I have made plenty of mistakes while being an EEO I have been far from a perfect officer, but, this is far from perfect guild or movement. I could write about things I have done wrong, done right, done well, done badly…. about opinions expressed in sabb leaving speeches like the idea that empowerment is giving a fresher Ed Sparkes phone number and e-mail or that ethics or liberation are side issues or that students are not the best people to run the guild … or the events of last guild council.
Why should I be self indulgent or reactive? When I could talk about what I think is really holding our movement back, I’m basically no longer an officer, what is the worse that can happen?
I have always been shocked by the blatant corrupt nature of the obvious careerism of so many in guild and NUS… probably worst that I have seen was Labour student and guild president 08/09
Jenifer Larbie going to work for David Lammy the then Labour Minister for Higher Education who so strong in supporting the raising of fees immediately after finishing her stint as guild president.
dominated by Labour students? six of students in the picture are labour students and one is a labour minster..
But, that is just a minor case point in what the careerist stepping stone that the NUS has become. Out of the most recent presidents of the NUS six became MPs, four became special advisors to MP’s (MP’s in waiting), One became a Labour Executive on its national council and another became a Labour London mayoral candidate and a member of the London assembly the only president who didn’t take the Labour career instead joined the British communist party. For the record since the once home secretary and now the right honourable MP for Norwich south
Charles Clarke Became NUS President in 1977, there has only been one Non-labour NUS president.Our movement is a shadow what it could be and students have has lost so much… we’ve lost: Travel Grants, Special Equipment Grants, Minimum Grants, Older Students Allowances, the right to claim housing benefit, unemployment benefits and income support during holidays, the introduction of loans and now the looming threat of top up fees.
And at the same time that students are losing so much, those at the top have taking more and more, while corruptly saying that there is no money for students… just over the last ten years…The number of staff paid over £100,000 at the University of Birmingham has gone from 28 to 96 and in terms total pay to management there has been average increases of 19.9% each year since 2000. The VC’s wages have also increasing staggeringly from £169000 to £342000 in same period. Both of these increases are far out of proportion with the growth of the university which has grown in the same period by an average of 6.6% per year.
Our movement largely crippled by careerists won’t even organize a national demonstrations or local campaigns against the worsening situation… seemingly because the controlling labour students is at best quasi democratic and has some very dubious “democratic channels” which are easily controlled by Labor party central office and those in hope of a political career will not upset this order by running campaigns with real bite.
Just five points about labour students…
1.The Labour party fund Labour students
2. The Labour party employ Karim Palant full time to “liaise and lobby” Labour students.
3. Labour students sabbatical officers work at Labour central office
4. Labour students is run effectively by the steering committee not by its conference which has effectively no powers.
5. the steering committee is made up of three Labour students, the sabbatical officers based at Labour party central office.
Please don’t think that I back any of the other political factions that are so rife throughout student politics… they are just as bad, in the case of the SWP, maybe even worse. I’m against allowing formal factions, and it was Jack straw who removed the “no politics” clause when he was president of NUS in 1970... turning the NUS into waste of time mini parliament it is today.
(watch out this lot)This years campaigning on fees and cuts have been some what lackluster in my opinion and I’m upset by a guild that has broadly welcomed the logic for plans of £20 millions pounds worth of cuts at the university.
The solution to ending the domination of this careerist political clique that controls and restricts… is… I think to leave the NUS… time to finally say goodbye to that colossal bureaucratic nightmare that costs the guild of students a badly needed £65,000 pounds a year to affiliate to.
The NUS as democratic representative body has failed completely, turnouts make it look embarrassingly out of touch with most students. The NUS is not dealing with the problems of student finance, housing, and standards of tuition effectively. While at the same time as being a massive financial burden its factional politics are passed back down to its member unions by those with using it as back door into their own parties.
(On a side note leaving the NUS would also get us cheaper beer, freedom of choice and better ethics. Including the cost of the affiliation fees NUSSL s one of the most expensive bulk consortiums ever and additionally it restricts our choice to its own limited catalogue, which includes very few Fairtrade items and no Stella!)
Frankly, we would be better off without this political clique… unions In Scotland, where all the major universities are already out of NUS, non-affiliated unions got together to do their own lobbying and campaigning over fees, grants and loans. The culmination of their efforts was the abolition of tuition fees in Scotland… something the NUS thinks is just impossibility.
Anyhow so goodbye for now, I’m not going anywhere, I will be back next year, maybe trying to get the guild to leave the NUS and certainly pushing anti fees/cuts and the ethics rights and environmental agenda forward wherever I can.
Much love to rest of the officer team, all the best to you
Edd xxx
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