Your readers (Letters, 13 November), and you who recommended us to vote Lib Dem, would benefit from reading the specific words about tuition fees in the manifesto: "We will scrap unfair university tuition fees for all students taking their first degree, including those studying part-time, saving them over £10,000 each. We have a financially responsible plan to phase fees out over six years, so that the change is affordable even in these difficult economic times, and without cutting university income. We will immediately scrap fees for final year students." And the author of that financially responsible plan? Vince Cable.
At the same time as that manifesto was being launched, Danny Alexander was writing strategy papers for Nick Clegg about how the commitment on tuition fees, having served its purpose in garnering votes, would be dropped in the event of the Lib Dems entering a coalition (Lib Dems planned to drop fee pledge before election, 13 November).
Your correspondent Peter Jones is right to say that what the Lib Dems have done is an affront to parliamentary democracy. They are no longer an independent political party, just a forlorn band of prisoners on Planet Osborne.
Pete Ruhemann
Reading, Berkshire
• We all know that the Lib Dems make promises on the basis that they never expect to be asked to deliver them. We now know that they make promises on the basis that they never have any intention of delivering them.
David Hibbert
Oldham
• Nick Clegg, we are told, was involved in discussions before the last election about changing the policy on tuition fees. If any of those involved in the discussions restated the manifesto commitments without qualification then they lied to the electorate just as Phil Woolas did, but arguably more publicly and certainly with a political effect (MP ejected from parliament for election slurs, 6 November). Can we look forward to a judicial process which will remove the offending Lib Dems from parliament?
Peter Williams
Stockport
• I agree with much of what your correspondents say about the Lib Dem U-turn (Letters, 13 November). Nick Clegg regrets promising to oppose higher student fees – the fact that he regrets making the pledge, rather than breaking it, tells you all you need to know. He should go, but of course he will cling on.
Meanwhile the constitutional role of party election manifestos needs to be clarified and greatly strengthened, particularly in relation to the formation of coalitions after elections. The need to create a coalition should not be used as an excuse to bring forward policies that were not in the manifestos of either coalition partner – eg top-down reform of the health service.
Dave Bradney
Llanrhystud, Ceredigion
• Tim Farron's article contains two fallacies that keep being peddled by opponents of the coalition's extension of Labour's system for university funding (Poll tax of our generation, 12 November). He claims that "the Liberal Democrats are the party of free education". It is most definitely not free – it is all a question of who pays. In Mr Farron's unfair world the costs are met by all taxpayers, including those who have not had the benefit of university education.
Secondly, he claims that "education should be available to all – not just those who can stomach the debt". The coalition proposals make university available to all, as it remains free at the point of entry and students only pay when they earn enough to afford it. How that puts off poorer people is hard to fathom. This is a fairer system that should be thought of as graduate contributions rather than student fees. It also has the advantage of making universities more accountable to students and less dependent on government budgets. Mr Clegg has realised that these proposals are a good thing – it is time for his party to come to his aid.
Frank Neale
London
• Priyamvada Gopal's language (The real vandals, 13 November) is as intemperate and unhelpful as the actions she seeks to justify. There is nothing "bloody", and no "mayhem", in the coalition's proposals for tuition fees, however unjust they may be. Cancer patients who wait for tests on the NHS are not "enduring violence". The hike in fees should be opposed, and the Lib Dems punished at the ballot box, but let's not pretend that what happened at the demo constituted "principled civil disobedience".
Iain MacDonald
Truro, Cornwall
• Thank you, Priyamvada Gopal. Somebody had to say it. Now maybe you could put that as a front-page headline: "Con Dem cuts set to destroy the lives of millions", instead of the usual "Student protesters break windows". Let us all be clear about what exactly is going on.
Marjorie Sachs
Roscommon, Ireland
• John Harris is right that the student protests "gave the lie to the idea that our young people are thoroughly post-ideological creatures, with no fight in them" (The fightback begins, G2, 12 November). The 50,000 who demonstrated in London, and the thousands who besieged Tory HQ at Millbank, have inspired huge numbers of people with the idea that we can fight back.
The London demo was not the end, but the beginning of our campaign. On 24 November, students around the country will be organising protests and meetings in support of the Day of Action called by the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts. If you want to fight this cuts agenda, get involved.
Ed Maltby
National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts