Mandelson seeks caution on tuition fees – is it wrong to doubt his motives?
Know your enemy: If you want to know why Labour was so soft on business between 1997 and 2010, here’s your answer – Peter (now Lord) Mandelson was in charge of Trade, Industry, and Business at various times throughout those Parliaments.
Labour’s former Business Secretary, Peter Mandelson, wants the party to hold fire on any announcements about tuition fees until after the general election, making its policy known if Labour wins.
The reason stated in the BBC article is that “he recognises that any cut in tuition fees announced before the election would raise searching questions about how it would be funded”.
There’s just one problem with that.
We’ve all heard too many politicians say one thing before an election, only to do something completely different afterwards. David Cameron is a master of the pre-election lie. Undoubtedly there have been many more.
If no announcement is made at all, then no word has been given, so the party can’t go back on it.
Add to that the fact that Lord Mandelson is – well – Lord Mandelson, and Ed Miliband would be very ill-advised to pay him any attention on this.
Young people were bitterly betrayed when the Liberal Democrats turned their backs on the promise to abolish tuition fees and instead supported the Tory rip-off plan to make students pay, and pay, and pay.
Labour’s offer is only a drop in fees from £9,000 to £6,000 per year – it is not, therefore, the total abandonment of fees that students would welcome, so the party is on thin ice.
Let us hope this is one case where Mandelson cannot pull strings from behind the scenes.
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Get the TAXES in and pay for everything
Mandelson wouldn’t say that, though – he’s well in with the business set.
If the Labour party even consider listening to that evil man then they will become both utterly unelectable, but also the laughing stock of politics…
Mandelson needs to be told he is not part of a progressive future .
Mandelson, another Tory snake in the grass. Didn’t he take credit for Mo Mowlams work on Northern Ireland. Pokes his head up to see what damage he can do. Ed has to get rid of these 5th columnists once and for all.
Mandelson is one of those who ruined the Labour Party in the 1990s.
How much does it cost to buy a political mole these days?
Another blairite but like all the blair babys doing damage to this once proud party yet charging the youth nay haven’t they damaged them already by the yoke they set on them it was free now its not but if everyone paid their taxes then it would be free
What I don’t understand is why former cabinet ministers like Mandelson and Milburn don’t air their concerns with the Labour leadership privately. Why splurge things over the papers a couple of months before a general election which are not helpful and even harmful to the Labour cause? And who is Mandy these days to lay down the law as far as policy goes? I wish to heck politicians would just shut the heck up when they retire from public life.
My message to Ed stay clear from this man he has an awful lot to answer for and can not be trusted within 1mm of the party, everything he touches has a self-interest, not for the voters. BEWARE !!
Anyone who is a socialist will believe that education should be free. If we look at the situation in Germany where, to their credit, they have abolished tuition fees we should note that most of the federal areas that support fees are conservative/liberal. So Mandelson which side the divide are you on? – don’t bother to answer we know anyway – and you can stick your supposed quasi-clever nuanced judgements wherever you like but don’t try to influence the party you almost ruined.
Mandelson was my MP. Wouldn’t give the slimy git houseroom. Him and his ilk are why the Labour party is such a shabby, right wing mess, struggling to fend off a deeply unpopular Try party when they should be out of sight by now. Well, that and Ed Miliband not having the balls [heh] to purge the party of infiltrators or listen to the public.
If Labour do win the election, they really have to do something about media ownership and hostile bias.
You think Labour is a what?
Hopefully that opinion will change over the next few weeks.
Most of the adverse publicity about Labour is just hot air, blown about by the right-wing press. Have a look at the policies instead.