NUS - Guest Post - Owen Meredith

Continuing with the NUS debate, after a very amusing chat in the

comments on Blaney's Blarney

, Owen Meredith has

weighed

into the argument:

"Now don’t get me wrong, I dislike the NUS as much as the next person. In fact, I brought a disaffiliation motion to Keele University Students Union just over a year ago. The NUS doesn’t function properly, it doesn’t represent students adequately and it doesn’t represent anything near value for money.

However, where my views disagree with some of those raised by others over the weekend is that they because of everything I have just mentioned we should walk away, and I believe that is exactly why we should stay and fight.

Look at it this way, I believe this country doesn’t function as well as it should, I believe this government doesn’t represent people well enough, and I believe this government doesn’t represent value for money. But would any of those advocating walking away from the NUS advocate walking away from this country? I think not.

They would stand up and fight for it back!

Surely as Conservatives we owe it to students to give them a conservative choice in NUS elections? Hundreds of thousands of students are represented by the NUS, and by surrendering that national voice to the left, we are letting down hundreds of thousands of people.

As a Conservative I fight battles on a basis of ideology and ideas, I don't run away from the ones we "cannot" win.

If we walked away everywhere we cannot win, then there would be tens of local councils where 10 or 15 years ago we would have stopped fighting, but now we are in control. We have to see the big picture and play the long game. By doing so we can win.

In a bizarre claim, the argument has also been put that in loosing an NUS election the Party would in some way be damaged. This is ludicrous! We loose elections all the time where we are not expected to win, by-elections recently in Glenrothes and Glasgow East are prime examples. They did no damage to the Party, and if anything standing up and fighting when you are expected to loose shows the public we are a Party of principal and a party that cares about people, not about winning. We cannot win everything and nobody expects us to. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t offer people a choice.

And while we are on this, lets be honest for a moment; a Conservative win of the NUS Presidency would hardly be a big news story of the day, so loosing certainly wouldn’t be. (And for all those statistic hacks - since we haven’t stood in years, the swing too us will inevitably be a positive one which is always good news!)

I’m more than happy to have this debate on disaffiliation CF from the NUS. But we need to have an academic debate, rather than an emotional one. Yes, we need to fight locally and win sabbatical positions. Yes the NUS is a filing organisation. And yes, we should be pointing out to students that the NUS is wasting their money. But we also need to be fighting in unions up and down the country to win NUS delegates and start the process of change.

We’ve allowed the left to dominate the NUS for too long. It’s time to take it back! 

Fight for it!

And then there were five...

In a strongly

worded statement

Owen Meredith has announced his intention to quit from the CF exectutive. In accordance with the constitution - particuarly section six, paragraph 2.1 that requires elections for the chairman and the NME to be elected every 15 months, Meredith will resign when this NME's term should have come to an end between March and June 2009.

He also urges the rest of the NME to do the same. They don't seem to be playing ball though.

Snap snap snap...

Just weeks ago

Labour candidates

would rather photograph themselves with David Cameron than Gordon Brown but now according to

ConHome

they are queuing to get that all important leader snap. This is another rumour that has been doing the rounds today that point to an early election. TB can't quite believe that team Brown could be stupid enough to let speculation about any early election mount once again unless they were really planning one...

One possibly rogue poll today has the Tories ahead by just 3% but as far as TB understands from various contacts in marginal seats, the private polling undertaken by the Party is still looking good where it matters.

Bring it on.

Exec meeting minutes released...

You can now read the "full" minutes of Saturday's meeting of the Conservative Future national executive

here

.

Keeping with today's theme of debate around the NUS, this watered down line of what was actually discussed caught TB's eye:

"NME discuss possible NUS President candidates but rejected the idea of supporting those candidates. NME agreed to field official Conservative candidates at NUS national elections, and begin a process of application and approval of candidates immediately."

So do you think you have the NUS-Factor?

Warning!

News is reaching Tory Bear that the Dark Lord Mandelson is planning on leaving the Brown bunker to conduct a

nationwide tour

for some apparent reason.

Citizens of Cardiff, Bristol, Swansea, Edinburgh and Glasgow in November, Leeds, Huddersfield and Sheffield in December, Peterborough, Leicester, Liverpool, Manchester, Nottingham, Birmingham and Newcastle in January and Plymouth, Portsmouth and London in February beware!

Residents can expect a darkening of the skies, earthquakes and spontaneous playing of the Carmina Burana on the radio as some form of early warning system to detect the Dark Lord approaching. Citizens of these fine cities are advised to take cover in a prepared bunker, or failing that under a desk or the kitchen table. Under no circumstances should the Dark Lord be approached as there is extreme danger of death, (both actual and political.)

Local councils and police will be issuing emergency statements on this matter in due course but in the mean time citizens are advised to stay vigilant and report any unusual activity in any of the above cities to the authorities immediately. To find out the location of your nearest shelter contact your local police station.

Never a man to mince his words...

TB wants to kick start the debate about Conservative Future and the roll it should play within the NUS. Further to some NUS conference fall out last week, this post by

Donal Blaney

deserves reproducing in full, as a right-of-reply from those who feel the NUS should be avoided like the plague:

"The National Union of Students: A memorandum to Conservative Future:

Word reaches me that the perennial chestnut of engagement or disengagement with the National Union of Students is being earnestly discussed by the Conservative Future National Management Executive. While the majority of CF activists nationwide want little, if anything, to do with the NUS there remains a handful of misguided NUSophiles who seem to think that it is in CF's - and the Conservative Party's - interests to spend time, money and effort on attempting to wrest control of the NUS from the hands of ideologically driven leftists.

The NUS is, to most students, an expensive irrelevance. It is a playground for those who seek aggrandisement and who wish to pontificate on national and international affairs on behalf of hundreds of thousands of disinterested and apathetic students in whose name they purport to speak.

Rather than focusing their efforts on fighting (and in all probability losing) NUS elections in the Spring, it would surely make far more sense for CF activists on our campuses to focus on taking power in their own students' unions and using that position to deliver real and valuable change to their fellow students. Many universities are, of course, in key marginal constituencies. Were overtly Conservative sabbaticals and officers to manage their own students' unions effectively and on budget, the Conservative Party stands to reap the rewards locally and nationally.

Those who bleat that by engaging with the NUS they might change its direction and worldview are as deluded as Europhiles who think that by placing Britain at "the heart of Europe" we will somehow reverse the inexorable tide of EU federalism. History shows this to be a false hope. The comparisons between the NUS and the EU are stark. The same cry that Eurosceptics shout should likewise be shouted from the rooftops of every campus of every university that has the misfortune of still being affiliated to the bloated, politically correct and rabid NUS...

Better Off Out."

If you feel you have something to say on the matter then send Tory Bear 3-400 words and you might just see it here.

A reworking of a classic...

Hat-Tip -

The Prince

Interesting and little known

fact

about the original 1992 tax bomb poster - the idea was thought up by a young treasury staffer called Dave, with the help of his mate Steve who worked at the advertising agency hired by the party...

In Dave we trust...

Cameron has finally hit the nail on the head this morning and offered a clear and precise narrative of Labour's failings on the economy and what the Conservatives would do about it. No more ridiculous ideas of matching Labour spending plans. Tory governments come to power at times of dire economic need and they a voted in to pick up the pieces left by Labour. It's what we do and hence why it has been so vital that we get our economic policy into gear.

Following

this speech

the morning the airwaves and television stations have been flooded with tories and on crystal clear message.

"Spending restraint under Conservatives, tax rises under Labour"

Bingo!

An unusual drinking companion...

TB has just got home from a rather enjoyable drinks with Francis Maude. Can't help but think that DC made a bit of a boo boo by replacing him with Caroline Spelman as Party Chairman on the basis of political correctness. Maude is even more articulate and precise in real live than he is in his excellent media performances. TB was lucky enough to have a rather extended chat with him about the media's blatant boredom with the idea of the Tory's being way out in the lead and conscious decision to liven things up a bit in the last few months.

He also agreed with TB during the question and answer session that it would be Ed Balls everyone would like to see suffer the Michael Portillo 1997 moment of the next election. Balls represents everything wrong and stale with this current government and TB is disgusted that as Children's Minister he had to be

forced

by the Speaker of the House today to be held accountable on the baby P outrage. What a horrible little man.

Oh well back to the dissertation...

ToryTV

ToryTV

the brain-child of TB's good chum Paul Nizhinsky has had a bit of a rebrand. Some of the greatest documentries about the Conservative Party's greats and history can be found there.

Check it out!

Peterkin offers his two cents...

ANDY PETERKIN FOR CF CHAIRMAN LAUNCHING HERE IN MID 2010 OR WHEN THE NME HAS THE BALLS TO CALL AN ELECTION*

*Whichever is sooner.

Move along people...

...nothing to see

here

.

The fall out continues...

Another one of those day's where TB's Blackberry is overloaded - some members of the Conservative Future National Management Executive are spinning harder than Mandleson today.

It seems that there is some concern over what will be contained in the minutes of Saturday's meeting and what we mere mortals will be allowed to know. Either way it seems one exec member was particularly concerned with the direction that CF is taking -“It is undemocratic for this executive, which was elected to serve a maximum of 15 months under the constitution, to vote to extend that term. This is an indefinite extension until sometime after the general election which may be as late as May 2010. This would mean a potential 2 and half to 3 year term, way beyond our electoral mandate.” He added “If the cabinet were to vote tomorrow to extend the term of parliament we would be in uproar! Neither option is perfect, but we should not be attempting to extend our elected term.”

While others are upset that the options presented to the NME by Chairman Michael Rock were rather blunt, either scrap one member-one-vote or not have an election for another 18 months, Christian May the Deputy Chair was jolly as ever when he spoke to Tory Bear: "The pure focus of Conservative Future should not be on internal politics but getting a Conservative Government elected and to that end I am delighted that the exec have supported these reforms and that we can now focus our efforts entirely on getting match fit for whenever Gordon Brown has the bottle to go to the country."

You spin me round round baby round round. Apparently the NUS campaign ideas aren't as straight forward as intended either.

In simple English...

OK then... so it seems that the NME have voted to keep themselves in the job until 2010 potentially. While this may seem like an extreme step, it must be considered that the last NME ran for over 18 months and if there is an election in May, this regime would still serve for less time.

However there is a very real possibility that the next General Election will not be in 2009, but in May 2010, making the current NME have control for over 2 years. As far as Tory Bear can tell the executive voted on this course of action 5 to 1.

To be fair to the NME they weren't exactly presented with many options, it was either this or subscribe to a ridiculous electoral college system of branch chairman and their mates electing the national chair. The NME have saved CF democracy for the time being but TB understands that they were told the party wasn't going to fund another CF election before the General. In order to keep one-member-one-vote, the reforms would have to be kicked into the long grass. As far as TB can tell some members of the NME were not aware that the current statement put out by the CF press machine would be quite so extreme. It now seems to TB that the reforms have been snuck in through the back door.

While TB wouldn't question for a second the idea that CF should be ready for the General Election at any moment, Conservative Future has to be an organisation with everyone on board, and this sentiment is particularly vital with it's elected leaders. The current NME have had their fair share of problems, seen resignations, bitching and briefing against each other. Are we ready for anthor two years of this? Apparently these moves are in the best interest of the organisation, but will the membership really buy this stance?

To TB this doesn't look like a press release that has been drawn up over night but something that has been prepared and ready to go for some time...

Ummmm. So this is the press release:

Reforms to the national organisation:

Following the meeting held on Saturday 15th November the National Management Executive have voted to support the following actions:

1. To postpone any election for the national organisation until after the next General Election. It is vital CF is ready for the General Election and we cannot be distracted by an internal election.

2. To begin the transition from an NME to 12 Regional Chairmen:
Who will make up the new National Executive?

1) Election Timetable

With the local and European elections timetabled for 11th June 2009, the possible addition of a General Election to that date and the restructuring of the national structure of CF, it has been agreed that the this term will be extended to a minimum of August 2009; this was also agreed and minuted in the first meeting of this administration. The importance of next year to the Party, the pressure on resources and the need to focus on supporting the Party’s bid to form the next Government is at the forefront of this decision.

The NME is united on this issue and looks forward to delivering a stronger, more effective Conservative Future for all our members.

2) Transition from the NME to an Executive of Regional Chairmen:

Under the agreement passed by the NME at the meeting on 15th November several steps will take place in the coming months.

December 1st 2008:

12 Regional Chairmen (RCs) appointed under section 8 of theConservative Future constitution.

Their primary roles will be:

To co-ordinate branch development, regional campaigning, communication improvements and national campaigns within their given region.

To support CF branches within their regions. The NME will handover their ‘regional’ responsibilities to the newly appointed Regional Chairmen.

2 The new NME roles will be:

As a body:

To assist with the handover to the Regional Chairmen.

To provide support to the Regional Chairmen, Area Chairmen and Branch Chairmen

Hold the Regional Chairmen to account

All Area Chairmen to stay on and work with the Regional Chairmen until August 2009.

August 2009:

The NME will vote on the future roles of Area Chairmen following feedback from the membership. The NME will then be disbanded and the 12 Regional Chairmen will become the National Executive.

Following the General Election:

Elections will be held for all the national positions.

Conclusion:

The most important role Conservative Future needs to play is to support and help our Party back into power. With a possible General Election in the next year it is far more important for CF to prepare itself for the battle ahead.

In the coming weeks we will publish more specific information on the future roles for each level of the national organisation. If you have any comments or questions on this announcement then please contact one of the NME. Contact details for us, and a ‘post’ for comments, can be found on the Exec blog.

Something's going on...

The Conservative Future executive met yesterday and from what TB can understand so far, a lot was covered. Expecting a statement tomorrow.

Seems the reform issue has been settled, in a way. It also seems a decision on a course of action with the NUS has been established. TB reckons that the full and frank debate about CF and the NUS he has been calling for might just happen now.

Come back tomorrow for more information, it's been like trying to get blood out of stone tonight and seems all the NME members have been sworn to secrecy over what was discussed yesterday. Must be something big or fishy going on...

Come back tomorrow for more details...


Incidentally TB had his most hits ever today... not a particularly big news day and a Sunday. Very odd.

Caption Contest...

Answers below, standard rules apply...

Cheers to

Anorak News

for the pic.

CF and the NUS

Edward Keene - a seasoned CF hack and member of the Student Life committee has written a rather insightful piece on last week's NUS conference. Although TB tries to keep his posts slightly shorter, this is well worth a read. The National Union of Student should be in CF's sights and this is why...

NUS Extraordinary Conference November 2008 & 'Voluntary Student Unionism'

Quite unexpectedly, I found myself travelling to another NUS conference earlier this week, my fourth in less than two years. Now representing the College of Law of England and Wales, I attended mainly to see where the new constitution, arising from the earlier constitutional review, was now going after its defeat at National Conference last Easter.

For those unfamiliar with my previous writings on NUS matters or the constitutional review, the sum of it is this. Like most dysfunctional, pointless, irrelevant organisations, the NUS has become increasingly introverted recently, arguing more and more about petty personal politics (yes, I’m looking at you, access breaks…). As part of this, the main dividing line in the organisation (I use the term advisedly) is between those who want to keep the old constitution and those who want a new one. Rather pathetic really. The former group, the ‘radicals’, consist of the sort of people who only crawl out of the woodwork at NUS conferences – the most unpalatable, absurd, and ridiculously left-wing dogmatists in the country. Actually, many of them are not even of this country, but uber-lefties shipped in from Columbia, and other fashionable South American backpacker destinations. The bulk of the latter group are only marginally better, many being overtly careerist Labour Party hacks (vis NEC). A bare few of us would identify ourselves anywhere on the right side of political centrism.Extraordinary Conference this time round (less than 12 months since the last one) was convened in lovely Wolverhampton, one of the treasures of Staffordshire.

Fortunately, registration was much faster than in Leicester, but events did not start until two and a half hours after the hall opened. I spent the half hour I was waiting around reading up on the changes made to the proposals from last time. I was thoroughly disappointed to find substantial concessions – several pages of them in fact, from the retention of National Conference, to lesser professional oversight of finances. The new ‘new constitution’ is a watered down, half hearted, remake. A bit like a film sequel – except in this case, the original was never on general release! There is none of the edge and boldness found in the earlier, discarded version. The chance to do something a bit adventurous has gone, it seems. New NUS President Wes Streeting in fact openly stated “We’ve compromised”, but in doing so, he has *been* compromised. Aside from the massive concessions, I was also struck by the substantive increase in the managerialism of the register of language in conference documents. References to ‘stakeholders’, ‘priority objectives’, and so on was everywhere. This is the language of puff, not of reality. It emphasises the organisational pointlessness of the NUS. A third observation is the rather less refined political stage management of the new administration. I have commented in previous notes on the level of perfection to which President Tumelty brought this fine art at conference time. Her successor, it seems, needs practise. The parade of nodding heads on the NEC platform was more embarrassing than it was supportive. Also to note, Dave Lewis’ (National Treasurer) sense of style has gone out of the window, inveterate radical and ‘Res-pec’ faction leader, Rob Owen is getting plumper, and all the other conference delegates are getting younger. Very depressing!

I was too put off by the sweeping compromises made to the radicals and the unusually slow pace of debate (up to amendment 3 of 15 by 2:30pm) to stay to the bitter end, so left before the traffic around the West Midlands metropolis of Greater Birmingham got bad. I am informed by a comrade-in-arms from UEA that the motion passed, as expected. But it really was a Pyrrhic Victory. The will to make a real break with the past and start anew with NUS has gone, felled by that crucial 1% margin at National Conference last year. In all honesty, I have ceased to really care. I probably did get a little swept up with the heady momentum of promised, long awaited change last year, but I am now resolutely returned to my prior opinion that NUS is an utterly defunct, nasty, and unhealthy organism long past its sell-by date and ripe for everything short of execution and burial.

A vision of this very process was helpfully provided by Angus MacFarland, the President of NUS Australia who provided ‘fraternal greetings’. He looked like a reasonable person, but after a few sentences of his address at the start of conference, it became apparent he was merely another left-wing basket case. In some ways it is heartening to know some things never change – like NUS spending students’ money on flying other loony-lefties around the world and giving them free tours of the so-called ‘student movement’ in the UK (N.B. *THERE ISN’T ONE*). MacFarland spoke initially of the “outrage” that Australian students had been made to pay a little of their own tuition fees at university. Lord forbid that Australian students should pay for goods and services like everyone else! In MacFarland’s words “You had Margaret Thatcher, the US had Ronald Reagan, we had John Howard…[who led] a rampantly conservative and neo-liberal government.” He described these three like a triad of pure evil, nefariously pulling the strings of the ‘global system’ (which Marxists so love to theorise over) to the ruin and destruction of all civilisation. I personally take great pleasure from the knowledge that in a hundred years time Thatcher and Reagan will be remembered as two cold war warriors who defended the freedom of the west, threw out the rot of socialism at home, and defeated abroad the communist machine which had taken over 100 million human lives in the twentieth century. Soppy neo-leftists like Blair and Australian PM Kevin Rudd meanwhile will have as their only legacies meddling items of constitutional change and bloated, inefficient bureaucracies.

Most intriguingly, MacFarland spoke passionately about issue of ‘voluntary student unionism’. Legislation of this description was passed in Australia in the twilight years of the last Liberal Party government, changing Student Unions from ‘opt-out’ organisations which students much actively seek to leave if they so wish, to ‘opt-in’ ones which students must actively seek to join. This brought Australian student unionism into the 21st century, and in line with other forms of unionism, primarily in trade. Comparable legislation is desperately needed in the UK, where the vast majority of students are unwittingly members and tacit supporters of political bodies which often hold positions very much at odds with the majority. This, more than any constitutional change in the NUS itself, would herald a new era in student life.

MacFarland criticised the policy principally on the basis that it contravened the ‘collegiate’ atmosphere of university – that it negated the ‘collectivism’ and shared spirit of university life. This is a clear fallacy. Student unionism is perhaps the main barrier to collegiality, which flows not from divisive, politicised, disconnected, and amorphous student unions, but from relational bonds of scholarship, academic endeavour, and learning between all members of a college, whether student or lecturer, professor, or chancellor. Student unions are incarnations of opposition to, and headstrong rebellion against, natural order and constitute a distracting alternative focus of loyalty and belonging in university communities. I have long held this to be the case and was very pleased to hear from the incensed MacFarland that a third of Oz SUs went under in the first year of this legislation.

I have thought a little on how this legislation would be introduced in the UK and this seems a fitting place to expand on the matter. Clearly, we can learn from what seems to have been a bit of a bungled process in Australia. Firstly, universities could easily take over the administration and funding of student activities (clubs, societies, and so on), retaining, with the assent of both parties, most of the existing staff who currently work for SUs. In competitive arenas, students would play in teams and individually wholly for the honour of their university once again, not for the dubious prestige of their student union. Moreover, participation in college activities would be more freely available to other members of the community, further fostering the ideal of true collegiality. Second, colleges and universities could easily fulfil more commercial functions on campus, with bars and shops – perhaps retaining student boards or forums to oversee and advise on management issues. Third, for the sake of tradition and continuity, a directly elected student president could be retained by institutions, with a set index-linked pay from the university, whilst systems of course and faculty representation could seamlessly be taken entirely in-house. The abolition of de facto opt-out student unions would be complete. Students would be free, like all free people, to join unions should they so choose. Such optional unions would be the continuing members of the NUS, but would be much reduced in scale and purpose from their present overblown proportions, especially at the larger universities and would at last be truly representational, containing as members only those who have made a conscious decision to be party to them. Consequently, NUS’ income would be all but discontinued, forcing it to become a very different animal. It is possible that it would also gain competitors in a truly free market for effective national student representation.

Despite my…er…constructive criticism, I would still recommend NUS conference to those who want, for whatever reason, to observe rampant leftism at its very best. Truly, it is good for little else than as such a menagerie.

Can we launch a coup please?

Naming and shaming...

Shane Greer

, of TV fame, has an interesting post tonight about a Tory PPC who refuses to publicise his cracking down on criminals, for fear of... upsetting criminals:

"Imagine if you were a PPC in a tough seat (Labour majority of just under 14,000) and local residents came to you to ask you to help them shut down a pub in the area which was frequented by criminal elements and used as a forum from which to sell drugs. You’d say absolutely, wouldn’t you?

Well that’s exactly what a London PPC did when local residents in the constituency approached him about a notorious bar/drug den, to ask if he would represent them in the bar’s upcoming licence review. And, thanks to the overwhelming evidence against the bar, it was shut down.

Quite the victory for the local PPC and certainly something you’d expect him to shout about, right? Surprisingly though, no leaflet to voters announcing the victory was sent. Why? Oh, because the local association demanded that nothing be sent out in case… wait for it… it upset the criminals! No really.

Nothing like a candidate who sticks by his convictions."

Well unfortunately for the Croydon North Association and PPC

Jason Hadden

Tory Bear thinks you should be named and shamed for this ridiculous stance.

Honey Honey...

TB rarely likes to admit that he is wrong but sometimes you just have to be the bigger bear. Last night started out as a typical Friday night - but as the local kicked out TB and the crowd were wondering what to do. Having fought going to see Mamma Mia at the cinema, the DVD that

Mummy Bear hid at the bottom of his suitcase suddenly seemed like the best idea ever...

So with chocolates and a fair amount of vodka, seven of us huddled around the TV getting about two and half minutes into the film before spontaneously bursting into song for the next hour. What a great film. TB takes back anything he said and sorry

Mr Dale, TB now agrees

.

Then tragedy struck, the dodgy Russian DVD conked out half an hour before the end so TB and his equally cynical

flatmate

are still desperate to know what happens...

Fantastic film though and TB hasn't really been watching clips on YouTube today. Honest.