Earlier today I wrote explaining how it had been two weeks since I wrote to Ivan Lewis MP over tuition fees, and that I had yet to receive a reply. The letter I wrote to him on 7th December can be viewed here. His original letter to me (and other Lib Dems, leaked to the papers) can be read here.

I spoke too soon. I returned home to find a letter from Mr Lewis, and I reproduce it below. So apologies Ivan for jumping the gun. And, to be fair, the Christmas post has meant the letter took four days to get here.

I will leave it up to readers to judge Ivan on his ability to stick to the topic and his ability to answer the question I raised, which was “If you don’t like what the coalition is doing about tuition fees, what do you propose we do about them?”

I have responded to the letter, and the response is above. The letter is as follows:

Dear Richard,

Thank you for your letter of 7th December.

You are an election (sic) representative of a political party which has just tripled tuition fees and removed approximately 80% of public funding for teaching support in our universities. Yet you campaigned locally as a Lib Dem in successive elections on a platform of no tuition fee increase and promised their eventual phasing out. Now you want to disown your leaders Nick Clegg and Vince Cable and attempt to stand as Dem (sic) on your own tuition fee “manifesto”!

There is only one way you can do this and have any credibility – resign from the Lib Dems and stand as an independent.

I won’t hold my breath. After all you are the same Richard Baum who denies there is any deal between the Tories and Lib Dems on Bury Council. Yet you are one of the main beneficiaries of this deal having been given the paid position of Chair of the Scrutiny Committee by the Tories.

You are a Lib Dem who has propped up an incompetent and arrogant Tory Council and a Lib Dem (sic) whose Party leaders have broken their promises to thousands of young people and their families. In both cases you seek to mislead people into believing you have no responsibility. In May you will deserve to lose your Council seat not only because you are a Lib Dem but because you are guilty of treating Prestwich people with contempt.

I trust you will post my reply on your website and blog.

Yours sincerely,

Ivan Lewis MP

Bury South 

Rick