Why the media don't 'get' the Lib Dems?

I decided to write this post after all the confusion that there has been around the Lib Dem position on tuition fees. The root of the confusion seems to lay with Nick Clegg and some of the statements he made before the party conference this year. Clegg suggested that certain flagship policies (like the tuition fees policy) may have to be temporarily abandoned because they were unaffordable under current economic conditions.

But just look at how it was reported in the media here. This story is just not true. The Liberal Democrats never even came close to scrapping the tuition fees pledge.

But I suppose the more important question is why the media chose to report the story in this way. The answer is simple really: they just don't understand how we work. We are the only one of the three main parties that makes policy democratically. Every local party in the country elects a number of representatives and these representatives attend regional and national party conferences where our policy is decided. The delegates also elect all the internal party bodies that decide what is in our manifesto, the most important being the Federal Policy Committee (FPC). The party and the FPC have consistently voted to keep our policy to scrap tuition fees over the last few years but one statement from one party member (a very important one to be fair) that went against the parties position and suddenly the media are reporting that we have abandoned one of our key policies.

We have to compare ourselves to the other two parties, as the media do, to find out why we are viewed in this way. The simple answer is that we are unique. If Brown or Cameron were to make a statement about policy then it would be adopted by their respective parties straight away but Clegg can say whatever he wishes and it still won't be policy until voted through at conference.

Anyway it seems that Clegg is now towing the party line.

This is part of an email sent to all members today:

This week the Party's federal policy committee agreed a way to deliver one of our most important policies, the scrapping of unfair tuition fees. We've developed a plan to phase out tuition fees over the course of the next six years, to ensure this vital policy is affordable even at this time of economic crisis.