Lib Dem Liars and the Lies they tell

A month before Clegg pledged in April to scrap the "dead weight of debt", a secret team of key Lib Dems made clear that, in the event of a hung parliament, the party would not waste political capital defending its manifesto pledge to abolish university tuition fees within six years. In a document marked "confidential" and dated 16 March, the head of the secret pre-election coalition negotiating team, Danny Alexander, wrote: "On tuition fees we should seek agreement on part-time students and leave the rest. We will have clear yellow water with the other [parties] on raising the tuition fee cap, so let us not cause ourselves more headaches."

From Saturday's Guardian.

This from a Jenny Willot leaflet delivered in the final few days of the election campaign from here
 
It's a simple equation. Jenny Willott won because of students. Students voted for her because her party said if elected they would get rid of tuition fees. Information now shows that was not the case.Cardiff North Liberal Democrat Assembly candidate Matt Smith (The Cardiff North perv) is already spinning away on Twitter, saying that abolition of fees wasn't one of their 'four key pledges' and that to implement policy you need a majority government. To Keir, it is simple. They campaigned on lies. They knew, even in their wildest dreams that they would not form a majority government and would be left to be junior partner in a coalition.
 
This is yet another reason that Keir will be saying #no2AV, as not only do the Lib Dems like to see themselves as "moderators" of the other parties, they also see themselves central in the practically permanent coalition that AV would result in; and Keir could do without their rancid smell. Alongside this, the Fib Dems jetissoning of their tuition fees policy is an example of what happens in coalitions. People vote for party A because of policy x, only for Party A to need Party B to get into government. Party B don't much like policy x, so don't support it. When policy x is as influential in garnering votes in certain places as the abolition of tuition fees has been; there is a problem.
 
Keir would rather be anyone than a Lib Dem activist out in student areas over the next few weeks.

The Lib Dems and their barcharts

In the week after Phil Woolas was exposed as a liar, and his appointment as Shadow Minister probably Ed Miliband's biggest misjudgement since becoming leader, Keir thought he would cast some light on one of the Lib Dems best known and loved campaigning practices. In the shadow of what has happened in the past week, Keir feels he must state that of course this practice is all above board and not at all designed to be misleading...

Drawn to Jenny Willott's (Useless, Cardiff Central) website after having to apologise in the house after supporting changes to housing benefit she had previously criticised (note Keir flagging up the sloppy editing of her website)  Keir spotted a very odd looking barchart on the side of the page. It just didn't look right, and maths wasn't one of Keir's strongpoints:

So, geniuses, in the General Election if the Tories had doubled their vote to 42% they would have won, but according to Jenny, 42% would have STILL put them behind Labour, while +10% for Labour would have probably put them into the lead! Well well well, those nasty lying Lib Dems.

Keir clicked on the bar chart and was taken to this page, where the numbers and the proportions look more accurate. To help, Keir tidied them up for you and put them in a graph:

But, unsure even of trusting the Lib Dems this much, Keir made his own: (1 is Lib, 2 Lab, 3 Con: his Excel skills don't stretch that far!)

So, this is a question of proportion. Why, one wonders, have the Liberals been so loose with the truth. I am sure this could be repeated in umpteen different constituencies throughout the country. Of course, in Cardiff Central the reason is that many Liberal voters are anti-Labour voters rather than dyed-in-the-wool yellowbellys, and if those voters in their nice houses in Cyncoed realise that a Tory win is plausible, they may go back home, leaving the Labour vote to stand up and nick it. Also, they motivate not only these anti-Labour voters but also their base by overemphasising how near the Labour vote is.

So, what's the rationale behind this post? Well, its quite simple. The Liberal Democrats not only lie on a large scale: about things like tuition fees, they are amongst the most insidious campaigners on the ground and this is one of the main reasons why they are detested by so many of all political persuasions.

Keir has a question for Jenny Willott's staff:

"In the interest of openness, especially after the ruling in Oldham last week, can you tell me exactly why you produce such a misleading bar chart on your website?"

Can't imagine there will be a reply mind...

Fib Demmery and Student Fees...

The phrase LOL was invented for pictures like this...

Keir got a response to his email to the lovely Jenny Willott, MP for Cardiff Central, her of the new baby possibly conceived on the expensive bed that the taxpayer paid for. (It was so expensive, she claimed, to much derision at pre-election hustings, so it could be disassembled and got up the stairs of her terraced house. Anyone fancy getting onto Ikea and finding one cheaper for her?)

Keir was surprised actually, as until a frenetic few days of activity in the last week or so of October, she hadn't updated her website on any issues affecting her constituents; especially issues, such as the publication of the Browne Report affecting the ones that put her in place in 2005 and kept her their in 2010: students. (Something she still is yet to do)

2nd November 2010

Dear Mr. Hardie,

Thank you for your email about the Browne Review into tuition fees.

I absolutely understand your concern, I’ve campaigned against tuition fees throughout my time as an MP and long before I entered Parliament.  I believe that university education should be available to everyone, regardless of their financial circumstances and I was therefore very happy to sign the NUS pledge in the election.

Towards the end of the last Parliament, Labour’s Secretary of State for Business, Lord Mandelson, commissioned Lord Browne to look into increasing fees.  It is clear that Labour, who introduced Top-Up Fees in 2004 despite their manifesto promise not to, were seriously considering raising or even abolishing the cap on fees.

As you know, Lord Browne has now published his report and recommended abolishing the cap all together to allow universities to create a ‘market for education’.  His review assumes that those who go to the best universities will earn more when they graduate and therefore these universities should be able to charge higher fees.

I do not support this approach.  For a start many highly educated and intelligent people choose to become teachers, nurses or other public sector workers, or work in the charitable sector and will not make more money from going to a top university.  I want to encourage the best people to study at the best universities and take up these types of jobs, not force them to choose between being able to pay off their debts or accepting a job which is of great benefit to society.

As a result I disagree with much of the Browne Review and, if it were to be implemented in full would absolutely vote against it.  However, the Browne Review is an independent report and the Government has not yet announced what it plans to do.  I, along with my Lib Dem colleagues, am currently lobbying Ministers to try to ensure that the final proposals do not burden students with further debt or prevent people from less affluent backgrounds from attending university.

I will not support an increase in tuition fees, but would like to see what the Government proposes first before deciding exactly what I will do.

I hope that this helps to explain my position.  Please don’t hesitate to get in touch if I can help further on this or any other issue.

Yours sincerely,

Jenny Willott MP, Cardiff Central

Keir has emboldened and underlined the most salient issues in her response. She starts off with a nice bit of blame Labour. Yes there is evidence that Labour wanted a review of HE funding. They launched the report process. This is where her attempts at equivalence fall down, because so what if Labour were considering it? (Whether they were or were not is immaterial really) Does that make it OK for the Coalition to do it?  Anyway, she is part of a government that IS raising the cap on tuition fees, not considering it.

She goes on to build a nice little get out clause, of course she would vote against the Browne report if implemented in full (which it almost certainly won't be). Leaves her a nice little grey area, and she ends on a cop out too, she 'will not support tuition fee increase, but...'. That isn't a flat out refusal to support it, that is deft footwork that Gareth Bale would be proud of.

If she does vote in support of raising tuition fees, then not only will the outgoing Lib Dem Jenny Randerson be replaced by the excellent Labour campaigner Jenny Rathbone in the Senedd elections next May, but come the first Thursday in May 2014/15 then Jenny Willott will be looking for another (well, her first *real*) job.

And in closing, this from a seasoned campaigner in Cardiff Central, where a mixture of faux outrage about student fees, Iraq, and their silly little focus campaigns helped them win in 2005 and just about hold on last time:

In[sic] student fees I love this quote from a Lib Dem in the local newspaper in 2004: "Cardiff's residents should see the recent rebellion by Labour MP Jon Owen Jones for what it is - a cynical attempt to win votes at the next general election" - forgive me for interpreting Jenny Willott's declared intention to vote against fees in exactly the same way.