Tuition Fees Vote - The Fallout (From Western Telegraph)

Tuition Fees Vote - The Fallout

9:53am Friday 10th December 2010 in Andrew Lye By Andrew Lye

Yesterday's vote saw a 21 vote majority for the Government.

It also saw damage being done at the Cenotaph, the Treasury, the Winston Churchill statue and to the car used by Prince Charles and Camilla, as they made their way to the Royal Variety Concert.

I am sure there was much more damage to property and injuries to police officers and protestors.

I never realised how many students there were all venting their hatred at Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats. I never realised that all students voted Liberal Democrat on May 6th and had now taken to the streets, as the Lib Dem pledge was broken. If they hadn't all voted Lib Dem, they were certainly taking it all out on the Lib Dems, who have a mere 57 MP's compared to the 303 Conservative MP's.

I also do not know how they expected the Lib Dem pledge to be honoured when it is a coalition Government. In coalition, all sides have to compromise. Life IS about compromise, as is marriage.

No doubt the students will realise that, when they are a bit older and have work and family commitments that you don't always get everything you want in life!

I was about to go to bed last night at 10pm as I was so tired after being at work from very early in the morning, to getting home at 7.30pm. However, the pictures of Prince Charles and Camilla being attacked in their car and especially the image of horror on Camilla's face and just now, seeing new footage and hearing a voice say "Of with their heads!", I cannot image what damage has been done to the reputation of students in the eyes of the general public.

You dont have to be a Royalist supporter to share the view that no one should have to go through what Prince Charles and Camilla went through, last night, and its today that the questions will be asked about their security.

I would also like to see what support the students have in the eyes of the general public, who are in part paying taxes for those student's education. I would guess that any opinion poll taken now would show that a large majority of the public have little or no support for the student case. A few trouble makers have damaged the cause for the many.

Many more cuts and tough decisions are to be made in the coming year or 2 that will affect most of us in some shape or form, so its not just the students that are a victim of the cuts.

David Cameron has come under fire for not really taking much of the flak over the tuition fees. Instead, he left it to Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems to take all the heat and the kickings. I must agree that would appear to be so and I can only think of PMQ's on Wednesday, when he was answering questions on the subject.

Ed Milliband has since said he wont rush into making a decision for Labour to reverse the decision, if he gets back into Government and this was right as he said you shouldnt commit to something in advance without full knowledge of the cost implications. This is something the Lib Dems did wrong and they and all political parties will now be more careful in future, with their manifesto commitments.

In my opinion, the vote went through because MP's realised that by caving in to the protestors, it would be a sign of weakness, especially as more tough decisions have to be made and go through Parliament.

Aaron Porter (NUS leader) has said he intends to campaign to remove Lib Dem MP's for breaking their pledge and also to get MP's recalled, yet I have seen the letter Nick Clegg sent to him, clearly stating what the proposed laws about the recall of MP's was about. So I can just assume its a lot of hot air from the NUS.

As I said in my last blog, Aaron Porter, according to Wikipaedia, is a member of the Labour Party. I am NOT saying that the Labour Party is behind any of the disturbances, but I do smell something in that the Labour Party have done all they can to unsettle the Lib Dems SINCE the election campaign started in April and since the coalition was created, they are doing everything they can to try and separate the Lib Dems from the Conservatives, and are hardly bothering to attack the Conservatives, in comparison.

But do I care? No. It just shows that the Labour Party are very sore losers and maybe they are the new nasty party, as I said before in a blog article.

Tough decisions have to be made to get the UK back on its feet, but these are miniscule compared to the drastic action that is having to be taken by the Irish Government in Dublin.

In an ideal world we would not have tuition fees. But we are not in an ideal world and students included have to realise that there is a real world outside their university campus.

The Lib Dems are bloodied and they largely brought that upon themselves, but they will bounce back!

The student cause lost most support it had left yesterday and I am glad I am not in Aaron Porter's shoes this morning.

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