Yesterday I was thinking about the Lib Dems and tuition fees. 

… I mustn’t be too sanctimonious. In 2004 the Labour Government legislated to bring in top-up fees despite declaring in its manifesto that it would not do so.

In fact, all three of the main parties vowed not to introduce top-up fees.

This is what William Hague told the Commons on 27 January 2004 in the second reading of the Higher Education Bill:

With the agreement of my colleagues, I wrote in the Conservative manifesto:

           "we will not introduce top-up fees".       

The Liberal Democrats made an even grander claim, as parties do when they are more distant from office. "All fees will be abolished," they said grandly. The Labour party said:

           "We will not introduce 'top-up' fees and have legislated to prevent them."

     What an extraordinarily categoric and emphatic thing to say.

 He took the Labour Government to task:

That was a premeditated promise, a categoric commitment, and it is a shameless and ruthless breach of that commitment that the Government are engaged in today. That is why it is a bad day for our democracy if the Bill goes through.

The Government won by 5 votes.

Blair said later that breaking the manifesto pledge was “the right thing to do”. (Nothing new there.)

But I wonder what William Hague is saying to his Coalition partners now?