British students in piss poor attempt at mimicking the French

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The protests are in part (motivated by the NUS) political. Such action would have been welcome over the past 13 years under which Labour introduced tuition fees, then top up fees restructured the student loans system, effectively abolished student grants and privatised the Student Loans Agency. But of course, those apparently trivial developments aside, the proposal to increase the levy of tuition fees to a higher maximum was the result of Lord Browne's report which began it's deliberations in November of last year on the orders of Lord Mandelson. The Browne Report was criticised for a possible lack of impartiality given Lord Browne's business links with Labour and close friendship with Mandelson.

Let's not dismiss the lies of the minority Coalition Partner.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYMN7l_wo5U

That's what a good portion of the anger appears to be aimed at. That's certainly what i'm angry about and i'd be protesting against the lies and broken promises, not the fees themselves. Not that i'm condoning the violence on Wednesday at all, but they should've targeted Liberal HQ - they're the ones who lied to them.

Although of course, I doubt most of the students protesting understand the issue. You don't have to pay anything until you're earning enough to do so, of course. £9,000 is  too steep and it's definately unnecessary (£3,000-£4,000 is more than plenty), but if you were so desperate to go to University, let's be honest, you'd pay the £9,000 whether you can afford to or not. My family can't afford £9,000 a year, but that doesn't matter because it's me who has to pay for myself, not them on my behalf and that's the way it should be. The ones bothered by this Browne Review business appear to be annoyed middle-class kids who thought they could get Mummy and Daddy to pay for them to get drunk 5 nights a week. It was best put on Question Time last night I thought, something along the lines of 'a bunch of annoyed middle-class kids wanting their page in the History textbook.'

There was no significant drop in University attendance when tuition fees were introduced by Labour (if anything, attendance increased 1997-2010), so I doubt there'll be a drop after the Lib-Cons pass these new fees.

Personally, it's Clegg's sheer arrogance that's gotten me annoyed (oh, and the EMA cut). The Liberal U-turn on this, to me, is like if Labour abolished the NHS or the Tories introduced the Euro or something.

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The protests are in part (motivated by the NUS) political. Such action would have been welcome over the past 13 years under which Labour introduced tuition fees, then top up fees restructured the student loans system, effectively abolished student grants and privatised the Student Loans Agency.

The NUS were protesting against fees during the Labour years.

The NUS support tuition fees. Well, atleast that's what Aaron Porter, union president, said on Newsnight on Wednesday. Any NUS members who aren't happy about that should surely just leave the union.

[You kip if you want to...]

The protests are in part (motivated by the NUS) political. Such action would have been welcome over the past 13 years under which Labour introduced tuition fees, then top up fees restructured the student loans system, effectively abolished student grants and privatised the Student Loans Agency.

The NUS were protesting against fees during the Labour years.

The NUS support tuition fees. Well, atleast that's what Aaron Porter, union president, said on Newsnight on Wednesday. Any NUS members who aren't happy about that should surely just leave the union.

They changed their policy a few years back; they were against them altogether. The Lib Dem promise to abolish fees garnered them a lot of student votes and swung some seats (Rochdale in 2005, oddly held by a former NUS President, for example).

Well, yeah. I'd be suprised if they held any "Uni seat". Hallam could be an exception.

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And Cameron has the cheek to say the tuition fee rise will help the poorest students in PMQs, which is quite possibly the stupidest thing any British politican had said this year.

Yeah. I don't really understand how that works. Yes, poorer students aren't affected as harshly as middle-class students, but still, it's an increase.

Although again, they're poor now, but once they've left Uni, those poorer students will presumably be able to get a well paid job and they should able to pay off their debts.

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The NUS complained about fees under the Blair government so often that it sometimes seemed that they did little else.

The reason why so many students (and soon-to-be students) are so angry about what has happened/what is to happen is because of a feeling of betrayal. This isn't just about Clegg signing that pledge, it's more fundamental than that. The LibDems have spent the past decade calling for the abolition of tuition fees, have courted the votes of students in a way that no British political party had ever done before, and have won councillors, councils and constituencies as a direct result. Opposition to tuition fees has been their most distinctive policy and was one of the few things that LibDem candidates in different parts of the country have agreed on. The LibDems supporting increasing tuition fees is massive; it's as if Labour were to decide to abolish the NHS or to declare that a unemployment is a good thing (that is; a policy fundamental to the identity of the party as its voters see it). It is why there is so much anger about this, and why the police underestimated the likely turnout at the demo the other day by tens of thousand, with the consequences that everyone saw on the news the other night.

That's exactly what I mean. It's just that at the moment, the pledge picture seems to be the iconic image - the icing on the cake - of the betrayal.

Oh, and to rub salt into the wound, I read this on the Guardian site about 2 hours ago:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/nov/12/lib-dems-tuition-fees-clegg

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Yes, at a time when Liberals across the nation were seen as, sort of, demi-gods by the youth due to their age-old, iconic policies on tuition fees and "Cleggy" being able to look into a camera lense and having an apparently charming smile - it was all a lie, regarding fees. Funnily enough, Clegg said he did the same about cuts in the Nick Robinson documentary a few months back about the Coalition negotiations - he believed we needed to cut immediately, while ardently campaigning on a message against cuts.

The Conservatives cannot, and should not, be blamed for this. Yes, this is like Labour having secret plans to abolish the NHS or the Tories having secret plans to join the Euro.

It's a wonder why our nation is so cynical about politics. This isn't just any old politician's lie, this is so much more than that. The Liberals deserve everything that's coming to them, and more.

Am I the only person who seems to think the Liberals don't seem to understand why students are so angry at them? "Oh, but it's fair. It's fair to poorer students. It's fair. It's fair. Don't worry, it's fair. Labour introduced fees! You don't pay until you're earning enough anyway! There isn't a Liberal majority, so don't expect free uni," they say. That's not the point. The point is they made cast-iron promises that they'd "vote against any increase in fees". They said, and I quote (bolding included) from page 33 of their manifesto, "We will scrap unfair university fees so everyone has the chance to get a degree". If trebling debt on all student, rich or poor, through no fault of there own, isn't "unfair" then I don't know what is - although the Liberals have been harping on about how a £6,000 a year rise is fair all week.