The Conservatives have been using a large proportion of their media support and social media accounts to promote the story that Jeremy Corbyn has U-turned on a tuition fees policy. However, the policy that they cite never existed in the first place and this smear only shows that they take the public for granted and don’t hold most people in a high regard at all. What is the truth of the supposed policy and what have they spun to create this fabrication?
The smear is purely designed to take the heat off them and deflect attention from the shambles they are making of government.
They have U-turned multiple times since before the election and are currently split over Brexit deals.
What Jeremy Corbyn said to NME
There is a lot of debate over this fabrication and Corbyn told Andrew Marr on the 23rd July that “I recognised it was a huge burden, I did not make a commitment we would write it off because I couldn’t at that stage.” Conservative MP, Jo Johnson, then tried to claim that Jeremy Corbyn had told people that he would ‘commit’ to wiping their debt and continued to say that he deceived the public to get votes. The sense of irony is lost on the brother of the man who still claims the £350 million figure is correct.
What Jeremy Corbyn told NME was “Yes, there is a block of those that currently have a massive debt, and I’m looking at ways that we could reduce that, ameliorate that, lengthen the period of paying it off, or some other means of reducing that debt burden.” This is clear that he planned on finding a way to make it easier for those who already have high levels of student debt.
There is nowhere in the interview that he says he would wipe that debt.
Conservative U-turns in 2017
The smear against Corbyn is designed to hide their own failures, which are significant compared to the fake U-turn perpetuated by the Conservatives and their supporters. On May 18th, the Conservatives would downgrade pension Triple Lock to a double lock, opposite from the 2015 manifesto and introduce a means-tested winter fuels payment, as opposed to the universal entitlement currently.
On the 22nd May, they decided to backtrack on the dementia tax just four days after announcing the policy.
20th June saw them capitulate on the first day of Brexit negotiations, changing their minds on the sequencing of Brexit negotiations. In the manifesto, they stated they would introduce a cap on energy prices but that has since disappeared without a trace.
On the 26th June after the DUP deal, they announced they would reinstate their policy on the pension triple lock, stating it was safe and at the same time their plan for means-tested winter fuel payments were dropped.
The public sector pay cap was rumoured to be scrapped by the Conservatives, however, they later clarified the cap would remain. Earlier on this year, Jeremy Hunt fought the Supreme Court over the government’s decision to not fund abortions for Northern Irish women, but on the 29th June, they changed their minds. Theresa May announced in May that they would scrap free school lunches but this policy has now been dropped.
