Lib Dems drop student fees pledge

Nick Clegg came under pressure from one of his own frontbenchers for refusing to stand by his party's commitment to abolish university tuition fees. The Liberal Democrat leader, launching his mini-manifesto yesterday, admitted some of the policies would have to be dropped before the next general election, and promised only to prioritise schools, creating "green" jobs and champion electoral reform.

Evan Harris, the party's science spokesman, said he would "find it astonishing" if the Liberal Democrats abandoned their commitment on tuition fees, which he claimed could be funded by abandoning the Government's target of sending 50 per cent of school-leavers to university.

"We're going to make tough choices but none of that implies we cannot afford our core commitments," he said. "One of our key commitments would be... tuition fees. We've just adopted it as a policy."

Mr Clegg said Dr Harris was "getting ahead of the debate" but admitted: "We are not going to be able to do everything we aspired to do before. We have to drop some things."