Theresa May’s tuition fees plan is rotten politics

I don’t really object to bad policy, it’s the rotten politics I can’t stand. There would be something almost amusing about a Conservative prime minister gravely intoning, in effect, ‘Labour are right; please don’t vote for them’ if it weren’t so head-thuddingly stupid. 

Remarkably, however, this is the position into which Theresa May has put herself. Labour’s policy on university tuition fees may be a) ruinously expensive and b) a boon to the most affluent but it is c) easily understood. Labour would – or, rather, say they would – scrap tuition fees. 

Responding to this – and, more broadly to their problem with ‘younger’ voters (i.e., anyone under 50) – the prime minister concedes the broad thrust of Labour’s criticism while doing, for the time being anyway, very little to address it. Her message is, essentially, ‘We feel your pain but not as keenly as Labour do. Please vote for us anyway.’