The Labour Party are asking people to share a poster on Facebook attacking the Lib Dems over their broken promise on tuition fees.

The Lib Dem manifesto for the last election promised to vote against any increase in Labour’s university tax and Nick Clegg even posed with a giant pledge card saying he would vote against it and pressure the British government for a fairer alternative. Once elected he voted to increase Labour’s university tax from £3k a year to £9k a year.

That Nick Clegg is a weak, dishonest politician goes without saying but people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones and Labour really have scored an own goal with this one. Labour contested the 2001 election saying they wouldn’t introduce the university tax and had legislated to prevent it. Like the legislation Conservative supporters are currently clinging to for dear life that David Cameron has told them “guarantees” an EU referendum in 2017, the legislation preventing the introduction of the university tax was utterly worthless and shortly after they repealed it and introduced tuition fees of up to £3k in England.

The English university tax was imposed on England against the wishes of our democratically elected representatives. Since the introduction of devolved government in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland the British government only had control of education in England so in any real democracy, only MPs elected in England should have voted on the introduction of the university tax but Labour whipped their Scottish MPs to vote it through and overturned a small majority of MPs elected in England who voted against it.

We wouldn’t have the university tax in England at all if it wasn’t for Labour’s broken promise not to introduce it and Labour’s undemocratic use of their Scottish MPs to impose legislation on England that a majority of MPs elected in England voted against. Using the Lib Dems’ broken promises on the the university tax that Labour broke a promise and broke one of the most fundamental democratic principals to introduce is frankly hypocritical and I hope that it blows up in their faces.