Matthew Willmore writes for the University of Sheffield’s Forge Press on why Nick Clegg can never say ‘sorry’ enough times for breaking his pledge on tuition fees:

So, Clegg has finally apologised. The pariah of student politics has released a video in which he offers a protracted and half-hearted “sorry”. But for the angry and, this year’s directly affected, student, should this video make any difference? Does it in any way redeem either Nick Clegg or the Liberal Democrats?

Well, it obviously comes nowhere near to a reduction in harm for this batch of first years. They will still be saddled with at least £27,000 debt from tuition alone and this video should help to remind us of that. Furthermore, this was still a promise broken, one that was much more than a mere manifesto commitment. The decision to raise tuition fees debased not only a promise but also their integrity.

This was not a simple manifesto promise: every Liberal Democrat candidate pledged that they would oppose any rise in tuition fees and from that moment, it went beyond the yellow pages of some murky political document and became an individual commitment to combat the increasing cost of higher education…

Full article here.