Grasping at straws – but still drowning

After a day of Lib Dem MPs squirming under media questioning as to whether they will (or won’t) honour the pledges they signed to keep a cap on tuition fees, we can add the mildly nauseous spectacle of Peter Black quoting the Daily Telegraph, of all sources, to mount a squalid attack the  National Union of Students.

 

Today’s paper carries a very timely leak – courtesy of coalition spinners – that reveal e-mails from NUS officials to ministers suggesting that they should cut higher education funding.  An outraged Black, who is clearly irked by the effectiveness of the student campaign, recounts the details on his blog but characteristically omits the explanation by NUS President Aaron Porter, who states:

 

“We were asked by Vince Cable to demonstrate how fees could be kept at current levels and on the basis of his request we produced modeling to show how that could be done.”

 

He added:

 

“The NUS has consistently advocated the abolition of tuition fees and the introduction of a graduate tax, which remains Liberal Democrat party policy.”

 

Black’s annoyance at recent events is understandable. Not only is his party seen to be publicly reneging on a pre-election pledge which deliberately targeted constituencies with large student populations, the overly-peddled mantra of how Lib Dems would be a so-called “moderating influence” within the coalition will be effectively trashed in the Commons today.

 

For our money, a far more revealing story about the calibre of Lib Dems appears in Nick Clegg’s own local newspaper who report that the Sheffield Hallam MP’s election expenses include £9,000 for “vetted” audiences to his townhall meetings.

 

Update: YouGov poll in the Sun puts the Lib Dems somewhere around 8%. According to the pollsters, it is the lowest level of support they have recorded in the ten years they have been polling, and the lowest level of support they have recorded in any poll from any pollster since 1990.