The views expressed in this article are the views of the author and not the views of the Politics Society.
Hi all, and thanks for taking the time to read my article! My name’s Rob Pinfold and I’m (as of about three weeks ago) The General Secretary of the University of Manchester Students’ Union. I’ve been invited by the Politics Society to lay out my positions on some issues as well as some of the (many!) things I want to achieve in my year of office.
Continue reading ‘GenSec’s Plans for 2008/2009′
As we head towards the end of this academic year, we are experimenting with a new feature on the Politics Society website, known as “Guest Articles”. Our aim is to give students a platform on which they can express their opinions and give others the ability to debate the views expressed in the article. As a society, we do not support any political group or alignment and will aim to give fair representation to all groups. If successful, guest articles will feature prominently on our new website (to be built over the summer) and become a regular feature (hopefully weekly) in the next academic year.
The first article to be published is written by Rob Tidy and is entitled “Why won’t our Union campaign for LGBT rights?“. Rob has proposed the “Love Without Borders” LGBT rights motion at several General Meetings and the motion has never been passed - potentially because quorum was never met or was lost when the motion was up on the agenda. Rob outlines some of his frustrations in this article.
The second article is entitled “Winning a Free Education“, written by Chris Jenkinson. Chris has been elected for the role of UMSU Academic Affairs Officer for next year and states in the article why he opposed the free education motion at last week’s General Meeting and some of his views on how we should be campaigning for a free education.
If you are interested in writing articles for the society, drop me an email at james@manchesterpolitics.co.uk.
The views expressed in this article are the views of the author and not the views of the Politics Society.
I knew that speaking in our Students’ Union general meeting against a motion entitled Fight For a Free Education would inevitably open me up to attacks that I don’t agree that higher education should be free, as it was before 1997. So before I start describing how we can win a free education, let me set one thing straight: I believe that access to higher education should be accessible to all, and the best way for this to happen is for the cost of the education to be paid by the government through general taxation, and for students to be supported with universal, rather than means-tested grants.
Where I differ from those I affectionately describe as being on the hard left is how to achieve it. The Students’ Union should have policy supporting a free education, but needs to be a sensible and inclusive one which reaches out to students. It shouldn?t be prescriptive - specifying a monthly quota of flyers or the text to appear on a plaque is counterproductive.
We need a policy which enables campaigners and activists to reach out to less politicised students and allows them to take ownership of the campaign, engaging them and ensuring that even small actions taken are steps towards victory. Continue reading ‘Winning a Free Education’
The views expressed in this article are the views of the author and not the views of the Politics Society.
Wednesday 30th April saw one of the best attended UMSU General Meetings this academic year, second only to November?s spectacle of democracy. We?ve debated policies about war, finance, environmentalism and internationalism: a list that shows just how conscientious and politically active our members are, and one which leaves me speechless. Almost.
This year, the General Meeting, ?the supreme decision-making body of the Union?, has decided that it still quite likes Palestine and that it?s not too keen on global warming, which I’m sure most of us (except perhaps for next year’s supposedly right-wing Zionist Union Executive committee) would see as both laudable and worthwhile. It’s been presented, when it’s actually managed to achieve quoracy, with a further twelve undebated motions ranging in topic from the dire state of our bars to cold-blooded murder. Without being passed by the GM the union can’t take any real stance on these issues, which is a sorry state of affairs for the largest student union in Europe to get into given that we need less than 1% of our members to give up a few hours a term. It?s just not cunting (see http://www.umsu.manchester.ac.uk/pdf/MOTION_H_30.4.08.pdf).
Continue reading ‘Why won’t our Union campaign for LGBT rights?’
