Nottingham Uni is Sound(ish)

Out of all of the country's universities Nottingham is probably the most Tory, or rather the least blindly left-wing. The walls of Nottingham SU are a far cry from those of Manchester which has socialist and communist propaganda cover the building like wall paper. In comparison to Manchester #ThingsElliottSays has been sent by one of his sources two pictures that show how socialist propaganda and graffiti is 'respected' at UoN.

Rightly the Leftie who wrote this is described as an 'idiot' in the top left.

Seems like the revolution is going well when the comment rated 9/10 believes abolishing the Private Sector is a 's#*t' idea .

It seems that the students at Nottingham University are not keen on this sort of Leftie claptrap. This has been show in the past when they refused to allow striking miners to do collections on campus in the 1980s and last year rejected a motion to force all students on campus to have one view on abortion.

The only question left to answer is this. Was it Duncan or Archie who wrote this graffiti?

One Year Gone, Two More Years Left

Well that is one year gone at Nottingham University. I had a really great time with the NUCA chaps and the other political ventures. So let's sum up the major things of what went on.

My Room in Derby Hall is now empty, to be filled by another student next year.

The biggest thing that happened was of course the Port and Policies. I love the great and fun debate we have when and the highlight for me of this must be the 'Socialist Oppressors' and working class tone that I have taken to confuse the Left and defend the nation.

Me mid debate with very long sideburns.

The Dinners too have been great with NUCA. At Christmas we had a great feast where I was out eating and drinking for over 12 hours, a real great day. But more recently we have the end of year dinner with John Hayes which appeared on to Guido Fawkes.

Alex, Badger and  I caught after the Main Course at our excellent Christmas Dinner. 

But NUCA also took us out and about. We went to Brussels to eat lots of mussels and drinks lots of beer. Recently we turned up in London to meet Adam Afriyie, Mark Reckless and others. These were most enjoyable and the organisers in the committee deserve much thanks.

NUCA chaps with the great Emma McClarkin MEP.

There was also the CF events with the East Midlands Conference to meeting Jeremy Hunt earlier this Semester. The same time was crucial with the CF elections, I think the new exec has done a really good job so far and that they should carry on. Colonel Cooper seems to be taking CF on a very good path and hopefully he can help win a majority for 2015.

A wide mix of the CF people I have got to know or know better over this year. 

YBF, the great campaigning school, was also great fun. Having been to the December conference I had to go to their rally early in 2013. I really enjoyed all the speakers they mustered. Some like Douglas Carswell and Robert Halfon are people I think are some of the 'SAS' (to quote the great Halfon) of Westminster Politics. Thanks goes to Donal Blaney and the Team.

At the YBF Rally. Can you see me and Rob at the back?

I've been out helping the cause too campaigning in Wisbech for the County Elections, in Eastleigh with Maria Hutchings, and in Broxtowe with Anna Soubry MP. Here I got to meet some of the great Trent lot and other famous Nottingham Conservatives. This included James Spencer who I helped in his campaign to be a councillor in Wollaton West which he sadly lost. Some good news from this though is that now I am on the 2015 campaign team for Rowena Holland. People of Nottingham South vote for Rowena.

Photo Opportunity for Maria Hutchings with me Nadim, Tom and James.

Campaigning also occurred on Campus. I joined the Big Picture radio show so I can broadcast the Conservative ideology to the world and make sure even more people vote for us in 2015. I really enjoyed working with everyone on the team I wish best of luck for Jonnie, Louis and Joe and can't wait for the next year. 

Kind listener to the Big Picture texted this in once. However, I doubt I would make a very good PM although thanks for the confidence. 

I also campaigned for freedom of speech and keeping the SU on track against the Pro Choice motion that did not succeeded at the ballot box. Although the Women's Network are still struggling to get this motion passed I think the voice of the people condemned their plans of internal politics, time will tell though.

With a Lapsed Pro Choice policy, Nottingham Uni is that little bit freer from restrictions on freedom of speech.

Sadly though there was a great loss. Baroness Thatcher died in April and I was there to pay my respects to her. I never met Baroness Thatcher, despite this though she has great influence upon me politically. I was pleased that so many people turned up and that after the procession so many people spoke in celebration of her life at an event run by the Bow Group and Freedom Association.

A nice photo of me with a huge photo of Baroness Thatcher.

And of course this has been big too. #ThingsElliottSays is going from strength to strength. I really enjoy writing this, I can be very open about what I feel on where we are going and what we should do next as a party and a nation. But I have got some small success too. We are almost at 20,000 hits for this blog and now I am writing for the TAB.

But the number one political event during my University life was the people. I believe a lot in people, they keep the country together for one thing. But I have made some genuine friends and built upon others (sorry if this is too cliché but it is genuinely true). I have met so many people through conference, NUCA, campaigning and even this Blog. All I can say is bring on two more years of micro political goings on. 

Friends for a long time to come.

Pro Choice Policy Lapses at Nottingham University

I've got a fair few articles to cover so we'll be starting from Monday and ending up on what happened yesterday.

On Monday I was at the Student Union Council meeting. There was no necessity for me to be there but I wished to have my say on the proposed pro choice motion that the Women's Network had put forward.

As you know from several articles before (see http://thingselliottsays.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/the-madness-of-su.html and http://thingselliottsays.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/hollow-victory.html) I have been helping to combat this policy because it is not the responsibility of the SU. It is absolutely pointless as it does nothing new; it is only a breach of freedom of speech. However, not satisfied with a failed referendum where only 2% of students backed a policy on pro choice, the Women's Network decided to completely override democracy and take this back to the SU Council for them to pass it.

I am glad to say that the pro choice policy of this University has now lapsed because there was not enough voting members of the SU there to make the meeting quorate. 14 voting members turned up to this whole SU Council meeting, 45 are needed to make it quorate. There are around 100 voting members who were supposed to be there. The policy thus couldn't be discussed as any votes would not be legitimate, although I had a very nice home baked cake there (my thanks goes to the officer who made those nice cakes).

Not many people turned up to the SU Council meeting, despite voluntarily being elected to the role. 

On the issue of quoracy I personally think it is quite bad that an SU Council meeting cannot go ahead because no one turns up. According to Luke Mitchell and the chairman of the meeting, on average over the last 10 years only 1 meeting has been quorate each year. It sort of shows the state of our SU when people who willingly elect themselves to the roles in it, can't be bothered to work for it. No wonder small interest groups like the Women's Network can wield such a large amount of power over the student's lives because they are the only people who can be bothered to turn up for meetings.

I hope our SU can be better though. This year a record breaking 4 meetings were quorate, getting better. We had the biggest turnout ever for the Student Union elections. The direct democracy in 'have your say' questions have gone down very well with about three times more people voting for them than they did for the aforementioned referendum. Also the constant defeats the Women's Network are facing over the pro choice policy shows that people in the SU are wanting to concentrate more on the students than internal politics. If only 14 people at most came to this SU meeting to vote for the pro choice policy then it shows that even those most of the detached from students think that this is a poor idea.

However I don't think this is quite over yet. This University has no policy on pro choice but the motion was not debated or voted upon. This sort of leaves the Women's Network to madly again ask for it to be passed at another SU meeting in October. Uncontent with the damning indictment of democracy upon their policy and also of their Student Union colleagues, they will probably try again till absolutely every avenue is closed to them. I urge them not to do it.

On Da TAB

Have you seen the TAB today. Well I wrote a piece about the aftermath of that pointless referendum as a sort of follow up from my recent blog post (see http://thingselliottsays.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/hollow-victory.html).

Here is the link to the TAB article itself. Enjoy. http://nottingham.tab.co.uk/2013/05/11/womens-network-refuse-to-accept-abortion-defeat/

Hollow Victory

Well the referendum on pro choice didn't get enough votes in total to pass. I'm not surprised. There were 510 No votes 809 Yes and 102 Abstains. In total 1421 people voted, 3400 people were needed to make the referendum binding pass. This really proves my point that most people thought that this motion was pointless as there was a large number of abstentions and most people thought it was pointless to vote.

Results of the Referendum in graph format

Now we should just leave this motion, clearly nobody wants it. Those who voted for it were mostly the Women's Network and those who voted against were mostly Cathsoc and other religious groups. Despite attempts to broaden it out to people, there was no interest. Just because yes got a few votes more than no doesn't mean there is a mandate, only 2% of students want it.

However it looks like the Women's Network are going to take it back to council. They're not very happy with democracy and want to force it upon us all again. When will this drama end.

This referendum was never really about abortion. If it were the Women's Network would be lobbying the law makers not an educational body. It is just internal politics. Some people in the Women's Network need to be seen to be launching a crusade for what they see is right and make sure it is thrust upon everyone. Well I'm not interested in internal SU politics and the elitist democracy. Just over 3% of people voted in this referendum. That is less than the percentage of the nobility in Tsarist Russia in the total population.

SU motions just seem to be brought forward by the SU population for members who have close links to the SU to vote upon. The SU is judge, jury, attorney general and all the court officials deciding on a particular case.  

Nobody was really infused by this referendum, including me. But one day something even more controversial will be put to a referendum and will result in a resounding vote against the vested interests in the SU. Then they'll realise how stupid they are and won't try internal politics ever again. Students get on with their lives at Nottingham whilst an SU nobody cares about tries to be controlling. Not good.

So if you're reading and you're from the SU don't allow this stupid thing to continue any longer the more it does the more students will hate you. You've already really upset, to the case of tears, certain members of the student body, don't disenfranchise anybody else. 

Poster seemingly representing student's views of their SU

VOTE NO

The Nottingham SU, in all their wisdom, have decided to have a referendum on whether they should adopt a Pro Choice policy. Vote NO here http://www.su.nottingham.ac.uk/news/article/6001/Elections-and-Referendum/ . Here's why I am voting NO.

The SU will either adopt a pro choice policy or no policy at all. If you vote No you're not voting against abortion just voting for the SU to have no stance on it.

Join our Facebook group and event https://www.facebook.com/events/461937387217217/ and https://www.facebook.com/groups/142010792652451/

To see other posts on the referendum see http://thingselliottsays.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/the-madness-of-su.html and http://nottingham.tab.co.uk/2013/02/19/pointless-su-abortion-referendum/.

Voting takes place here: http://www.su.nottingham.ac.uk/news/article/6001/Elections-and-Referendum/

#thebigpicture

I am online, and I am hosting the Big Picture on URN. Please listen in this is going to be a good one. We are discussing the very controversial abortion referendum called by the SU. Also we shall talk about HS2 and adult social care provisions announced by the Government.

I am putting this up a few minutes before we start, at 6pm. Please listen in.

You can send it texts to our show on the URN homepage and are able to listen to us on there too. Here is the link http://urn1350.net/. For the first time we are also going to be on twitter, so you can tweet in @URN1350 #thingselliottsays (n.b. the double T).

Please listen.

SU Elections - who to vote for?

I'd like to talk about the SU elections. I'm not backing anyone on my blog. Except for this chap, Vote for Joe Sheedy for Equalities and Welfare.

See for  http://www.facebook.com/pages/Joe-Sheedy-for-Welfare-Helping-You-Find-Your-Voice/163439090476224?fref=tsdetails

But I am going to say what I think anyone elected to the SU can do. Firstly The SU representatives have to concentrate on value for money. The SU does offer some really key services for students like Nightline, but any new service the SU wants to offer or old ones should be efficient. My advice to any SU officer is to look at what services are provided in detail and see whether there are any areas savings can be made. This isn't cutting, if anything a properly efficient service would mean that the SU does more for Students and can do more with the saved money, which is obviously right.

I'd also say to any SU officers not to get political. I am very interested in politics, but my representatives sit in the House of Commons and in Nottingham City Council. We don't need SU officers wasting time on meaningless political policies. I would ask for those already in place to be repealed because some of these are very stupid and do effect students in minor ways. For example why can't we have Coca Cola on Campus? Apparently it's because they are a evil business due to extreme corporatism so instead now we have Pepsi, an equally big company.

So there we are vote for a value for money and a non-political SU.

Weekly Poll Lowdown

Well I’ve been away with proper politics recently in Eastleigh, but before I talk about that lets do the weekly poll lowdown.

We have replicated the question that the Nottingham SU will be using in less than a month’s time to decide whether the SU should adopt a pro-choice policy on abortion. Turnout was poor, very accurate to previous referenda, with only 14 votes (let’s try get it higher for next time). Anyway these are the results.

Yes	2 (14%)
No	11 (78%)
Unsure	1 (7%)

Quite a clear majority want the SU not to have an abortion policy which is what I believe (see http://thingselliottsays.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/gone-but-not-for-long.html and http://thingselliottsays.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/the-madness-of-su.html). Because of the nature of the policy proposed by the SU, which allows the Women’s Network to counter demonstrate against anyone who is pro-life, this is a debate on freedom of speech not abortion (although the SU will say it isn't so). Freedom of speech is a matter of conscious and so you can’t be wrong; however I do find it very strange for someone not to agree with freedom of speech.

Please vote in the next poll.

Gone, but not for long

You may have noticed I have been away for a few days. This is because the real world has finally caught up with me so I have been oppressed by the tyranny of John Stuart Mill's Majority in an essay.

Meanwhile The TAB has posted an article I wrote about the Nottingham Abortion Referendum: http://nottingham.tab.co.uk/2013/02/19/pointless-su-abortion-referendum/

The Madness of the SU

Today you may have got this message from the Nottingham University Students Union:

Dear members
A referendum has called regarding whether the Union should adopt a ‘Support the Right to Choose’ policy. A full copy of the policy that is the subject of the referendum can be found here:
http://www.su.nottingham.ac.uk/pageassets/makethechange/elections/The-Right-to-Choose-Policy.pdf
Objections
Objections to this referendum shall be submitted to suelections@nottingham.ac.uk by 6pm on Tuesday 12^th February or be brought to the next meeting of Elections Committee. Elections Committee will next meet at 6pm onTuesday 12^th February in Committee Room 1, Portland Building, University Park.
Location and Timings of Poll
The poll will open at 12noon on Monday 18^th March and close at 3pm on Friday 22^nd March.
Voting shall take place on the University of Nottingham Students’ Union’s Website at the following address: http://www.su.nottingham.ac.uk/

WHAT!!!!!! The Students Union wants us to have a referendum on whether it should support a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion. Why?

Why on Earth does it want to do this? Has the SU suddenly decided that instead of pretending to look after the welfare of students it wants to open up an abortion clinic? Is the SU president and his staff wanting to perform abortions in the Portland Building? Unlikely. So why waste our money on such nonsense.

Is the SU deluded? Do they think themselves a mini-legislature ruling over University Campus where they dictate the rules? Or do they think that Nottingham University SU, a few over paid, unrepresentative and politically motivated students, are so influential that Mr Cameron (who by the way isn’t going to change the Abortion laws) is going to say ‘my God we must not change the Abortion laws a few nobodies in Nottingham say it is wrong’.  

Also why do they wish the whole of the University to be ascribed with a massive tag of we are pro abortion and pro women’s choice? Why bother? The campus has many religions the SU isn't asking the student population to vote on whether the SU is Church of England Christianity. Indeed the SU quite frequently says how this is a multi faith campus so why on abortion do they wish to make Nottingham University speak with one voice on an issue people really care about? Surely this is against people’s freedom of expression. Whatever the result of the referendum we will either support women’s right to abort or not which either way is an attack on the other people’s beliefs.

Sadly the SU are fools. They waste a fair portion of the £9,000 I pay to come here on discussing politically motivated motions like whether we should bring back the death penalty (an idea voted upon in the past) instead of making students lives better. This abortion referendum is more of this same lunacy.

Quite frankly there is only one word to say to the SU. Resign! We are hard working students and we will not pay your near £20,000 a year salary in order for you to be feckless towards your real job. We do not want you to debate your own political beliefs and how they can be applied to the university and waste our money on referendums on issues that students do not want you involved with. You live in Cloud Cuckoo land, you’re not the government, I want my money back!

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