Another gloomy Tuesday evening in October, another poorly-attended Wel- come General Assembly. Despite De- mocracy & Communications Officer Dan Warham’s winning manifesto prom- ise to advertise Members’ Meetings to all and “make democracy easier to partici- pate in,” he proposed the idea of cancel- ling the meeting altogether.
Warham brought his plan to call off the General Assembly to the table at a meeting of the UCLU Executive Com- mittee, which is composed of all ten Sab- batical Officers, plus part-time officers with responsibilities covering with com- munity relations, activities and liberation groups. The rest of the committee was less keen to simply transfer the motions to Union Council or the next meeting, and persuaded him to go ahead. After switching his on-off romance with mass democracy back to on, Warham had to battle with the communications half of his job. A distinct lack of advertising appeared on campus, and an oversight meant the meeting eventually fell on Eid – a bit of a cock-up at London’s Global University.
Warham appears to have his own defi- nition of what his job should entail. As the small clan of hacks left the Blooms- bury theatre, he was overheard to say: “That’s democracy for you – nobody gives a fuck.”
Welcome everybody, erm anybody?
A grand total of 36 people turned up to participate, which was at least one more than at the previous year’s caper (organised by Sam Gaus). The excruci- ating loneliness was dragged out for 15 minutes before Union Chair Sahal Qua- zi called the meeting to a close, offering his apologies.
Motions to ban the playing of Robin Thicke’s song “Blurred Lines” in Union venues and end police interference on campus will be carried over to the next meeting of Union Council.
The democratic apathetic process
Student apathy was highlighted again with a low turnout at the autumn elec- tions.
Positions on offer included the fairly responsible Student Trustees, along with NUS delegates, a few part-time offic- ers and then the various faculty and hall representatives. The low voter turnout of 4% was unsurprising, considering not all positions even had people standing for them and nearly two thirds of can- didates were elected unopposed. Only 1199 students logged on to vote – over 300 less than last year’s autumn election. By UCLU standards, this figure seemed almost a success and was praised with no hint of irony by LSE media on Twitter. UCLU Activities and Events Officer Doris Chen was keen to exert her own in- fluence on the elections, as she officially recommended some twenty society pres- idents to stand for election, with political society presidents notably absent. Chen’s choices had a hundred percent electoral success rate – or at least the one who ran for election did. The question remains as to how appropriate it is for a full-time of- ficer to be involved in picking candidates for the part-time officer elections.
Surprise victory for RON supporters
Notable results include the RON-ing of former Education and Campaigns Of- ficer Luke Durigan for both positions he ran for – NUS Delegate and Trustee. This was no great victory for a devious RON campaign, however – Durigan hadn’t been registered as a student until half way through the campaigning pe- riod, so was not on the ballot paper when eager beavers first voted.
Astor way to do it!
Candidates who seemed to know the way to freshers’ hearts included the two competitors for Hall Representative po- sitions at Astor College, Anam Zaman and Hazooria Taan, who both provided free beer and pizza, funded by their cam- paign budgets, in exchange for votes. The only pay-off was that students were watched over whilst they voted.