A sad day for politics

In the May elections in Oxford, the Greens lost two council seats to LibDems in student-dominated areas - one by 14 votes - and failed to take a newly-created seat, again pipped at the post by the LibDems. During the campaign, the LibDems had taken every opportunity to make out that the Greens were "anti-student". They made great play of being the party that backs students all the way. On election day, students in East Oxford turned out in large numbers to vote for Nick Clegg, who had made a point of visiting Brookes University. Many we spoke to on the street that day knew nothing about the political set-up in Oxford, so simply voted the same way in the local election that was running concurrently.

So the spectacular LibDem U-turn on tuition fees in the Commons today is particularly galling for us. If it is true that Clegg was already minded to support the rise in tuition fees before the election then the message is, "Lie your way to power".

This could and should rebound heavily against them. It should mark the first step in their journey to political oblivion. As Lou Reed once sang : "Stick a fork in their ass and turn 'em over - they're done."

But what causes me most exasperation is the likelihood that the lesson the younger generation will have learned is that all politicians are liars whose word cannot be trusted. There is no excuse for what they have done, and there was no need for it. Every politician of integrity, of whatever party, is tainted, polluted by it.