Nick Clegg: I should have been more careful in signing tuition fees pledge

Nick Clegg today admitted he "should have been more careful" when he signed a pre-election pledge to oppose a rise in tuition fees.

The deputy prime minister and Liberal Democrat leader said the decision to break his promise was "part of a compromise in a coalition government".

Clegg told ITV's Daybreak this morning: "In politics, just as in life, sometimes the things that you want to do, it turns out that you just can't do them," he said. "And then you just simply have to do the right thing with the kind of tools that you have available. I guess the easiest thing for me would have been for me to say: 'I've signed this pledge, I'm going to put my head in the sand, I'm not going to come up with a fair, sustainable solution to universities' and simply refuse to deal with it.

"I don't think that would have been the right thing. I wouldn't have been able to live, now that I'm in government, with the idea that because, yes, I had a policy before we went into government that I now realise we simply can't implement in practice, that I wasn't going to try and put something in place that will really help generations of particularly poor, bright kids who don't presently go to university. That's what I'm trying to do, but I'm very open about the fact that, yes, I had a policy, we had a policy before, that we now can't deliver."

Clegg made the admission the day after tens of thousands of students gathered in central London to take part in a demonstration that spiralled out of control after a fringe group of protesters hurled missiles at police and occupied the building containing Conservative headquarters.

Although the Lib Dem office in a nearby street was not as heavily targeted, Clegg and his party were left under no illusion about the level of fury felt at the party's U-turn as the National Union of Students (NUS) warned students would attempt to oust Lib Dem MPs who vote for a tuition fee hike by trying to force a byelection under proposed recall legislation in the constituencies of MPs who renege on a flagship manifesto promise to oppose any hike.

Clegg told Daybreak: "I should have been more careful perhaps in signing that pledge.

"At the time I really thought we could do it. I just didn't know, of course, before we came into government, quite what the state of the finances were. We didn't win the election outright. This is also part of a compromise in a coalition government."

Lib Dem and Conservative ministers were shaken by some of the most violent scenes on the streets of London since the 1990 poll tax riots, in the biggest demonstration in opposition to its austerity cuts since the coalition came to power.

David Cameron vowed today that he would not turn back from trebling tuition fees and condemned the students who tried to ransack Conservative HQ, saying the full force of the law ought to be used to prosecute violent protesters.

In a round of interviews in Seoul, where he is attending the G20 summit, Cameron said: "We won't go back. Look, even if we wanted to, we shouldn't go back to the idea that university is free."

Clegg came under attack from Harriet Harman yesterday when he stood in for David Cameron at prime minister's questions while students marched on Whitehall to be told that he had been "led astray" by the Tories during the negotiations to form the coalition government.

Today, the deputy PM defended the U-turn and insisted that the government's policy would help generations of poor people go to university.