Glad we can move on from Christie, Alan, at least for the moment. So let's go to "the war". Yes, Mr Bradley voted against it, though he was no Bob Marshall-Andrews or Alice Mahon. I had quite a protracted correspondence with him at the time, trying to persuade him to do exactly that. But he had voted with the government in the earlier votes, and was so uncertain as to what he would do that I only knew that he had finally voted against when the press published the names of those MPs who had passed through each voting lobby. I make no criticism of him for his uncertainty - MP's aren't delegated, and must follow their conscience. But his defenders have portrayed him as a full blown opponent of the Iraq adventure, and he was not. In any case the issue was not Mr Bradley's personal views. It was the government itself: it was the the style and arrogance of Blair, Straw and Hoon; it was sofa government, behind closed doors and without minutes; it was shifting evasions in public statements, and the sacrifice of Kelly, numbers of British troops, and literally uncounted thousands of Iraqis; it was the sense that Blair had made a commitment to Bush, well in advance of the actual war, about which he was frank neither with Parliament nor the nation. And, with all due respect to you, Alan, I do get really pigsick when I come across the stale, old and intellectually barren allegation that the Lib Dems "have no coherent policies of their own", which reinforces my considerable suspicion that this web site is the creation of disgruntled anonymous Labour activists who are equally pigsick that, to their amazement, they lost on May 5th. All parties have manifestos, the Lib Dems included. By all means, have a bash at them if you think they're inadequate, unrealistic - or just plain evil! - but let's get away from mere scattergun abuse. And, in fairness to you, on the university tuition fees issue you put the government's case fairly, and link it to your own experience. And fine, if that works for you - though I still find it hard to swallow that this was no part of the Labour Party's manifesto. All I would say is that, if present policies were in place, I would never have got to university. During my sixth form years, my father lost his job and my mother developed cancer - yes, and was treated and cared for excellently at Christie hospital! My family was on its uppers, financially. Rightly or wrongly, given that we were struggling to make ends meet on a day to day basis, I would never have risked running up debts in my own name. But as it was, there were grants then, and I got there. Two students in my own family have recently given up on university in the middle of their courses. In both cases, the fear of spiralling debt was a major factor, especially when they took into account that at some point fairly soon they would want to get on to the property ladder, where they will face spiralling prices for quite modest accommodation - and yet more debt via a mortgage. We're now beginning to see the phenomenon of middle-aged people finding themselves supporting cash-strapped parents in retirement, and cash-strapped kids trying to build their future! There has to be a better way.

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