Ed Davey ‘not proud’ of Lib Dem damaged promise on tuition charges

Ed Davey was roasted over the Lib Dems’ broken promise on tuition fees as he appeared on the BBC‘s Question Time election special tonight.

The Lib Dem leader admitted he was not ‘proud’ of some of the party’s actions during the Coalition years – when he was a Cabinet minister.

One member of the audience in York said the Lib Dems had saddled her with huge debts, adding: ‘How can my generation trust you?’

Sir Ed blustered that he was ‘confident’ the party’s current manifesto was fully costed. 

Battered over his initial refusal to meet Post Office scandal whistleblower Alan Bates when he was the relevant minister in 2010, Sir Ed admitted he made ‘mistakes’ and was ‘sorry’ for not seeing through ‘lies’ he was told about what had happened.   

He was also challenged over Lib Dems’ plans for a spending splurge, and whether his madcap campaigning so far was undignified. 

Sir Ed has been embarking on a variety of stunts as he tries to get noticed by the public.

His itinerary as he hammers away at the Tory ‘Blue Wall’ in the South East and South West has included paddleboarding, a water obstacle course, and thrill rides at a theme park. 

But polls have suggested that the party is making headway, with YouGov’s latest MRP mega-survey projecting a haul of 67 seats.

That would be up from just 11 MPs secured in 2019, and above the high of 62 recorded when Charles Kennedy was leader in 2005. 

The two-hour Question Time election special is being hosted by Fiona Bruce in York. 

Sir Ed took the first turn, followed by SNP leader John Swinney.

Sir Keir will go next and finally Rishi Sunak. BBC bosses will be hoping the programme can pick up viewers who had been watching the England v Denmark Euros clash beforehand.   

Sir Ed denied that his party will bankrupt the country as his grilling began.

After an audience member suggested his spending commitments were five times higher than Labour’s, Sir Ed replied: ‘The answer’s no. We put forward a very detailed costed manifesto and it’s got a big health and social care package at the centre.’

He also said ‘a number of tax changes’ including clamping down on tax avoidance and evasion will help pay for manifesto commitments.

He agreed with the audience member that ‘it isn’t a bottomless pit’, as he accused other parties of ‘not putting the money in we need to rescue our public services’.

Asked repeatedly about the coalition years, the Lib Dem leader said: ‘It was very difficult governing with the Conservatives, you couldn’t get everything you wanted. But we were faced with a choice as a minister, you either had to stay in and fight inside, or leave.

‘I think the easy choice for me would have been to leave the Government, vote against it, tour the media studios.

‘The hard choice was to stay in, roll my sleeves up, and really fight.’

Sir Ed was told that a generation had huge debts since the Lib Dems brazenly U-turned on a pledge to abolish tuition fees if they were in government – instead increasing them.

‘I understand why your generation lost faith in us. It was a difficult government to be in,’ he said.

He added: ‘The thing I learned from that process – the whole process, fees, but other things too – was you shouldn’t promise what you can’t deliver, and I think we did in 2010.’

Sir Ed has come under fire for failing to do more to help wrongly-convicted subpostmasters when he held the brief in 2010-12, and for initially refusing to meet Sir Alan Bates in 2010.

An audience member demanded of Sir Ed: ‘Are you proud of your conduct when you were Post Office minister?’

Sir Ed said he made ‘two big mistakes during that time’, including failing to meet the campaigner and not seeing through assurances given to him by the Post Office that Mr Bates’s assertions were not true.

‘I’m sorry for not seeing through those lies. There were many ministers of all political parties during this 20-year period who didn’t see through those lies.’

Before his Question Time appearance Sir Ed was campaigning in the Sheffield Hallam constituency once held by predecessor Nick Clegg.

The seat is currently held by Labour and is one of the few in the whole country where there is thought to be a realistic race between the Lib Dems and Keir Starmer‘s party.

Asked whether he was pleased with the latest polls Sir Ed insisted he was going to ‘take nothing for granted’.

He said: ‘Polls are out everywhere. They are all over the place and the only one poll that matters is on July 4.

‘So, we’re going to take nothing for granted. We’re going to work really, really hard.

‘There’s a lot of people haven’t made up their mind yet. I want to tour the country, get over the Lib Democrat message – whether it’s on health and care, whether it’s on fixing our economy and helping people with the cost of living, or whether it’s on things like sewage or the environment campaign we’ve been running.’  

Sir Ed said: ‘In so many parts of the country, only the Liberal Democrats can beat the Conservatives, everyone knows that.

‘Here in Sheffield Hallam only the Liberal Democrats can beat the Labour candidate. So, what we’re saying is, come and support us to get rid of this awful government, but also come and support us for our policies, our values.’