The Lib Dems have decided that they are going to keep their pledge to scrap tuition fees after all – even though Nick Clegg removed it as part of his “savage cuts” plan during the Lib Dem Party Conference. The reversal is because the Lib Dems Federal Policy Committee, which has the final say over what goes in the manifesto, decided to keep it in.

This is used by some as proof that the Lib Dems “are the only one of the three main parties that makes policy democratically” – and they blame the media for “misreporting” the Lib Dems policies as they “never even came close to scrapping the tuition fees pledge” – despite their leader saying

Ending tuition fees would cost billions of pounds every year – we need to be certain we can afford it before we make any promises

in the same speech as he was talking about “savage cuts”.

Even though the FDC do have the final choice, Nick Clegg was pretty clear that he wanted to end the pledge to scrap tuition fees, despite the obvious opposition from the Lib Dem grassroots, who much prefer uncosted tax-and-spend policies to anything that could amount to real action.

The Lib Dems are not really all that democratic in how they make policy – they don’t even discuss it amongst their front bench team before making announcements, such as with the mansion tax proposal! And they can hardly blame anyone for not knowing what they stand for when they can’t even decide themselves!

I’m interested to know what the Lib Dems would do in the result of a hung parliament. Would they decide to make Prime Minister? Or would they refuse to back any party an leave a minority government in power? They’d have to get down off their usual fence and pick the splinters out of their arse.