The National Union of Students are to erect billboards and send ad vans to Nick Clegg’s constituency — targeting the deputy prime minister amongst other MPs who they claim “traded lies for power” over tuition fees.

31 Lib Dems and two Conservatives are on an NUS ‘hit list’, after they signed a union pledge to oppose any rise in university fees in the run up to the 2010 election — before either doing the opposite or just not bothering to turn up to vote.

NUS president Toni Pearce — who voted for Clegg and the Lib Dems in 2010 — said:

“It’s payback time. I’d like to say directly to Nick Clegg that your apology won’t cover any of the £40,000 debt that students will graduate with for the first time this summer. “They pledged to scrap tuition fees – they lied. We won’t let them trade lies for power again. We represent seven million students and are urging every single one across the country to vote against broken pledges.”

The Lib Dems’ terror of students was the impetus for banning universities from block registering them in halls.