Just for the record

I'm not going to bang on about this but for those wanting to know what pledge the Liberal Democrats signed prior to becoming a member of the Coalition the details are here http://www.voteforstudents.co.uk/

Actually, I could bang on about it, who's going to stop me? I'm becoming a bit like the drunk in the local pub only I'm doing it online for mutual convenience.

When the Liberal Democrats agreed as a party to sign the NUS pledge to NOT raise tuition fees I presume they were thinking one of three things

1) Let's just sign this and get these freakin' students off our backs

or

2) Let's sign this because it's worth a few votes and it's not like we'll ever have to account for our actions

or

3) Let's sign this because they're right, we've thought it through and our policy on tuition fees mirrrors their campaign.

As all the Liberal Democrat candidates signed the pledge, presumably it wasn't for the first reason, they weren't door-stepped. If it was for the third reason, well shame on you Nick Clegg for agreeing to something you hadn't researched or costed, given that it's taken you no time at all to 'see the sense' in the Government proposal. And if it was the middle option, how many more core principles do we as a party hold dear that are agreed upon not because they're right, but because they're simply a convenient way of attracting a wider support base?

We've certainly grown up as a party, we've left the fresh faced enthusiastic idealistic teenage misfits and joined the sour faced twit uncle cartel of established political parties. And I remember when whisky and fags were our only vices....