[TheOtherHobbes]

Always was. Clegg is notorious for getting the Tories into power in 2010 by promising some basic decency, then betraying those promises to prop up the regime responsible for austerity.

He's always been an operator. Moving to Meta after he left politics was an "Oh, of course."

[KaiserPro]

> then betraying those promises to prop up the regime

I mean thats one way to look at it. Another way was, the lib dems traded everything for the chance to change the voting from FPP to proportional representation, and failed.

Yes, he went back on tuition fees, and worse still wasn't able to make it a graduate tax (hence the stupid loan system)

but the gamble was that, and it was clear at the time.

unlucky for the libdems was they didn't get PR and got blamed for the tories being shites, and were wiped out accordingly.

[marksbrown]

Alternative Vote is not Proportional Representation. And to be very clear, liberal democrat MPs, including Nick Clegg, were photographed with signed papers saying that if they were ever in government they would abolish tuition fees. A cynical ploy to win university constituencies.

That said, the country was reeling from the 2008 banking crisis, that even with a competent PM in Brown (despite his 'ignorant woman') comment was leading a Labour government into its 14th year. Even then David Cameron only won a minority government. If the lib dems hadn't backed the Tories into office, very likely we would have seen a second general election within short order.

[KaiserPro]

> And to be very clear, liberal democrat MPs, including Nick Clegg, were photographed with signed papers saying that if they were ever in government they would abolish tuition fees.

I am well aware, I was in a libdem constituency as they made those promises in the early part of the 2000s. I think its even in one of the uni newspapers.

But the issue is this, government is about compromises. The libdems compromised to get in power. They had a "contract" that allowed for certain policies to be put forward in exchange for other policies by the tories. They thought, nievely that they could contain the worst parts of the osbourne/cameron system in exchange for long term voting reform.

It was a gamble that failed, and they were roundly punished for it.

The problem for us is that labour imploded, which left us with no effective opposition the post libdem years.

Its all very well to say "its a cynical ploy" but given that coalitions outside of war are never a thing in UK politics, its hard to see how the libdems planned it.

I can understand that you are angry about tuition fees. the unforgivable bit was the loan system rather than a graduate tax. Its regressive, it was known to be regressive at the time. But the tories wanted a loan and thus, here we are.

[nailer]

Hrm. Labour was vastly unpopular. The biggest power move the LibDems could do was install preferential voting (which would harm the two party system by allowing eg

  1 minor party 
  2 major party 
  3 other major party 

...preference votes), and the British public (stupidly, but that is their decision) rejected it. He couldn't eg freeze tuition fees because the LibDems were a junior partner in the coalition. The vote on preferential voting was far more significant, if the LibDems could pick one of the other, it was right to pick preferential voting.

The British public blew it, because they bizarrely chose to have less of their own voting intentions recorded.

[jxkrbtjtoo]

But that’s not the reason he got elected. He got elected because he promised to end student loans.

If someone says to you, “I’m going to take your money and bet it all on black on the roulette table.” and then comes back and says “sorry I lot it all because I bet it all on 22,” you’d be pissed! Now imagine they come back and say “not only have I lost it all but I borrowed an additional 3x in your name and also lost that”.

AV was an absolute non issue to most voters who elected them. Student debt was no1. Doesn’t matter if you think you know better than the people who elected you, it was a stupid gamble.

[nailer]

If the LibDems won the election, he would have reduced tuition fees.

The LibDems, however, did not win the election.

If preferential voting happened, the LibDems and every other minor party could have had *vast ongoing influence over student loans and every other matter for generations to come*.

> AV was an absolute non issue to most voters who elected them.

Yes.

"Democracy basically means: Government by the people, of the people, for the people.... but the people are retarded."

- Osho