be considered a principled stand. But I want to talk about Nick, not Tony.

Of course that smugness borne of permanent opposition has come back to haunt the party in the tuition fees debate. I assure you that I get no pleasure from saying 'I told you so' to those people who voted Liberal Democratic on the strength of their much publicised 'pledge' to remove tuition fees within 6 years. The issue is too serious for such luxuries.

The sense of betrayal that those (mostly young) voters now feel is completely understandable. Clegg's facile attempts to justify his volt face - 'we didn't win the election', 'we didn't realise things were so bad', just do not wash. Students may be young but they are not stupid. It is easy to understand that in a coalition you have to make compromises. But a compromise requires movement to the middle ground, not movement to the most extreme position. It is a very long way from abolishing fees in 6 years to permanently trebling them! No, students feel betrayed and let down, and rightly so.

Prior to the election, it is on this very issue that I was able to find a rare opportunity to say 'I agree with Nick'. In his now infamous You Tube video, he said it would be 'a disaster' to load tens of thousand of pounds of debt onto students. I agree with Nick. Of course, he does not say that now. I wonder what has changed? Certainly, the financial means of the students has not. Oh, but the intoxication of power....

But would such a 'principled' politician really lead the country into 'a disaster' in return for a grand job title and a ministerial car? There can really only be three explanations for his behaviour. Either he is intellectually incapable of understanding the issue, so he sways in the wind depending on who he talking to, or he was being completely dishonest in his You Tube video, or he is in fact prepared to betray students in return for power. Nobody really believes that this Cambridge graduate is too stupid to understand the issue, so we are left with  a rather unpalatable choice between a liar and a scoundrel. Do you think I am being too harsh? I am afraid that any objective analysis of the situation confirms Clegg's initial 'disaster' diagnosis. I say objective because I am excluding extremist Tory opinion that holds that we should not be sending so many students to university - an opinion driven by dogma rather than objective analysis.

Interestingly, the main reason why the new fees will indeed be a disaster is because of the inherent unfairness of the system, which is ironic bearing in mind that Liberal Democrats major pitch to the nation was based on fairness - the word 'fair', or derivations of it, was used 121 times in the Liberal Democrat manifesto. However, the word fair has quietly been dropped in favour of the more ambiguous word 'progressive', meaning that the poor will pay less than the rich. But progressive does not necessarily mean fair and it is unfairness that people react so violently against. Let me explain some of the unfairness:

• The higher education teaching budget has been slashed by a staggering 80% and this is the main reason for the need to treble fees. You may well respond that times are tough and everybody needs to contribute to the deficit reduction. However, if you are a young person just stepping out on adult life, it is going to feel very unfair that you have to face a near life-long debt to obtain a degree when the adults around you got theirs completely free. And these are the same adults that ran up the deficit in the first place. It is like the opposite of leaving money in your will. I am not going to leave you anything. In fact, I am going to leave you huge debts that you will have to pay off for me. But do not worry, I had a great time running them up!
• Under concessions rushed out in an attempt to placate opinion, students with poor parents could get as much as two thirds of their total fees paid for them. But what exactly has the parents wealth got to do with the student's ability to repay the tuition fees? A student from a poor family could end up with a job in the city earning millions, while a student from a middle class family could end up in a low paid job. But the city banker will have his fees largely paid for him.
• To add insult to injury, if you live in Wales, you will not have to pay any increase, even if you study at an English university. And in Scotland, there are no fees at all. This despite the fact that we all pay the same income tax rates.

It is all grossly unfair and will undoubtedly lead to a large reduction in the number of students attending university. No doubt dogma-driven Tories will nod with approval but the long term damage to our economy could be devastating. China produces 6 million graduates each year and India is not far behind. We can no longer compete with these countries in our factories, which is why much of our manufacturing industry has disappeared. We have to complete with our brainpower. If we fail to do this, our engineering, medical and pharmaceutical indusrties will follow manufacturing.

So, I agree with Nick - it is a disaster.