My tale of me - Chris Jenkinson

Dear BBC,

I have read the response you have given to previous complaints about the lack of Liberal Democrats on Question Time, in which you state they will be on “are on most – but not all – ‘Question Time’ panels”. In the last month - the past three shows -  the Liberal Democrats have been present once. That there is, yet again, no Liberal Democrat member on the panel for the show scheduled this Thursday means your claim that they are on most panels is clearly false. I would like a response to this complaint explaining exactly why you see only one Liberal Democrat in four shows as being “representative” of the party’s broad support, and what you will be doing in future to address this imbalance.

Yours faithfully

Chris Jenkinson

As suggested by Liberal Democrat Voice.

I have written the following letter to Student Direct in response to a letter by Justine Hall in the 12th October 2009 edition of Student Direct (unfortunately the letters are not available online).

Dear Student Direct,

In reply to Justine Hall’s letter on 12th October, it is a shame to see the Green party negatively misrepresenting the Liberal Democrats. The truth is, our position on tuition fees is the same as it has always been - higher education should be free for all, and those that benefit most from it (financially speaking) will end up paying more in tax with our fairer and progressive taxation policies.

Justine’s mistaken criticism should instead be targeted at the Labour government - their failed stewardship of the economy under 12 years of Gordon Brown, first warned about years ago by Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrats’ Shadow Chancellor, has meant that it is just simply not possible to fix all the problems Britain is facing immediately.

Abolishing tuition fees is a priority, but first the limited resources left by Labour to the next government should be spent on cutting class sizes to 15 in primary schools, bringing the poorest out of tax altogether, and investing in public transport and energy-efficient homes to help people save money and protect the environment.

Chris Jenkinson
Liberal Democrat member, Masters in Environmental Governance, University of Manchester

Another review of the Liberal Democrats’ policy on higher education funding has come up and it’s vital that we maintain our commitment to higher education being accessible to all regardless of background. With an increasingly debt-averse society, it’s clear that the only way to do that is with access to education funded through general taxation.

There’s a group on Facebook created to show the support amongst grassroots Lib Dems for this policy. Please join it and add your comments.