NUS Conference

Been promising to write this up for days but have had literally no time. Since I'm babysitting a collection of printers at the moment I guess no is as good a time as any!

Well last week was that special time of the year when all the student political hacks gather in Blackpool to shout, heckle and refuse to listen to anyone's viewpoint but their own - yes it was NUS Conference.

This was my first year as an observer rather than as a delegate. I found myself seriously regretting not having taken the opportunity to get up and speak in the past as I was sat on the balcony frustrated as all hell that I couldn't voice my viewpoint. Then again since most of the real debate was held up with pointless procedural motions I suppose I would have been just as frustrated on the floor. But anyway I digress.

I arrived bright and early on Tuesday morning. Well bright may not be quite the word. Having got up at 4am to get the early flight from Stanstead I was a little bleary by 8am when I got to CCHQ Blackpool. Mr Large had set up a marvellous hive of activity from where we could base our activities for the week. From there Mr Large, Mr Wallbank and I trooped over to the Winter Gardens across the road with all the marvellous CF stuff for our stall. After our rather bland set up last year this year we were positively drowning in stickers and t-shirts and balloons and best of all, professional looking manifestoes. It seemed that my creative side that had lain dormant for so long suddenly burst into flame as I blitzed the stall. Soon it was looking rather lovely. I would post a picture but since I took it on an antique camera that uses the rather archaic device of "film" I will have to get it developed first.

The day was spent plugging our Boris fringe event for Tuesday and getting Mr Graham's name out there by harassing as many people as possible. Mr Jayawardena and his lovely girlfriend Alison (who is causing me to ruin the format of this blog since I don't know her surname!) came along to relieve the stall at lunchtime so the rest of us were able to eat and finally get on the balcony. Ah what a sight to be beheld is the sea of loony lefties and a few rational people all waving their cards in the air. The balcony was actually an interesting experience. The leaders of the various factions sit there pointing yay or nay to each vote so that their little herd below can see what they should be doing. CF does not do this. We hope our delegate know their own minds well enough to make the right decision.

Around 6pm Mr Large started to get a little nervous re: informal hustings at 11pm. I went to sleep. Well I was shattered and would have been no use to him in that state! I returned at 9pm refreshed and ready for action. We decided that there was no point Mr Large repeating half his speech so it was decided to keep his speaking particularly informal and restrict it to the reasons CF are a force of good in the student movement. He did fantastically, and even managed to get a few good laughs!

The next morning we all jumped out of bed, or more accurately Mr Large dragged us kicking and screaming, to the official Presidential candidate’s speeches and vote. Mr Large spoke marvellously and made some serious flutters in the room. He denounced Mr Randall for having previously made libellous claims that Mr Large was a racist and made the unique move of asking people to put their first preference next to Ms Tumelty. It was a fair and sensible acknowledgement that we were not going to win and that we wanted to work towards and effective and grown up NUS that realise advocating militant action is not the best way to be taken seriously. I was very proud. I was equally excited to find out I had to go and act as Mr Large's scrutineer at the count. It was the first STV count I've ever had to watch. The LDYS scrutineer and myself had a little side competition going on about who would come last. I'm pleased to say they did! Although I feel one of the people who put Mr Large first was a tad confused, he put Mr Randall as his second preference. Methinks someone told him to vote for Dan and he couldn't remember which one!
At the end of a very close race Ms Tumelty just beat Mr Akhtar to it. Ms Davies actually came a very close third. I should also mention Mr Baxter as well. An unkown candidate who spoke a lot of sense in his speeches and consequently did very well in terms of votes.

Well after that it was onto hardcore selling of the Boris fringe event. People were bribed with promises of I Love Boris badges on arrival but it seemed there was a lot of enthusiasm for the event. I was harangued by one socialist worker for not going to the stop the war meeting instead; I suggested that maybe at an NUS conference time might be better spend speaking to the shadow spokesman for higher education. The chap did seem rather unconvinced by this argument however.

Eventually the moment of wonder arrived and I met Boris Johnson from his taxi outside the Winter Gardens and escorted him through while briefing him quickly on what to prepare for. He seemed willing and prepared to face anything thrown at him, literally and metaphorically. After leaving him in the already filling fringe room I went outside to use my formidable shouting voice to compete with the stop the war megaphone. While standing outside the door repeatedly shouting "Boris Johnson, in the arena, NOW!" I suddenly found myself in a tunnel of Labour Students that had formed on either side of me. At the head was the "chair" of Labour students, Gareth Smith, leading the twenty of them to chant and point at me "Shame, shame, shame on you, shame on you for being blue". So much for NUS being a safe space where intolerance of religion, sexual persuasion and political allegiance is not tolerated.

Boris spoke wonderfully as always. He gave us all a good lecture on how Jude the Obscure is the greatest work on access to higher education ever written. It was a little disappointing however that only one person in the room had actually read the book!

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Started that a week ago and this is first chance I've had to finish it.

Right so Boris was top. Things went great. Next morning was the Block of 12 elections. Poor Mr Graham missed out on the Block by 1.58 of a vote. Incredibly frustrating after all the work so many people put in to getting him elected.

After that more debating in the conference hall. In the last heated debate of the conference (boycotting Coca Cola) the behaviour of two people on the balcony led to all Balcony passes being revoked so I did not see the end of conference. Shame really but nevermind. So that's all the NUS for this year - looking forward to next years already!