Candidates Question Time, Commentary
Last Updated on Friday, 26 February 2010 12:36 Written by Ross Garner Wednesday, 24 February 2010 16:05
AFTER a monumental technological disaster, yesterday’s planned live commentary on the Student Union’s Electoral Debate failed. That said here’s a rundown of what happened….
First off, attendance was fairly low, with a few folk coming and going but never reaching much higher than the mid-50s, including the candidates. Since the majority of people in the room already knew who they were going to vote for, it wasn’t going to be a night that decided the elections. This said, the candidates did take it seriously and the majority were passionate about what they had planned.
This year’s Vice President Student Development, Gill Currah, kicked off the night with an occasionally shaky but convincing speech about continuing momentum in the new role of Vice President Activities and Development. This new role is an obvious follow-up for her as it takes on much of the same responsibilities as this year.
Iain Pullar then stood up to run for Vice President Services. Again this was running for much the same position as he had this year in his capacity as Vice President Commercial and Operational Services. In essence his role would be to organise nights at the Union, as well as to take control of the media groups, including the Telegraph, and support services ASK and Nightline. Like Gill there was a focus on “keeping the ball rolling”, and an emphasis on the strength of a candidate with a two-year term.
When quizzed on how he would increase readership of the Telegraph he responded that he would host events and have the Telegraph handed out to students, though when quizzed over how he would get up to speed on the support services he gave a rather flakey response about getting trained.
He also proposed to tell students that the Union is not just a bar by telling them once they were in the building, presumably to drink…
With both Vice President Activities and Development and Vice President Services uncontested it’s likely that both candidates will win, though by all respects both have the experience to do an excellent job.
The first contested election of the night was for Vice President Equality and Diversity. This role would basically involve supporting and publicising groups at Strathclyde which represent Diversity, like faith groups, Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender group, Women’s Group, et al. Charandeep Singh went first, focussing initially on how his Sikh identity had made him stand out from the crowd at school, but how he felt welcomed by the diversity of the Strathclyde student body. He wanted to expand this year’s newly created DiverseCity magazine into a DiverseCity week, and how he wanted to “push beyond comfort zone to work with liberation groups and make Uni inclusive for all”, so that “students don’t just tolerate each other, but accept each other”.
Nikky Ward then stepped up to give a passionate, Obama-like, speech on the beauty of diversity at Strathclyde, and how she wanted to bond the different liberation projects together to create a bigger force for celebrating diversity.
Questions asked on the candidate’s positions to the BNP were answered predictably furious, though probably necessarily so, and when a question was posed on the candidate’s thoughts that MI5 were spying on Muslim students a general ripple of laughter spread through the crowd. This then drew a shout-out “Why are you laughing? It’s f***ing happening”, and the candidates responded with appropriate outrage.
It’s hard to pick this one, Charandeep seemed to have done a lot of footwork and had met with all the liberation groups, though Nikky had the enthusiasm that could swing the vote in her direction. She wanted to keep the pressure on to prevent the BNP speaking on campus, and insisted that the Women’s group were women loving, as opposed to men hating.
When it came to Vice President Physical Activities and Wellbeing, Robbie Carter spoke in opposition to Yousuf Kerr. Though Robbie’s marketing dissertation focussed on the branding of the Sports Union and he vowed to improve relations with the Centre for Sport and Recreation, he lacked the charisma of Yousuf. Both stressed that they had made friends through the clubs they joined, but Yousuf was keen to stress the mental benefits of sports, mentioning it three times and using the phrase “get a good sweat on” in a serious context.
Kudos also goes to Robbie’s bizarre point that clubs like the mountaineering and tennis clubs could work well together. Why? Because if one has an amazing website, and one has amazing nights out, they could really help each other. Sounds like a recipe for jocks and nerds to battle it out.
By now it was obvious that although some of the questions were inane, even the intelligent ones would draw the same answers, and that the candidates would respond the same way to anything.
The position of Vice President Education and Representation had the largest number of candidates. Graeme Allan, this year’s convenor of the International Students’ Group, was keen to turn Strathclyde into a welcoming “family” and bring the Union to the students. His speech was mercifully short after a good few hours of speeches.
Sarah Collins of the Anti-Cuts Action Network had no surprises in her speech. It was the usual stuff about linking student and workers unions to oppose cuts, put power in the hands of the students, etc etc. That said, she was probably the most confident and eloquent speaker of the three.
Hannah Nicholson then enthused that it was essential to keep students as informed as possible about the coming merger of Law Arts and Social Sciences with Education.
Questions largely regarded the role of Class Representatives, a position largely avoided by most students at Strathclyde, how to get students excited about democracy, feedback, funding and the role of the National Student Survey.
Sarah Collins managed to criticise the Principal’s wage, well over £200,000, with every answer, but also stressed that the National Student Survey divided Universities when they should be working together. Graeme Allan was keen on talking to every student, seemingly individually, and wanted to blacklist departments that didn’t return feedback promptly. Hannah Nicholson would lobby for more scholarships and better feedback. All the candidates opposed cuts to Strathclyde.
Finally the main event, the Presidential Candidates’ debate. Bryan Simpson, who has run for positions for a few years now, was up against Phil Whyte, who was re-running for the position he held this year.
The two could not be more different. Bryan had a series of repetitive slogans that opposed staff and funding cuts with little depth, while Phil is more of a humdrum, working-behind-the-scenes kind of leader.
Additionally, Phil rushed in late with a pint in his hand, while at the back of the room Bryan Simpson Bingo was being played, whereby words he always uses in his speeches, like “war”, “campaign”, “occupation” and “cuts”, were placed on a grid and ticked off as he said them.
Bryan’s pledges, apart from opposing cuts, were to lessen the financial burden on students by reducing costs in the bookshop, keeping library fees down and opposing the allegedly high cost of student halls. He insisted that “A vote for me is a vote for a movement to Reclaim Our Education”.
Phil on the other hand wanted to build on the success of this year, pointing out that it takes about four months to find your feet in a sabbatical job, which he already had under his belt. In a not-so-subtle poke at Bryan he then said, “We’re not just going for slogans, we’re going for solutions”.
Phil also pointed to recent efforts to oppose the closures of the BA Community Arts course and BA Applied Music, by printing T-shirts, getting a motion heard in the Scottish Parliament and holding regular meetings with the students involved.
Phil also pledged to represent the student body’s wishes, while Bryan said that if elected by students, he would take that as support for his anti-war, anti-Islamophobia politics and would behave accordingly.
During the questions Bryan had to bail Phil out when he forgot one of the questions, but he also gave the greatest statement of the night, when he opened with “I don’t like talking about leadership, but about representation, so I’d like to be seen as a student leader who…”
Normally Phil’s experience would stand in his favour, but this year he has pledged to focus on working as opposed to making lecture hits, so Bryan is far more present on campus and the election could swing his way.
Voting takes place on March 1st and 2nd, with the results out on the night of the 2nd. For a full rundown, visit strathclydetelegraph.com.
