General Disarray
The outburst of democratic zeal which dominated the tail end of last term seems to have been put back in the loft with the Christmas decorations as January 20th’s General Assembly - round two of the cha- otic debacle adjourned by professional thrower-of-toys-out-of-the-pram Gabriel Gavin in December - sank softly into the familiar arms of inquoracy.
The messy debate over the restructure of Sabbatical Officer roles continued into an emergency meeting of the UCLU Coun- cil. The congregation of elite-level hacks eventually passed a compromise motion tabled by Activities and Events Officer Sabeeh Imran Rasool, which will see the number of Sabbatical Officers for 2015-16 reduced to the confusing total of 7.5.
A Sabb In The Dark
Sabb roles for Democracy & Commu- nications and Ethics, Environment and Operations have been merged, being re- placed by the woolly-titled Sustainability, Engagement and Ethics officer position.
£25k-a-year slots for External Affairs and Campaigns and Medical, Pharma- ceutical and Health Students have been scrapped altogether - despite both only having been established in 2013-14. Full- time liberation officers for women and black and minority ethnic students will remain.
Institutional Apathy
Under the Interim Governance Struc- ture, Institute of Education Students will be represented by a part-time, paid elected officer. On the night, the Council voted to reject a motion put forward by IOESU President Suguna Nair to have a full-time sabb represent IoE students for one year, while the merger continues. This failed to get the super-majority of council votes required, so another vote was immedi- ately called to put the matter to a referen- dum of all UCLU students, which took place between the 29th of January and the 2nd of February.
Though 85 of those who bothered to vote were in favour of a full-time IoE officer (inexplicably, 2 people cared enough to abstain), the turnout was 1600 students shy of quoracy. Is this the start of the IoE’s predictable descent into asset-stripped, voiceless irrelevance?
Council Part Two: Electric Chair Now Please
The next instalment of the turgid soap opera of the UCLU Council saw the un- ion vote to axe its cash-holding contract with much-maligned security firm G4S. There were concerns - almost a decade old - over the company’s involvement in wholesale human rights abuses, such as the treatment of prisoners in Israel and Guantanamo Bay. Council members thoroughly patted each other and them- selves on the back for belatedly pulling the plug on a rather dodgy connection.
David Dahlborn, a man only a dooms- day device away from Bond-villainhood, took this opportunity to air his umbrage at the unrepresentative and unaccount- able nature of the UCLU Trustee Board. In addition to the 12 Student and Sab- batical Trustees, the board has 5 External Trustees (including 2 former students, 2 members of UCL staff and one member unconnected to UCL), appointed for 4 year terms by the Council, with no stu- dent say in the matter. Dahlborn railed against the idea that these trustees could overturn democratic decisions.
Let The Raii One In
The grand legacy of the last great white BNOC Michael Chessum was in evidence last weekend, after union EACO and erstwhile Phineas quizmaster Omar Raii was arrested at an anti-EDL dem- onstration in his native West Midlands. A photo of a teary-eyed Raii in cuffs has been doing the rounds on Facebook, leading to inevitable comparisons with last year’s arrest of London Student edi- tor Oscar Webb. One hack said, “Raii looks like a prisoner of conscience, Webb looked like a spoilt child.”