Alex Knutsen of Unison recently said: “The Educational Maintenance Allowance is... enabling working-class young people to have opportunities for university and skilled employment. If the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats get away with this cut, then it is simply a piece of political vandalism”.

Richard Hawkes, chief executive of disability charity Scope, said that the decision to phase out the Independent Living Fund was “bemusing [because] the fund is comparatively small and designed to support disabled people to live at home rather than in care homes. It’s hard to see how phasing out this fund will do anything but narrow down options and push people towards greater dependence on the state.”

Meanwhile transport minister Norman Baker was trying to justify voting for the trebling of university tuition fees by telling us through The Argus that he had to vote with the coalition or risk the Government being defeated and triggering another General Election, “which by the way the Tories might have won outright” (The Argus, December 10).

Is the threat of a Tory government supposed to worry us? What we have now is a Tory government propped up by the Lib-Dems. If scrapping the Educational Maintenance Allowance and the Independent Living Fund and trebling university fees aren’t the hallmark of a Tory government, then what are they?

The Lib-Dems have been conned by the Conservatives and will be lucky if they end up with a quarter of their existing MPs come the next General Election.

Henry Page
Haven Way, Newhaven