Once again Clegg leaves me scratching my head

Nick Clegg promised to scrap fees then promptly votes to treble them once he got a sniff of power.

'The tuition fees are necessary to address the deficit' the Coalition told us.
'It has to be done' they insist.

The deficit must be addressed and everyone must play their part' is what we keep being told.

Nick Clegg is currently desperately trying to show his party still has credibility by winning the Oldham seat. He is there campiagning at the moment. And by all accounts he is having trouble persuading people after the tuition fee rows.

He says

" "paradox" was that though fees will go up – to £9,000 a year at top universities – "as more young people look at the scheme, they will realise that it will be cheaper and easier to go to university than it is now," especially for "bright kids from poor families. 21,000 a year, on an average career path, would pay back £7 a month, compared with £80 under Labour's current scheme. "A majority of graduates will not pay back all their loans," ".

I'm fairly sure I won't be the only to not see the sense in this. If he is desperately trying to reassure people that most graduates won't pay back their loans at all then how exactly is this going to help reduce the deficit?

It begs the question of why fees needed to be raised at all. Could it be that the rise isn't actually necessary? One must wonder. In the meantime I shall go on scratching my head...

Source

More on housing benefit

From this BBC article

On Sunday, Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader and deputy prime minister, defended planned cuts to housing benefit, saying it was not fair that people who went out to work got less help with accommodation than those who did not.

Mr Clegg told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show the government's plans would create more social housing and were "fair" on housing benefit claimants.

I'm so sick of hearing the word 'fair' coming from him. Or from any of them. They appear to have forgotten the meaning of the word.

Do they realise that people who work get housing benefit too? If your income isn't enough to cover your rent you get HB.

We all know property is expensive, and even more so in London. But the way they are making out you'd think that the city was full of unemployed people living in penthouses lording it over those in work. And we know that just isn't true. Putting a cap on HB will force everyone, whether they are unemployed or not, out of the city.
How many of those will lose their jobs because of this?

Why can't the Government see that it's not housing benefit that is the problem, it's the sky high rents? And when will they realise that housing benefit isn't an out of work benefit?