MMUnion Challenges - One Year On

Twelve months ago, I set five challenges to the new band of executive officers at MMUnion. With a brand new team taking over from them in the next week (including myself as the new VP Welfare), I thought this was a good time to assess the challenges and ask, where do we go from here.

I don't mean to be over-critical of the current officers in this post, but simply mention how I would have handled the situation. I believe the officers have done a great job this year and I can only hope to carry on their good work.

Big-Up Student Forums

Now, as it transpired there wasn't any Student Forums this year. I very much understand that the union was going through a transition period after the new governance structures were approved by the Board of Governors in November. My preferred scenario would've been for Student Forums to start after Christmas. This might have avoided the situation with the "protests" outside the union by the Viva MMU group over those very same governance structures.

Clearly the way forward is to set the first date for a student forum, say in the second week of term, and push it like crazy. I'd still like 100 students at every student forum, and preferably double that at the first one.

Ensure Effective Communication

This has always been, and will continue to be, one of my major qualms with union officers; not just at MMUnion, but all over the country. It's been ... better! The new website is now live, but there still isn't any blogs from the sabbatical officers (clearly this will change on my part at least).

In the last year I've discovered twitter. This micro-blogging medium will only get bigger in the future after a number of major publicity coups, such as it being the No. 1 way of getting information out of Iran during the current problems there after the presidential election. Many unions have set up their own twitter accounts to announce campaigns, and keep people up to date with meetings and so on. I intend to set up such an account for MMUnion as it is perfect for small announcements which don't require a full story. The feed can be put on the front page of the union website for those that don't have twitter accounts.

PULP. Is it working?

I've been pleasantly surprised with PULP this year. Holly has done a pretty good job with the magazine, but there are some big changes around the corner.

PULP will now be part of a new media sub-group (likely to also include MMU Radio) which, although will be convened by an officer, won't have a dedicated full time editor like it has previously. Instead the grouping will decide who is to edit the magazine, which could be a different person for each issue. I've been informed that I got this a bit wrong. There will be a full time editor, but it will be a member of staff.

I'm still in favour of joining up with Student Direct in the long term, but I'm keen to see what will happen under the new sub-group structure before pressing the matter.

NUS Governance

Re-branded as NUS Reform, this was certainly the best result of the year. Over 90% of delegates to the second extraordinary conference voted for the proposals, including all delegates from MMU. As a union, we must continue to involve ourselves in NUS and encourage our members to get involved also.

Achieve 10% Turnout in Elections

Well there was a number of reasons why the turnout wasn't great. The highest number of votes for any single position was 685, with the total turnout being around 1100 (or just above 3%). I'm certain the problems with registration accounted for a few hundred voters, and there are a number of operational issues which need to be addressed; however this is not a time to look back.

Yet again I'm challenging ourselves to get a 10% turnout. We can and should be reaching this number.

And finally ...

This year, I will always try to do my best. Only if I do will I feel that I have done my job well.

Do come in and see me. My door is always open.

JR

Toxic Cleansing

As spotted by Tory Bear; this is what the DJ in a Brixton nightclub was wearing last night ...


Could it be that it's cool to be a Tory again?

JR

Harman Unable to Distinguish Between the Tories and the BNP

A friend of mine who gave his email address to the Labour Students group at his university in September, but saw the light before actually joining the party, has just dropped me a facebook message saying he got an email from Harriet Harman today pleading him to re-join (even though he was never a member) the Labour Party.

All well and good, but one of the lines used to try and gain my friend's membership fee was this ...

"You can’t ride the fence when the Tories and BNP are gaining power."

This reminds me of the words of a candidate of the Green Party for the European elections, who said in a student hustings, "If the BNP won a seat in the European Parliament and the Conservatives won the General Election, I can't think of a worse thing for women in this country."

Both these quotes give the impression that the Conservatives are on a par with the BNP. This sort of scaremongering is totally unacceptable. The candidate for the Green Party was just being politically naive, but this sort of thing should never come out of the Labour offices, especially when the words are from the Deputy Leader!

Would anyone with a continence re-join the Labour Party because of this email?

JR

Update 22:10 - Iain Dale has also had someone send him the email and he's published it in full. As I published my post beforehand though, I'm claiming the exclusive on this one!

Electoral Reform: Voting Indecision

Last night I had a discussion on twitter with @MarkReckons, a Lib Dem activist and former student at MMU, about electoral reform and the pros and cons of proportional representation in Westminster elections.

I feel that breaking the link between a MP and their constituents would be a mistake, which with a truly proportional system would be the only option. Fortunately, my tweeting compatriot also agreed that a party list system was not a good idea.

We went on to discuss my own constituency of Manchester Withington. At the last election Liberal Democrat John Leech was elected over the Labour incumbent, however in my humble opinion Mr Leech hasn't been a good MP. He was quoted as saying that people can't tell when a woman is shouting rape because students make so much noise! Very politically naive, at best.

Under our current first past the post system, if I wanted to vote against John Leech then I would probably have to vote for Labour's Lucy Powell as the Tories were way behind in 2005, on just over 10%.

I want our current consistency system with AV voting. The Alternative Vote (AV) enables the voter to rank the candidates until they become indifferent, and then if no candidate has over half of the total first preferences then the candidate with the lowest number of votes is eliminated and their second preferences are redistributed. This continues until a candidate has over half the total votes.

Under AV, I could vote for the Conservative candidate as my #1 preference, and then Labour #2 and then not bother raking anyone else. I've voted for who I want to win, and my vote wouldn't be wasted. If I didn't know who came second, third and so on, last time then I could've ranked as many or as few candidates as I wanted; the upshot being I wouldn't be disenfranchised by choosing my preferred candidate.

@MarkReasons' argument was that I could be represented by a Conservative MP if there was muti-member constituencies elected using STV. He has done an explaination on his blog on how this could happen in Manchester Withington and surrounding seats by having a five member area. However in my opinion he has selected seats that would never be together; two from the City of Manchester, and three from the Metropolitan Borough of Stockport.

There are five seats in Manchester that would more likely be put together; Manchester Central, M'cr Gorton, M'cr Blackley, M'cr Withington and Wythenshawe and Sale East.

If you take the votes that the Conservatives got in those seats in 2005 and add them together, the total Tory vote would be 21012. The total turnout from the five areas was 159620, so the Conservatives polled just over 13% of the vote. The quota would be 26604, so therefore there would probably be no Conservative representation in the five seat constituency as they would be around 5600 votes short. Worse still, John Leech would also be elected as an MP because the Lib Dem vote would probably get them two seats.

The argument is that voters could choose not to support a candidate even if they wanted their party to win by choosing a further candidate in the same party, and ranking their undesired candidate further down the list (or not at all). The problem is that parties would only put up as many candidates as they could hope to win. In the above example, a back of a fag packet calculation finds that the Lib Dems would need a swing close 15% from Labour to get a third seat, meaning that they'd only put two candidates up. Indeed the Tories haven't got a chance of winning more than one seat, so they'd only have one candidate.

I've probably lost a lot of you, which doesn't surprise me. Herein lies another problem with STV. Unless you're a bit of an elections geek (like me), it is unlikely that you'll understand the electoral system and how anyone could be elected with 214.57 votes over the quota after they've received transfers from an elected candidate. See!

The public must have trust in the electoral system. They must have the ability to change their MP. They must be able to change the government, and indeed choose the government.

I'm not saying that FPTP is the best system ever, but it surely is simple to understand, simple to use, and simple to decide the winner.

JR

Funding Our Future

Today the National Union of Students launched their blueprint for the future of higher education funding.

OK, I won't be able to put this any better than the NUS website, so I'll leave it to them ...

Proposals in the Blueprint would end the very notion of a course fee or price, and shut the door on a market in fees, making it a fairer system for all students.

Progressive graduate contribution
At two consecutive Annual Conferences, NUS members resolved that, if graduates should contribute to the future costs of higher education, they should do so according to their actual future earnings, so that those who benefit the most from university by earning more will contribute more. Today NUS is proud to be delivering a system that meets this central principle.

A graduate contribution would be paid into an independent fund – a People’s Trust for higher education – which would be built up over time and eventually deliver considerable additional resources for universities in the future. It is important that any future funding model delivers a sustainable higher education sector, and NUS has worked hard to ensure that these proposals achieve this.

Fair deal for all
By abolishing all up front fees for part-time students, this system would initiate a new era for non-traditional learning and continuing education through life. We also envisage a route that allows for voluntary employer contributions, so that employers could support far more employees to study than ever before.

Flexibility for learners
In designing this model, we have created a funding model that encourages learners to be able to switch between full and part-time modes of study, creating enhanced flexibility in the sector. We believe that through increasing flexibility in this way, we open the doors of higher education to a wider audience, and provides clear ways for increasing access to higher education for learners from non-traditional backgrounds.

This is something, in my opinion, the Conservatives should support. It is important to mention this will not effect those that are currently at university, as they will continue to pay back their student loans.

I would be appreciative of your feelings on the proposals, which the NUS website has in more detail.

JR

We Need Positive Politics to Defeat the BNP

On Sunday night, the BNP had two MEPs elected to Brussels. Less people voted BNP in these elections than had done five years ago, when we last elected our MEPs. The difference is less people voted in the elections this time around, so the BNP gained a higher proportion of the vote. They won because the electoral system worked on what proportion of the vote each party got, not on how many votes they got.

This was not the breakthrough that the BNP are claiming, but a failure of mainstream politics, and the major parties especially, to promote positive politics. Just imagine you're the kind of person who thinks it's a good idea to vote, but not worried if you don't remember or aren't available to. You watch the party political broadcasts and see the main parties attacking each other. They tell you why not to vote for the other lot, and what you end up deciding is that they're all as bad as each other, and not voting at all.

It is those people, who haven't thought about the BNP, who would never consider voting for the BNP, who have become dissolutioned with mainstream politics; those are the people that we need to convince to vote again. Negative politics will only drive away more people from voting. We need positive politics to push up turnout.

Unfortunately, today Nick Griffin was attacked by a group of members from Unite Against Facism when he attempted to hold a press conference on college green, outside the Houses of Parliment. I really do understand what the protesters were trying to do. I am a proponent of no platform for the BNP and other racist groups; however they thrive on publicity, and the press conference would've had a ten second stint on the evening news, if that.

What was guaranteed by the demonstration was a wall to wall coverage all afternoon on the news channels, with live interviews for Griffin on the BBC and Sky. Griffin himself summed it up by saying it was a massive own goal. It made it look like Griffin and the BNP were the victims, and was a huge negative for the anti-racist campaign.

As I mentioned above, the BNP's vote actually decreased in these elections, we're not going to get anyone else to stop voting for them by continuing with negative politics. All the parties need to tell the electorate why they should vote for them, and show why their policies are right, and in a positive way. Until we do that, the BNP will continue winning seats when they stand in elections.

Lets be positive to beat the BNP.

JR

Labour: Can't Even Organise a Coup Properly

Monday night's Parliamentary Labour Party meeting was supposed to be the best chance for backbench MPs who were unhappy with how Gordon is leading the Labour Party to shame him into leaving. As it was only a few managed to say anything bad about him, and when they did there was silence from those who agreed.

There are apparently anything up to 100 Labour MPs who want Brown to step aside, but much less with balls to put their name to it.

Labour is clearly divided. As a case in point, lets look at a couple of well known members of the Labour Party (and good friends of mine) in student circles; the President of NUS, Wes Streeting, and the outgoing National Treasurer, Dave Lewis.

Both have commented about their views on GB's predicament on their respective twitter feeds. They are very close friends and colleagues, and see each other most days; however their views on what should happen to Brown are polar opposites.

Wes first. He tells us ...

En route home from a fun end to an evening at times uncomfortable. Hope the Party can move on quickly under GB

... whereas Dave let it be known what he wants ...

1) Gordon resigns. 2) Leadership election. 3) General Election. The only actual chance for Labour to renew, and build for a fourth term

I think that says it all.

JR

PS: Apologies to Wes and Dave, but I hope you can see what a good example it is.

JR Hartley Makes a Comeback

For the first time since 2002, the character of JR Hartley makes his return in an television advertisement. This time it's not for the Yellow pages, but for a company called Thinkbox.

Want to see the ad, well here you go (occurrence at 40s).



Anyone who still doesn't understand why I'm called JR?

JR

In a New Domain

Yes it is true. I have moved my blog to http://www.worldofjr.co.uk/

Please update your bookmarks.

JR

The Unbelievable Sexism Over Caroline Flint

Maybe she did resign because she didn't get the job she wanted; maybe she just wanted to twist the knife in Brown's back a bit more; but what is totally unacceptable is the sexist language being used against her by those who don't like what she's done.

Caroline Flint resigned from government yesterday, citing Gordon was just using her and other woman members of cabinet as "female window dressing". She was described by a number of politicians and journalists as having "a bit of a strop", or as described by Michael White of the Guardian on Sky News last night (according to Iain Dale) "a hissy fit".

Could you imagine those words being used about a man? No, you'd hear something like "he was very angry" or "he'd had enough".

Now clearly Ms Flint is a very good looking woman, but just because she's a woman it doesn't mean she can't be annoyed at the way she was treated.

Next we'll be hearing, "don't you worry your pretty little head over it".

JR

All Brown Can Do is Change the Window Display

The local election results are in. Labour have lost control of the four councils they were defending, and over 250 councillors.

Labour's national share of the vote is worse than ever before in living memory, and to cap it all off there's just one council that has a majority party and isn't controlled by the Conservatives.

So what can Gordon do with his cabinet reshuffle? Not much really.

His problem is mainly that not many want a job in the government at the moment. The Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills will merge with the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform to form The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Why have they done that?

I think the answer is simple. Brown couldn't find anyone to take on the DIUS portfolio, i.e. nobody wanted the job, so he asked Mandy if he'd add the job to his department. There's no logical reason to merge the departments otherwise.

The ultimate indignity today was while Gordon was holding a press conference to announce the new cabinet, when Europe Minister Caroline Flint resigned stating she was being used by Brown as "female window-dressing"!

The pressure is building on Brown.

JR

Like a Pack of Cards

Smith, Blears, who will be next?

As I confidently predicted on Monday, before the high profile resignations, Gordon can't have long left. After the results of the elections this Friday and Sunday, the Labour Party have to decide whether to back or sack him.

There are reports of a backbench move to force him out and replace him with Health Secretary Alan Johnson. An email is being circulated among the PLP members that asks for support in ousting Brown, and if enough MPs sign up to it, surely the PMs position will become untenable.

But before then, assuming Gordon lasts long enough, there will be a reshuffle in the cabinet. The big question being asked is if Alistair Darling will remain as Chancellor. Effectively Brown is in the classic catch 22 situation. If he gives Darling the boot then the implication is that Alistair wasn't doing a good job and there needs to be a change of tac; however if Gordon keeps Darling in post then it could be seen as being weak when faced with a tough choice, and leading to some saying that Brown has bottled it, again.

But will that matter in 10 days time? Will Labour come down like a pack of cards?

JR

Who should I believe?

UKIP want Britain to pull out of the European Union because it costs too much to the British taxpayer. Their leader, Nigel Farage, has been one of the strongest critics of MPs who have dodgy expenses claims. However, Mr Farage has taken over £2 million in expenses since being elected as an MEP, on top of his £64,000 salary.

Mr Farage is calling on the public to punish "greedy Labour, Conservative and Lib Dem MPs" by voting for the UK Independence Party in the European Elections on 4 June; however, clearly he is just as guilty as anyone at Westminster for claiming excessively.

He says he hasn't "poketed" the money but instead used the "very large sum of European taxpayers' money" to help promote UKIP's message that the UK should withdraw from the EU.

The party also had one of its MEPs convited and jailed for fraud, and another facing prosecution for alleged false accounting and money laundering relating to his EU expenses.

When I attended a recent hustings for the Euro elections at the University of Manchester Students' Union, I was presented with a UKIP flyer from their candidate, Mick McManus, that said police could seize your iPod to check for illegal downloads under planned European law. Eh?

Leaving aside the obvious scaremongering, it would be impossible to tell if any given file was obtained illegally by checking the contents of an iPod! I was informed a few days later that the flyer almost certainly wasn't an official one, but it was still given to me by a UKIP MEP candidate. Do the party not check what their candidates are distributing?

The candidate himself acted like a complete nutter throughout the hustings, comparing the EU to "those people in t-shirts who chase you down the street asking for money for their charity". I tend to find that saying no to them usually does the trick! He was quoted as saying after the meeting that because he was young "we were able to speak to [the students] in a way the other parties couldn't". Well he's right, but not in a good way!

Who would vote for these jokers?

JR

Brown: I'm Staying On as PM

Well there you have it. Clearly all bets are off as Gordon has unequivocally stated he's not going to quit.

Far from it, I say, as there wasn't any reason for Gordon to make that statement now. Clearly a lot of people from politicians to the public are calling for a general election, but as far as I'm aware there aren't many asking Gordon to resign (at least not yet).

Has Gordon had a word in his ear from a cabinet colleague? Have members of the PLP given him a warning they might go for him in their meeting next Monday, if the election result is as dire as predicted?

Gordon is certainly feeling the pressure from somewhere, otherwise the statement of his position was completely pointless!

I'll give him until the party conference, and that's being generous.

JR