It seems that Mark Williams (see previous Blog) is not alone. In his own blog Peter Black claims up to thirty Lib-Dem MPs have said that they will vote against the lifting of the cap on tuition fees. This of course is over half the Parliamentary party. However the arithmetic means that even if we have one of the biggest party rebellion in a UK parliamentary party 'the measure will still pass and I wonder if we are seeing a clever move by the Lib-Dems to have it both ways.
I'm sorry but I'm going to do some number crunching.
There are 650 members of Parliament, if we exclude the speaker and Sinn Féin (who will not take part in any vote) the number is reduced to 644. So you need 323 seats for a majority The Tories have 306 which leaves them short by 17 of seats. With the Lib Dens 57 they have a majority of 40.
If 30 Lib-Dems were to vote against the measure this would reduce the majority to 10 small but passable and would allow some of the Liberal Democrats to save face, and you can’t guarantee the 8 Democratic Unionist would vote enbloc against the bill.
Therefore if the Liberal Democrats whips work out the numbers correctly they can help preserve the seeming integrity of individual members and the coalition at the same time.
Only if there was a challenge to the leadership of Nick Clegg would I be convinced that the Lib-Dem leadership will not be following me in its number crunching and working out just how many of its MPs voting against the hike in tuition fees can be allowed, before they end up causing a collapse to the Libcon Coalition.
So I suspect that potential Lib-dem rebel will be allowed to speak out just so long as its clear that it will not do permanently damage to the LibCon government and see Lib-Dems going into the next election portraying themselves as brave defenders of poor students in the hope that they will not be associated with the party leadership who reneged on their pledge not to increase tuition fees. It’s a typical hypocritical Lib-Dem ploy but for some it just might work
National Left - Wales needs a progressive left future.
Showing posts with label tuition fees. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tuition fees. Show all posts
Tuesday, 12 October 2010
Monday, 11 October 2010
Mark Williams will abstain on tuition fees hike (so will not be responsible ).
The Lib dems have got themselves into a right pickle over plans to increase tuition fees all l 57 Liberal Democrat MPs signed a pledge to vote against any fee rises during the election campaign. At least 20 have indicated they intend to stick by that pledge despite a clause in the coalition agreement allowing them to abstain on the issue and Tuition Fees . Ceredigion MP Mark Williams says that it would be “dishonest” if he voted with the coalition government to scrap the upper limit on university tuition fees in England.
“This is an issue of huge principle to Liberal Democrats,” he said.
“I’ve fought four elections in the Ceredigion constituency with two excellent universities – in Lampeter and Aberystwyth – and I’ve made commitments over those four elections and specifically at the last general election and on that basis I’m sticking by that pledge.
“I think it would be dishonest for me personally to do anything other than that and an abstention is not a vote against those increases.”
That’s all right then he will abstain with the typical hypocrisy of his Party in that he thinks he can ease his conscious and responsibility to future students in that by abstaining will somehow absolve of any responsibility,
When you look at the core of the Lib-Dem vote it is clear that they did exceptionally well in areas with large student populations (as Ceredigion is for example) and I assume that Libdem candidates vocal opposition to tuition fees (and Pledge) was highly influential in the student vote,
Of course few of the actual students will be living in the Ceredigion constituency at the time of the next election so Mark Williams will hope that the fuss died down by then. But I doubt it and I don’t think claiming that he is free from guilt by abstaining will wash.
In May 2009 Peter Black posting on Subordinate Central (have a look) rightly attacked Plaid Cymru on shifting its position on Tuition fees he rightly pointed out.
As for Plaid Cymru policy being opposed to tuition fees then why did they capitulate on this policy in the first place? If they had made this a make-or-break issue then Labour would have backed down, but instead they decided that their own places in ministerial limousines were more important than taking that risk. He says (referring to Plaid’s Candidate in Ceredigion Penri James) that Plaid will try to implement its policy at the earliest possible opportunity but why would anybody trust them to do so? They have let students and their parents down once, they will do so again.
I’m waiting for his attack on his LibDem colleagues indeed it will easy to do all he has to do is copy this post (have another look) and substitute "Plaid Cymru" and "Penri James" for "Liberal Democrats" and "Mark Williams".
One last point if the Libcon government go ahead with plans for recall petitions for MPs who have betrayed public trust, it could be that the first casualties could well be the Lib-Dems MPs who it will seen to be responsible by betraying their pledge to oppose an increase in tuition (including absentees ) who will fall foul to this. A student population could easily raise the number of names needed) Watch out Mark.
Update.
According to the BBC Mark Williams has announced he will vote against a tuition fee hike. Since I got the original release from Subordinate Central that he would abstain (Not the same thing by any means ). I think should have a clarification from the Liberal Democrats on his exact positionFurther Update.
Further Update Tuesday 12/10
“Subordinate Centre” have now changed the title of they post to “Mark Williams MP says he will vote against tuition fee hike”. I accept that this is his Mark's position and hope that he will maintain it. All I can say is how embarrassed I am to be misled by the title of a ”Subordinate Central” blog
“This is an issue of huge principle to Liberal Democrats,” he said.
“I’ve fought four elections in the Ceredigion constituency with two excellent universities – in Lampeter and Aberystwyth – and I’ve made commitments over those four elections and specifically at the last general election and on that basis I’m sticking by that pledge.
“I think it would be dishonest for me personally to do anything other than that and an abstention is not a vote against those increases.”
That’s all right then he will abstain with the typical hypocrisy of his Party in that he thinks he can ease his conscious and responsibility to future students in that by abstaining will somehow absolve of any responsibility,
When you look at the core of the Lib-Dem vote it is clear that they did exceptionally well in areas with large student populations (as Ceredigion is for example) and I assume that Libdem candidates vocal opposition to tuition fees (and Pledge) was highly influential in the student vote,
Of course few of the actual students will be living in the Ceredigion constituency at the time of the next election so Mark Williams will hope that the fuss died down by then. But I doubt it and I don’t think claiming that he is free from guilt by abstaining will wash.
In May 2009 Peter Black posting on Subordinate Central (have a look) rightly attacked Plaid Cymru on shifting its position on Tuition fees he rightly pointed out.
As for Plaid Cymru policy being opposed to tuition fees then why did they capitulate on this policy in the first place? If they had made this a make-or-break issue then Labour would have backed down, but instead they decided that their own places in ministerial limousines were more important than taking that risk. He says (referring to Plaid’s Candidate in Ceredigion Penri James) that Plaid will try to implement its policy at the earliest possible opportunity but why would anybody trust them to do so? They have let students and their parents down once, they will do so again.
I’m waiting for his attack on his LibDem colleagues indeed it will easy to do all he has to do is copy this post (have another look) and substitute "Plaid Cymru" and "Penri James" for "Liberal Democrats" and "Mark Williams".
One last point if the Libcon government go ahead with plans for recall petitions for MPs who have betrayed public trust, it could be that the first casualties could well be the Lib-Dems MPs who it will seen to be responsible by betraying their pledge to oppose an increase in tuition (including absentees ) who will fall foul to this. A student population could easily raise the number of names needed) Watch out Mark.
Update.
According to the BBC Mark Williams has announced he will vote against a tuition fee hike. Since I got the original release from Subordinate Central that he would abstain (Not the same thing by any means ). I think should have a clarification from the Liberal Democrats on his exact positionFurther Update.
Further Update Tuesday 12/10
“Subordinate Centre” have now changed the title of they post to “Mark Williams MP says he will vote against tuition fee hike”. I accept that this is his Mark's position and hope that he will maintain it. All I can say is how embarrassed I am to be misled by the title of a ”Subordinate Central” blog
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)