Campaigns

December 2002

Issue 4

OVER the passed fortnight, we have been witness to the second lot of nationwide fire strikes. The green goddesses and no-smoking signs are starting to become the norm. It was also the week that Andy Gilchrist the head of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) arguably began to show his true colours. Perhaps that is why support for the fire strikes has begun to falter

What really concerned me was one of his speeches several days ago. He was addressing FBU members, which to begin with seemed fine. But it didn’t take me long to notice the “Labour Against War” banner in the background and that he wasn’t talking about fire fighters but about the evils of capitalism and how a socialist society was the only way forward. At that point I swore at the TV and switched it off. Why is it these people have to abuse their positions to further their own political agendas? The National Farmers Union don’t discuss issues in the NHS, so why should the FBU debate the Government’s foreign policy? I’m sure the ballot papers that the fire fighters saw didn’t include questions opposing or supporting war on Iraq!

Some may call me a hypocrite for what I am writing now, but this abuse of position I mention has been going on for some years and is no more apparent than within the student political movement. As much as I see the need for national student representation, it annoys me to open the latest issue of the National Union of Student’s (NUS) newsletter ‘The Motive’ and discover that the first line reads, “The NUS opposes a US-UK attack on Iraq”. Why, oh why, oh why? The NSA pays over £30K in membership and training fees to the NUS per annum. It does this with the intention of benefiting students and not for the NUS to make policies on war, on fox hunting, on world debt etc.

While these sorts of issues are important, perhaps worthwhile and indeed worthy of debate, they don’t affect students any more or any less than they do other groups within society. I am not against students campaigning on issues close to their hearts, but it is not for bodies like the NUS or student associations to make policies on these, unless it directly affects students. After all, that’s why we’re here! Maybe other student unions have an easy ride and don’t have to spend hours meeting with university staff to lobby and negotiate for even the most basic rights and facilities for their own students. I have much respect for the stance that the president of the Oxford University Union, Will Straw (son of Jack), took by refusing to support a motion in relation to war with Iraq. He narrowly missed being voted out of office, but if he had been it may have opened a few eyes. Good on him, I say. Perhaps the NSA is unique in that it doesn’t spend all its time furthering the agendas of individuals. With the problems it faces within Napier University, it certainly doesn’t have the time or resources.

I certainly think the student voice would be heard more effectively if it stuck to the issues which are genuinely relevant to students.