It’s the most common response I get when I tell people that I am a Politics student and a political activist. “My vote doesn’t really mean count”. And to be fair, its a reasonable one. We have had a constant switch from Labour to Tories, red to blue, blue to red, for the last 87 years. And now, on the surface, they both appear to be exactly the same.
However, one issue for students rises far above the rest, and that is student tuition fees. Currently standing at about £3,000 (although the Welsh Assembly will give most of us a grant to pay about half of that), the Tories are rumoured to be considering raising them to £7,000 if they win the election. And Labour introduced them in the first place. This major issue affects the vast majority of students, yet only a third of the 16-24 age bracket vote in elections. As you can see, our “don’t care” attitude to Politics literally costs us dearly!
The Liberal Democrats however, are the only party to have consistently fought against tuition fees, so that aspiring students from even the most underprivileged backgrounds can go to University, afford to live when they get there, and not have to worry about paying back large amounts of debt when they graduate. And the more MPs we elect to Westminster, the more likely a free University education becomes.
However, to vote for the Liberal Democrats, you need to be on the electoral register. As a student, your everyday life is directly affected by the decisions of politicians in Westminster. Make sure you have your say in who they are.
To get your name on the electoral register, visit http://www.aboutmyvote.co.uk and fill in the online form. The site will then generate a form to send to your local authority and give you the address to send it to.
Matt Smith is the incoming Chair of Liberal Youth Wales/Ieuenctid Rhyddfrydol Cymru, and as a student at the University of Glamorgan, is the Spokesperson for the Glamorgan Student Liberal Democrats. This is an article submitted to TAG, Glamorgan’s new student newspaper on the importance of voting.
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You say this although your leadership has openly said that they want to abandon the pledges on tuition fees?
No our leadership remain opposed to Tuition Fees, our party policy is that we will abolish tution fees and in any case we decide what we do in Wales on this, not the Westminster leadership.
Remaining opposed to tuition fees and still having to scrap the pledge in government is an entirely different thing. As you Liberal Democrats were so eager to remind Plaid not too long ago.
And your Westminster leadership is on record as stating that they wont be able to deliver the pledge in government. I take your point about your Welsh leadership taking a different line, but that has to be taken with a pinch of salt. Especially after the way your Welsh leadership was completely ignored and stamped all over by the London big wigs around the time of your annual conference.
Yes it is a different thing. As I have said if we go into government opposed to fees then we will stick to our guns and that is currently our policy. Plaid Cymru let down their supporters and thousands of students with their u-turn.
The Westminster leadership are working with our Policy Committee to ensure that whatever is in our manifesto is deliverable. Shame Plaid could not do the same. Until anything changes we remain opposed to tuition fees. You see policy is made by our members not Nick Clegg.
As for your nonsense about our Welsh leadership well you should stop believing your own propaganda. The issue is devolved so whatever we put in our Welsh manifesto we will deliver. Nobody outiside Wales has any say on that including Nick Clegg.
You will also find that it was Vince Cable who apologised to Wales over St. Athan not the other way around. He also agreed to look at the issue again. I think that speaks volumes for the effectiveness of our Welsh leadership.
Surely the argument about whether or not something should be in a manifesto is a reasonable one to have – the manifesto is a list of which things a party promises it is able to do if it gets into power. Nick Clegg, rightly or wrongly, speculated that the Lib Dems might not be able to honestly promise to the public that they could afford to scrap it.
Pliad put retention of the Assembly Learning Grant into their manifesto and then failed to deliver it. That’s why its a broken promise. Clegg was being honest, Plaid Cymru have failed to deliver on a commitment – one of their top 7 in fact.