Lynne Featherstone: I'm still deciding how to vote on tuition fees

I have to declare an interest here and say that I like Lynne Featherstone. Without commenting on her politics, I think she's a Good Thing for politics as whole, because of the way she does politics. By that, I mean she's willing to engage with arguments and issues and actually have a conversation with voters and others; a refreshing change from ministers who seek to be as bland and uncontroversial as possible and whose safety-first automaton approach only makes government seem remote and inhuman.

I'm making that declaration because I'm now writing here about Ms Featherstone's latest bit of candour. On her blog, she has this afternoon discussed Coalition proposals for university fees to rise as high as £9,000 a year.

Ms Featherstone, like other Lib Dem MPs, signed a pre-election pledge promising to oppose any increase in fees.

On her blog, she concludes:

I won’t make a final decision until the final proposals are on the table. I will have three choices in theory: support the Government (and as a Minister this would be the norm), abstain as per the coalition agreement or vote against as per the NUS pledge.

Now, as I read this, Ms Featherstone is saying that she has not yet decided whether she'll vote for the Government or not. One of her options is to vote against, though I'd be very surprised if that was her choice. But it appears that an abstention is real possibility.

The full post is here on the minister's blog. Do read the whole thing yourselves.