The National Union of Students is to target Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and other Lib Dem MPs as part of a new campaign against tuition fees.

The NUS wants people to sign a pledge not to vote for any MP who backs the proposals to allow universities in England to charge up to £9,000 a year.

It is angry that the Lib Dems promised, pre-election, to oppose such rises.

Mr Clegg's spokesman said the Lib Dem leader was working on making the new system as fair as possible.

He added that Mr Clegg was not surprised by the NUS campaign.

The Lib Dem leader has said he regrets being unable to deliver on the party's tuition fees promise as part of the coalition agreement with the Conservatives.

The NUS campaign will feature a new website with the slogan "It's time MPs kept their promises".
Parliamentary recall

BBC political correspondent Carole Walker said that as part of the campaign, the NUS would be urging a parliamentary recall for MPs who had broken promises on tuition fees.

An NUS spokesman said it was using the spirit of the coalition plan, under which it was proposed to give constituencies the right to call a by-election if an MP was found guilty of wrongdoing.

According to the Observer newspaper, there will be a particular focus on MPs in constituencies with large student populations, such as Mr Clegg, who represents Sheffield Hallam.

Caroline Dowd, Sheffield Hallam University's student union president, told the paper it could not get Mr Clegg "out of our union before the general election".

"He came and spoke about how MPs should not make promises and then break them, about how fees were wrong."

But former Lib Dem MP Evan Harris said the NUS campaign was a "transparent stunt", stressing that manifesto promises could be fulfilled only if a party won a majority.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11751851

The Lib Dems deserve everything they get here...

Well the recall law will now become an aspiration rather than a policy.

The lib dems are safe, (new) Labour went to court and won the argument that a manifesto promise was not binding and could be ignored.

The legalities are one thing, the real world is another. It doesn't really matter if the Libdems are required by law to stick to their pledges or not, what every student will remember is that they made their pledge then broke their word. We all know that politicians don't keep their word but rarely is it done so blatantly. If I was a lib dem candidate in a bielection in a University town any time soon, I'd be prepared to have a very hard time of it indeed.

The lib dem's credibility rested on their ability to get their agenda onto the coalition agenda. The fact they're dismally failing to do so - and are having to come out and defend obviously Tory policies to boot - just makes them look like an utter waste of time. What reason will anyone have to vote for them in the future; they've always only been a party likely to get anywhere in a coalition and now they're in one and having no effect whatsoever. To put it bluntly - now we know what we know, what is the point of the lib dems?

For years the Liberals have been centrist, and now have been dragged so far to the right by their new leader, I can see Charlie being asked to stand again even if he has not cured his drink problem.

Even if they have a majority they regularly find excuses to abandon them or downgrade them to aspirations.