Lord Browne briefs MPs on tuition fees review

Just been interviewing Lord Browne fresh from his seminar of a lifetime. He’d just been presenting his thoughts in private in the PM’s House of Commons office to the PM himself, the DPM, Ed Miliband, John Denham and David Willetts. I asked if he picked up their level of approval and he said they were very good at playing their cards close to their chests.

He did not, for the record, use an overhead projector or flip-charts.

At 3.30pm, Vince Cable will welcome the report in a Commons statement but give an idea how he wants to tweak it.

Last night in a meeting with Lib Dem MPs he talked about adding variable interest rates to the debt to squeeze more money than Browne does out of the better off.

Opponents of the Browne reforms or “Browne Plus” as some Lib Dems call Vince Cable’s variation on the theme, are now planning to start applying pressure to Lib Dem MPs to make a stand against them. Lib Dem backbenchers in particular can expect a bit of intensive contact from Lib Dem activists in the coming days.