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| Nick Clegg should hang his head in shame Nick Clegg should hang his head in shame | |
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| Nick Clegg’s self-exculpatory pity pieces (Clegg: Osborne turned on poor to boost appeal, 3 September; Trust me, I’m a Lib Dem, Weekend, 3 September) leave me in cold fury. Only someone rich enough to pay fees of £3,000 a year in the first place could see the hike to £9,000 a year as a slap in the face for parents. It was, and is, a punch in the guts for young people. | Nick Clegg’s self-exculpatory pity pieces (Clegg: Osborne turned on poor to boost appeal, 3 September; Trust me, I’m a Lib Dem, Weekend, 3 September) leave me in cold fury. Only someone rich enough to pay fees of £3,000 a year in the first place could see the hike to £9,000 a year as a slap in the face for parents. It was, and is, a punch in the guts for young people. |
| My daughter graduated with a 2:1 in June last year from the leading university school in her profession. A freelancer, like most of its alumni, her earnings since September 2015 have been £9,964.37. She has just received her fees statement from the Student Loans Company and owes £53,817.84 at 5 April 2016. Interest at rates between 6.6% and 3.9% have been charged from the start of her studies. | My daughter graduated with a 2:1 in June last year from the leading university school in her profession. A freelancer, like most of its alumni, her earnings since September 2015 have been £9,964.37. She has just received her fees statement from the Student Loans Company and owes £53,817.84 at 5 April 2016. Interest at rates between 6.6% and 3.9% have been charged from the start of her studies. |
| This is a debt that will blight her life. That will affect the choices she is able to make, what work she takes, where she lives, how she lives, whether she has children, her children’s lives and education. | This is a debt that will blight her life. That will affect the choices she is able to make, what work she takes, where she lives, how she lives, whether she has children, her children’s lives and education. |
| Education was a right; it is now a debt affecting generations. That is not the mark of a civilised society. We need an end to fees and to write off the debts. It is to be hoped that Nick Clegg won’t be around to screw that policy up.Susan TalbotLeeds | Education was a right; it is now a debt affecting generations. That is not the mark of a civilised society. We need an end to fees and to write off the debts. It is to be hoped that Nick Clegg won’t be around to screw that policy up.Susan TalbotLeeds |
| • Nick Clegg complains that “you can get as many of your policies in, but if there’s one policy you don’t, notably tuition fees, that’s the thing people remember”. This is disingenuous. Scrapping tuition fees was the Lib Dem flagship policy in 2010. Clegg and many of his MPs visited universities courting the student vote, and many of his MPs signed public pledges in support of this popular policy. Then they abandoned it in the coalition agreement – and, worse still, many of them voted with the Tories for a trebling of tuition fees. | • Nick Clegg complains that “you can get as many of your policies in, but if there’s one policy you don’t, notably tuition fees, that’s the thing people remember”. This is disingenuous. Scrapping tuition fees was the Lib Dem flagship policy in 2010. Clegg and many of his MPs visited universities courting the student vote, and many of his MPs signed public pledges in support of this popular policy. Then they abandoned it in the coalition agreement – and, worse still, many of them voted with the Tories for a trebling of tuition fees. |
| The Lib Dems underestimated the leverage they had in those days after the 2010 election; had they stood firmer they could at least have insisted on no rise in tuition fees. | The Lib Dems underestimated the leverage they had in those days after the 2010 election; had they stood firmer they could at least have insisted on no rise in tuition fees. |
| The other big miscalculation I think was for Nick Clegg not to demand a key departmental responsibility – perhaps education. Then the public would have seen very clearly what the Lib Dems were achieving within the coalition.John BoalerCalne, Wiltshire | The other big miscalculation I think was for Nick Clegg not to demand a key departmental responsibility – perhaps education. Then the public would have seen very clearly what the Lib Dems were achieving within the coalition.John BoalerCalne, Wiltshire |
| • So the Tories wanted to hit the poorest people in order to attract votes, and refused to build houses for people lest they then voted Labour; and Nick Clegg doesn’t understand why his party didn’t get credit for being in the coalition. Could that be something to do with the Lib Dems’ role in ushering these people into power, keeping them there, and buying wholeheartedly into the fiction that the crash was caused by Labour overspending and that austerity was the only economic policy option? At the last general election, what people understood was that the Lib Dems were in fact doing very little to moderate the Tories and that if you wanted Tory policies you might as well vote for the real thing.Jem WhiteleyOxford | • So the Tories wanted to hit the poorest people in order to attract votes, and refused to build houses for people lest they then voted Labour; and Nick Clegg doesn’t understand why his party didn’t get credit for being in the coalition. Could that be something to do with the Lib Dems’ role in ushering these people into power, keeping them there, and buying wholeheartedly into the fiction that the crash was caused by Labour overspending and that austerity was the only economic policy option? At the last general election, what people understood was that the Lib Dems were in fact doing very little to moderate the Tories and that if you wanted Tory policies you might as well vote for the real thing.Jem WhiteleyOxford |
| • It is clear from Polly Toynbee’s latest offering (Why I can’t forgive Clegg and his party of useful idiots, 6 September) that the sport of Clegg-baiting is not yet dead. It is, however, becoming increasingly boring. Ms Toynbee chooses to ignore the fact that if voters had been more forgiving and not deserted the Liberal Democrats in droves at the last general election, we might never have been landed with Cameron’s disastrous referendum and the mess we are in now. It is voters, not Clegg, who are doubly responsible for Brexit, against which Toynbee has rightly railed in the past.Nick ChadwickOxford | • It is clear from Polly Toynbee’s latest offering (Why I can’t forgive Clegg and his party of useful idiots, 6 September) that the sport of Clegg-baiting is not yet dead. It is, however, becoming increasingly boring. Ms Toynbee chooses to ignore the fact that if voters had been more forgiving and not deserted the Liberal Democrats in droves at the last general election, we might never have been landed with Cameron’s disastrous referendum and the mess we are in now. It is voters, not Clegg, who are doubly responsible for Brexit, against which Toynbee has rightly railed in the past.Nick ChadwickOxford |
| • Polly Toynbee never mentioned the fact that when the Lib Dems joined the coalition with the Conservatives, we could have had a coalition with Labour but for several of the Labour cabinet stubbornly refusing to talk to Clegg. Who knows what a difference that would have made.Harry EvansWarrington, Cheshire | • Polly Toynbee never mentioned the fact that when the Lib Dems joined the coalition with the Conservatives, we could have had a coalition with Labour but for several of the Labour cabinet stubbornly refusing to talk to Clegg. Who knows what a difference that would have made.Harry EvansWarrington, Cheshire |
| • Polly Toynbee wonders whether Nick Clegg was “venal or just a political idiot”. If we used language like that in the Labour party, we wouldn’t be allowed to vote.W Stephen GilbertCorsham, Wiltshire | • Polly Toynbee wonders whether Nick Clegg was “venal or just a political idiot”. If we used language like that in the Labour party, we wouldn’t be allowed to vote.W Stephen GilbertCorsham, Wiltshire |
| • Nick Clegg’s account of the travails of being in coalition with the Tories could all have been avoided if he had resisted the lure of government and instead had come to an arrangement whereby he would support, or otherwise, the government on a case-by-case basis. In this way, he could have exerted just as much influence over government policy, his integrity would have remained intact and there would almost certainly be substantially more Lib Dem MPs than there are in parliament today.George HealyLondon | • Nick Clegg’s account of the travails of being in coalition with the Tories could all have been avoided if he had resisted the lure of government and instead had come to an arrangement whereby he would support, or otherwise, the government on a case-by-case basis. In this way, he could have exerted just as much influence over government policy, his integrity would have remained intact and there would almost certainly be substantially more Lib Dem MPs than there are in parliament today.George HealyLondon |
| • So sorry to read of Clegg’s angst, ill health and concerns for his family. Pity for us he didn’t pull out of the coalition earlier and prevent far greater suffering being imposed on welfare claimants, families, students, patients. He would have been able to bask in the glory he clearly craves rather than deserving to hang his head in shame.Sally BatesCotgrave, Nottinghamshire | • So sorry to read of Clegg’s angst, ill health and concerns for his family. Pity for us he didn’t pull out of the coalition earlier and prevent far greater suffering being imposed on welfare claimants, families, students, patients. He would have been able to bask in the glory he clearly craves rather than deserving to hang his head in shame.Sally BatesCotgrave, Nottinghamshire |
| • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com | • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com |