cg09aspecialjuly2006

Social Colour Supplement July 2006 TheCheeseGraterTheCheeseGraterTheCheeseGraterTheCheeseGraterTheCheeseGrater 1

TheCheeseGraterThe Other Student Magazine of University College London Union

No. 9 SupplementJuly 2006

This little sabby broke theConstitution (and thinks shedidn’t)

This little sabby supports theProvost instead of students

And this little sabby cried ‘No-one nominated me for HLM!’before nominating himself

Welcome to The Cheese Grater’s

SOCIALCOLOUR

SUPPLEMENT

2 TheCheeseGraterTheCheeseGraterTheCheeseGraterTheCheeseGraterTheCheeseGrater Social Colour Supplement July 2006

UCL Union Cheese Grater Magazine SocietyUCL Union Cheese Grater Magazine SocietyUCL Union Cheese Grater Magazine SocietyUCL Union Cheese Grater Magazine SocietyUCL Union Cheese Grater Magazine Societywww.cheesegratermagazine.uclu.org

Student Publication Of The YStudent Publication Of The YStudent Publication Of The YStudent Publication Of The YStudent Publication Of The Year - UCL Union Arts Awarear - UCL Union Arts Awarear - UCL Union Arts Awarear - UCL Union Arts Awarear - UCL Union Arts Awards 2006ds 2006ds 2006ds 2006ds 2006PrPrPrPrPresident and Editor:esident and Editor:esident and Editor:esident and Editor:esident and Editor: René Lavanchy TTTTTrrrrreasureasureasureasureasurer: er: er: er: er: Hugh ColyerE-mail : E-mail : E-mail : E-mail : E-mail : [email protected] Humour Desk: Humour Desk: Humour Desk: Humour Desk: Humour Desk: [email protected]

UCL Union Cheese Grater Magazine Society, UCL Union, 25 Gordon Street, London WC1H 0AYThe views expressed herein are not necessarily those of UCL Union or the editor.

WHY DO PEOPLE wantHonorary Life Membership somuch? Perhaps it makes up fordeficiencies in other areas; famedgenius and master of diplomacySteven Healer nearly explodedwhen deprived of the legitimateright to one – which he never gotback. The rules for HLM statequite clearly that ‘examples ofhigh levels of dedication to thestudent community of UCL overat least three years must beshown’. This is usually observed– except when it comes to sab-batical officers.

No-one has yet managed togive a satisfactory explanation, oranything approaching a satisfac-tory explanation, as to why sabbsget HLM with deathly inevita-bility, regardless of whether theyhave even been a UCL studentfor three years or not (Alex Colesand Nigel Harris being exam-ples). The fact that a sabb runsthe Social Colours processdoesn’t help. And those whohave been around for longenough haven’t all served theUnion for three years. Even BenWilliamson had a bit of a strug-

gle pretending that Alan Gardn-er fitted this description when itcame up for discussion.

None of this would matterif the contribution of sabbs wastruly extraordinary. But it gener-ally isn’t. HLM guidelines alsostate that “only individuals whocan demonstrate commitmentover and above any specified jobdescription will be considered.”Not only do sabbs often havetrouble even meeting their jobdescription (see previous CGsand below ad nauseam); not onlydo they get paid for doing theirjobs, unlike people who slaveaway part-time for many years;but as CG readers know, it is theofficial line of Williamson, as thechair of Social Colours Commit-tee (SCC), that sabbs should getHLM automatically, no matterwhat – in flagrant defiance of therule above. Never mind that thelikes of David Renton can getaway with doing fuck-all. Nevermind that Alexandra Walsh couldbarely write her own name, nev-er mind edit Pi. And never mindthat Mary-Beth Young’s brokenthe constitution with infantileabandon (see below).

The Enigmaof HLM

CheeseGraterHonoured By

Dean ofStudents

Thank God I don’thave to meet

you ever again

THERE ARE few subjectswhich excite such passions in thepeculiar world of UCL Union stu-dent politics as Social Coloursawards. The annual ceremony,this year held on 30 May, was in-tended to recognise the achieve-ments of extraordinary individ-uals who have “contributed to thestudent community of UCL.” Butdespite this noble objective, anintense debate rages amongst stu-dent hacks, society officers andgeneral busybodies like me overthe extent to which this is actu-ally the case.

Despite growing criti-cisms, there has rarely (or ever)been a simple, coherent critiqueof the flaws in this system – andconsequently, this has impededthe search for new solutions orproposals for its reform. In thisarticle I will attempt to addressboth of these areas. After threeyears engaged with student poli-tics, this is my parting shot [Hon-est, no more - Ed.].

Social Colours are corrupt.They reward union insiders foractions which often merely fitinside their specified job descrip-tions – and often do not even getas far as that.. Union politiciansfeel a sense of entitlement toawards, and although studentrepresentation is ostensibly allabout serving the community, italready possesses a plethora ofits own rewards, not least the CVpoints. Honours should not be

UCL Union’s Social Colours awards arepresented annually to students whocontribute above and beyond the normto enriching the UCL community – or atleast this is the logic. The fact is thatthe honours system is outdated, corruptand in dire need of reform. Dex Torricke-Barton reports

Filthy Colours

René Lavanchy

handed out for performing thejobs that people willingly take on– they should be for extraordi-nary actions, for amazing deeds.Student politicians almost al-ways cannot place their deedswithin the context of their ownlofty honours criteria; and yetthey receive them by virtue ofdominating Social Colours Com-mittee, which decides the recip-ients of all awards and makesrecommendations to UnionCouncil for Honorary Life Mem-bership (HLM).

Social Colours denigratereal achievement and exclude toomany students. Until this spring,students could only be recognisedfor activities which took place viaunion societies and institutions– such parameters being usedabsurdly to prevent the butt-kick-ing University Challenge finalistsof UCL from being recognised in2005. But even though the ruleswere relaxed in the spring of2006 to recognise contributionsto the “student community” atUCL, this continues to ignoreindividuals who have performedoutstanding services in othercommunities – ULU, London, orspheres of volunteering activity.Why should accomplishment endat the borders of Bloomsbury?On top of this, an arbitrary dis-tinction is made between awardsto arts societies and sports teams,resulting in the issuing of far toomany awards to preserve their


less articles, an embarrassmentof typos, crap writing (especial-ly her own), no apparent edito-rial direction, the worst cartoonsin recorded history, the inspira-tion of Pi staff to start leaking tous, the inspiration of Pi staff tomove to London Student and theuse of Scrapbook to gratify theegos of a handful of Pi staff - shedoesn’t even deserve that.

P.S. Holly is going to CityUniversity to study journalism, toprolong the fantasy/agony. Wehope Professor Greenslade has asense of humour.

THE RECORD of Holly’ssuccessor Knob Jockey (see CG9 for details of naming ceremo-ny) doesn’t look too bad next tohis predecessor’s (whose would?)

I think you’rewonderful,

Sean

Oh, really?I thinkso too

Some Honourable MentionsIt’s impossible to catch up with everyone who’s got a question mark hangingover their Social Colours award. Here is just a tiny selection this year, withspecial attention paid to the supreme honour of the Union...

WHAT HAVE WE gotagainst Holly Falconer, StudentEditor of Pisspoor Magazine fromDecember 2004 to December2005? Everyone who has met hersays she’s a nice girl, in a slight-ly patronising tone. But, as herdim and dismal record shows,she is stupid and incompetent,perhaps too much so to notice.In that case she can be forgivingfor not resigning - but not forasking for Centenary Colours tocompound the offence.

Holly’s nomination formwas a comedic high point of theSCC meeting. She was ‘pro-posed’ for Colours by Alan Gard-ner but in fact wrote the propos-al herself; Lucy Gould reported-ly called it the worst piece ofwriting she’d ever read, and it’snot hard to see why. “From the

Holly Falconer

Knob ‘SimonDedman’ Jockey

start of UCL,” it begins, “I havebeen highly involved in Pi.” Wewere unaware that either Pi orHolly existed back in 1826, butnever mind. “By my second termI was features editor,” the pleacontinues. Appointing a first yearin their second term suggests ei-ther great talent or desperation;guess which. “During this time,my section was always entertain-ing and organised,” she says fee-bly. But perhaps the funniest fea-ture is the ‘I’ count. Holly usesthe word ‘I’ 17 times among 350words, making the word consti-tute just under 5% of the entirestatement.

SCC decided to down-grade Falconer to Social Colours.But given her record - a maga-zine that continued to lookdreadful (under her rule, evencolumns of text were not alwaysjustified), random boring point-

He has presided over a mam-moth redesign, i.e. most of thecolumns of text are now justifiedagain (the pressing of the ‘justi-fy’ button in InDesign must havebeen exhausting). He has alsoimproved distribution somewhat(again, not saying much – seebelow on Alan Gardner).

Against this must be setthe fact that the magazine is hard-ly in a better state than whenKnob Jockey found it last De-cember. The design remains shit,despite having four so-called de-signers on the staff. The maga-zine breaks every design ruleunder the sun. Spelling, grammarand punctuation continue to bea problem, with even headlinesweighed down by excess spacesand full stops.

The choice of articles isterrible. Who in their right mindwould have wanted to read ‘the

This supplement is dedicated to homophobic Pi columnist Rayhan Haque○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

value. And this is all withouteven raising the possibility thatmaybe a few intellectual – evenacademic – achievements mightbe celebrated in the same forumas Social Colours.

How many more brilliant,awe-inspiring students could wepay tribute to with a broadened– but not slackened – definitionof achievement?

Here’s the thing, though.Until now, criticism of SocialColours has been largely con-fined to the usual suspects. Peo-ple like me. People who areknown cynics of union process-

es, “union haters” as one sabbdubs myself and fellow writersat this dear publication. Andthere has been a tendencyamongst this group, well-inten-tioned and well aware of the gen-uine disgrace of Social Colours,to attack not only the institutionbut the awardees as well. Some-times this is a justified attackupon the granting of awards toparticular individuals. Occasion-ally, it takes the form of self-flag-ellation, when recipients ofawards turn these down in a bidto prevent legitimisation of thesystem.

Whilst the former activitymay be fine, I would argue thatthe latter obscures the real prob-lems with Social Colours andprevents the search for effectivesolutions. The vast majority ofthose who receive awards out-side of the spheres of student rep-resentation are eminently deserv-ing of recognition. The real is-sue is those students who are notrepresented at all. Critics shouldbe content to receive their hon-ours, even as they demand bet-ter for the deserving absentees.

Numerous proposals havebeen kicking around for years on

how to reform the system. Sug-gestions to limit the number ofunion hacks able to receiveawards have been made, perhapssimply having a single ‘studentpolitician of the year’ award.People on the awarding commit-tee could be limited from receiv-ing awards, and certainly thecomposition of this committeecould be made diverse, perhapsbringing in volunteering officialsand even faculty members to as-sist in the selection process.These ideas must be discussedwithin the institutions of UCLUnion, and within individualsocieties, the student media, andamongst ordinary students.

The criticisms of SocialColours I have made are obvi-ous. The critics of the systemneed to make a better stab at ar-ticulating them. And if they’reeven partially effective at thisprocess, then they’ll have madea major step towards recognis-ing greater achievement on ourcampus – and will certainly beable to step up and receive theirlaurels without any shame.


failed miserably to get the atten-tion of the person with most pow-er to change things, the campaignturned its guns on those with theleast power – the students. Upwent the 24/7 banner in theQuad: many saw it, many didn’tknow what it meant. Bookmarkswere printed and distributed, tobe signed by students and sent tothe Provost. Whether the Prov-ost would listen was anothermatter. No meeting had beenheld to make him say so.

What shines out from thisis a failure on the sabbs’ part tohold the Provost to account. Asone Exec member said, Mary-Beth “doesn’t know when to say‘fuck off ’”. Another asserts thatthe sabbs let the Provost set theagenda for when they meet. Iftelling the Provost to fuck offsounds extreme, it should benoted that the lecturers’ unions(now fused into one) are scarce-ly more courteous in their lan-guage... if you read between thelines. And he meets with themall right.

So far, College has notresponded to the library cam-paign.

We turn now to Mary-Beth Young’s handling of theAUT/NATFHE industrial ac-tion. The showdown betweenlecturers and university bossesrepresented by the Universitiesand Colleges Employers’ Asso-ciation (UCEA), together withmany whys and wherefores, iscovered extensively in CG 9.

It is difficult not to seeUnion officers’ reaction to eventsas slow. AUT/NATFHE an-nounced their 7 March strike on20 February. On the 27th it wasdiscussed at Academic Board,whose minutes record the sabbssaying that “Students were beingasked to let the sabbatical offic-ers know of any cases where theirtimetable was disrupted and theywere not adequately informed”.

Academic Board reports toCollege Council. It is much larg-er: it includes the Provost’s ‘sen-ior management team’ of senioracademics, all professors andheads of department, various non-

I’d like to thankeveryone behind

this award...

Pleasure,mate

Mary-Beth Youngdebut novel of Debating Societypresident Adam Donen’ (Pi 656,January ’06), the impenetrable,tedious and maniacally intro-spective drivellings of a derangedegomaniac? Or indeed KnobJockey’s own exciting articlesabout John Kerry and the ToryReform Group? Pi is an excel-lent example of a student publi-cation that tries to do what thereal press do best by coveringnational and global affairs, andfails... only Pi fails more miser-ably than most. It’s not just bigstories that aren’t worth reading;there are plenty of small onestoo. Pi continues to be shame-fully padded out with storiesnobody cares about, despite thedemise of such worthless col-umns as ‘Mahatma’. The latestissue’s News In Brief includes anitem about the new CEMI direc-tor at UCL (too boring to ex-plain), headlined ‘New CEMIDirector appointed at UCLA’,thus moving the poor chap to LosAngeles. Knob Jockey’s own ed-itorials are no better. If a studentwishes to read criticism of TonyBlair, they would be better offbuying Private Eye or TheGuardian than reading that theStudent Editor of Pi has decid-ed, in his wisdom, to call him‘tit face’.

And then there’s Devil’sAdvocate. This godawful columnhas traditionally been ‘as excit-ing as a cheese sandwich’ (CG4). Knob Jockey has tried to spiceit up, and only succeeded it mak-ing it stupider than ever. Thecolumn seeks to be deliberatelycontroversial. If it did this intel-ligently it might just have a point.There was nothing intelligentabout ‘Stop Winging [sic] Wom-an,’ its now-infamous piece onrape published in January, whichwas roundly condemned in UCL,the University of London andrape victim support groups. Itwas badly written, inaccurate andwilfully idiotic. Dedman’s sub-sequent editorial, in which hedefended his position by compar-ing Pi comment to a Socratic di-alogue, is too painful to read.

When an article does havea promising basis, you can trustPi to fuck it up. In February theypublished a double-page spreadwith a massive headline pro-claiming ‘The TRUTH aboutUCL’s arms links’ (only fourmonths after London Student andthree months after us). The next

the underhand way Knob Jockeyhas continued to use Pi to fur-ther the interests of reactionarystudent politics. Regular readerswill be aware that he cheatedtwice during the executive elec-tions in February to help his can-didate Nick Barnard get electedas Media & CommunicationsOfficer (CG 9). No real punish-ment was meted out on the sec-ond occasion (Barnard wasbanned from campaigning forjust two hours) and the first timeround the matter went complete-ly unpunished. Apparently itdoesn’t matter that Barnard gotelected on the back of cheating.Knob Jockey also opposed thelecturers’ strike. Fair enough, youmight say; we supported it. Butwe did not send out emails toour staff instructing them on pol-icy, like he did. We reported thefacts, instead of asserting that thepay rises already offered were‘generous’ in spite of all the evi-dence.

Knob Jockey will contin-ue at Pi till December. Look outfor the inevitable Centenary Col-ours next year.

ALONG WITH ALANGardner, Mary-Beth is the mostinexperienced sabb, not havinghad previous student hack expe-rience. But inexperience is notan excuse for incompetence;Alex Coles pursued his role asE&W with energy in 2003-04,despite being a first year. Nor isit an excuse for breaking the con-stitution and exposing yourself tolegal action. This Young has done.

None of this is to denythat she has tried to do her job,and she has certainly been ap-proachable and easy to get onwith – even her detractors admitthis. She has also worked as amentor this year. Sadly, it’s notenough. Everyone makes mis-takes, but a couple of Mary-Beth’s deserve mention.

Extending library hours tomatch or better other UoL col-leges was, and is, a good idea,but the campaign to extend li-brary hours, incomprehensiblynamed ‘UCL Students Do it 24/7’, began to run into difficultiesin the first term of this year.Well, one difficulty: the Provost.

College Council is the su-preme governing body of UCL,and is responsible for makingpolicy and managing finances. Itsmembership numbers about 30,including the Provost, thirteenlay (non-UCL) members, andsenior academics. UCL Union’sEducation & Welfare Officer sitson Council ex officio, and an-other sabb is elected annually byUnion Council to attend. Thisyear it was Lucy Gould.

Last December, Young andLucy Gould asked the Provost inCollege Council why he had notagreed to a meeting about libraryhours. In particular, Young wasconcerned about the threat to li-brary jobs as a result of cost cuts.His response? Because they hadnot observed the protocol of go-ing through the Dean of Students!They asked for another meeting,and were brushed off. All theywere told was that the librarieshad to make savings of 5%,somehow. This is where a hard-nosed approach is necessary, butas Execs will tell you, Mary-Bethdoes not do hard-nosed. Having

Pi revealed that the TRUTH hadbeen less than, well, truthful.The article had misattributed toULU shares actually owned by theUoL.

But perhaps the most wor-rying aspect of his editorship is

Ben Williamson and friendSpot the Strike

College CouncilUCL-speak

Academic BoardUCL-speak


academic staff, most sabbs and afew other elected students. Its jobis to advise Council on academ-ic matters. It does not actuallydo much, and tends to be a talk-ing shop.

Young was contacted thenext day by Sean Wallis, AUTbranch secretary for UCL, an-nouncing that a strike was set for7 March. Wallis wanted to meetto discuss it and the ‘action shortof a strike’ which would threat-en marking of coursework andexams if it went ahead. Andthen... a pause. It was not till 6March, the day before the strike,that Young contacted Sean Wal-lis, he claims; it was not till 6March that she e-mailed studentsannouncing the strike. And if it’strue that she copy-and-pasted ane-mail sent as long ago as early2003 (CG 9), it can’t have takenlong to compose. The e-mail ar-rived at 11:30 pm, giving no timeto ignorant students to find outabout disruptions to their time-table. Thus no meeting betweenlecturers’ and students’ unionhappened before the strike, andmany students woke up on Tues-day 7 March totally unaware thatanything was happening.

The belated e-mail stated:“UCLU does not support theAUT strikes.” Where did thisdecision come from? As notedin CG 9, the e-mail provokedshock and disgust among mem-bers of the part-time executive.One Exec member told us:“Whilst we have spoken brieflyin committee about our concernswith the implications of an as-sessment boycott upon students’work, we never actually came upwith a collective position on thestrike... This email does not rep-resent my views, nor that of UCLUnion as a whole.” Since then,yet another member of Exec hasagreed with this view. If Councildidn’t reach a consensus and nei-ther did Exec, it must have beenAdmin, the meeting of six sabbsand the Union General Manag-er, which did indeed discuss theaction. Young insists that thesabbs formed their own conclu-sions about the strike, but thetradition of sabbatical groupthinkis too old and deep-rooted to dis-miss. (And for a far more shock-ing sabbatical act on the sametheme, see below on LucyGould.)

It wasn’thard

Congratulationson being lessshit than last

year, Ben!

As the exam season ap-proached, it emerged that anumber of departments, such asFrench, would be hit hard by theaction short of a strike. In earlyApril Mary-Beth Young struckagain: she signed a letter writtenby Gaston Dolle, President ofBristol University SU, condemn-ing the assessment boycott (Ex-hibit A). The words were famil-iar: they supported the lecturers’pay claim, but not the methodson offer. The letter was copiedto Bill Rammell, the higher edu-cation minister, and many edu-cation journalists at nationalnewspapers: it got a lot of mediacoverage. No letter was sent tothe UCEA calling on them toimprove their pay offer, but thisletter was forwarded to them, asthough to boost the universitybosses’ position (while condemn-ing lecturers’ low pay, of course).

Then on 27 April the Un-ion’s Annual General Meetingwas held, after a previous at-tempt in January had ended al-most before it had started whensomeone called quorum. Anemergency motion had been puttogether by Kat Lay and friendsrequiring UCL Union to supportthe AUT action. It wasn’t toowell planned – they were hunt-ing for seconders for the motionup to the submission deadline –but the proposers did their bestto publicise their motion, pro-ducing hundreds of flyers anddistributing them. But in theexam season, this AGM wasnever going to be well attended.A notable presence at the AGMwas Richard Bruckdorfer, AUTpresident for UCL, who success-fully defended his union’s posi-tion with eloquence. Speecheswere made pro and con: for thesake of openness, The CheeseGrater’s editor made an impas-sioned, if slightly incoherent,speech supporting the motion. Itwas eventually passed by 14 stu-dents. The sabbs all opposed.

Now began the events thatwould destroy Mary-Beth Young’scredibility utterly. The motionresolved “to support the AUT’spay claim” and “industrial ac-tion” and mandated Young to “toimmediately write to UCEA,copied to the recipients of theApril 12 letter that she signed andto the Provost,” demanding thatUCEA agree to meet with the

Not In My Name

AUT and NATFHE, and thatthey improve their pay offer.

Whatever your view on theAUT action, it is inescapable thatYoung was now obliged to writeto UCEA supporting the AUTaction, and any deviation fromthe motion would constitute abreach of the Union’s Constitu-tion.

One person who didn’tvote for the motion was Servicesand Events Officer-elect ZoeDavies. She had popped into theAGM, apropos nothing much,and was surprised to find themotion being put forward. As afinalist in French, she feared forher degree and objected stronglyto the AUT action. Davies wroteto Young, and she replied: “I saidI was considering saying I did notagree with the strike action,” thesabb told The Cheese Grater. “Isaid I’d be willing to include [inthe letter the name of] any otherstudent who felt the same way,as in I wouldn’t mind includingher name. I did not tell her tomass e-mail or anything, whichshe’s completely entitled to do.”

Mass e-mailing is exactlywhat Davies did do. Before long,e-mails demanding to have theirnames added to the letter beganpouring in to the unfortunateMary-Beth’s inbox. Eventually,supporters of the AUT picked upthe e-mails, and hit back, send-ing their own e-mails to Youngasking her to add their names too,to state their support for the ac-tion. A list of supporters, num-bering over 100, was also sentto Young, based on the ‘I supportthe AUT action’ group on Face-book. Everyone on the list couldbe verified as a UCL supporterof the AUT action, since Face-book requires UCL members tohave a UCL e-mail address. Ini-tially, Young agreed to add both

groups of e-mailers to her letter.Then Student Affairs Committeedecided a few days later that onlythe opponents of the motionshould be included. The letterwas sent on 5 May, and corre-spondents were not informeduntil the same day or later, giv-ing them no chance to appeal.

The letter Mary-Beth wroteis a remarkable read (Exhibit B).First of all, it did not, as the AGMmotion required, demand thatUCEA allow AUT/NATFHE tocome to talks without suspend-ing their industrial action. Sec-ondly, all mention of UCL Un-ion’s policy to support the AUTaction was hedged and inter-spersed with statements appar-ently designed to qualify the de-mands Young had to make. Afternoting that the motion was“passed by 14 students”, she wenton: “The motion was passed de-spite heavy opposition from theUnion’s Executive, and is con-trary to the consensus of Coun-cil; as well as the result of a de-bate held by UCLU’s DebatingSociety, attended by at least fourtimes as many students who at-tended the AGM, in which theHouse overwhelmingly opposedthe industrial action [by 25 votesto 15].” And it goes on.

Why did Young write allthis, that the motion did not re-quire? “I was honest about whathad happened in the Union. Iincluded those names because I’dbeen asked to by students whodidn’t agree with what I didwrite in the letter.” Although shedidn’t include the other lot ofstudents who’d also asked to be

Do I ContradictMyself? VeryWell...


desperately to represent studentopinion, Young has failed to up-hold some of the letter, and allof the spirit, of the motion passedat the Union AGM. A less gen-erous observer would declarethat, out of a mixture of incom-petence and mindless hostility tothe very idea of supporting thelecturers’ action, grounded in atradition of sabbatical inertia andreluctance to annoy the Provost,Mary-Beth Young has producedan incoherent, half-baked page ofcrazed dithering which does no-body any good whatsoever andwhich clearly violates the AGMmotion and thereby the Consti-tution. In doing so, she has – sad-ly - let down every single studentof UCL. Contrary to Young’s in-sistence, she is clearly and un-ambiguously liable to legal ac-tion in her position as a trusteeof UCL Union’s charitable sta-tus. The facts speak for them-selves.

Now click herehttp://www.uclunion.org/discuss/index.php?showtopic=795

The motion supporting theAUT Action: worth reading in full

THIS intrepid student(French, despite his name) stud-ies in the German department,where he founded the GermanSociety last year. The society hasdone a lot: talks, discussions (in-cluding that heartstopping oneon the enlargement of the EU)and films, as well as the usualpub crawls. It won Non-GrantSociety of the Year this year. Inher nomination form for Wolf ’sCentenary Colours, Prof SusanneKord said the society “has alreadydistinguished itself, particularlyin the areas of event organisa-tion”. Which is why it’s so fun-ny that the one event Wolfcouldn’t organize to save his lifewas his society’s AGM.

The AGM took place on22 March in the German/Scan-dinavian common room. Themeeting was scheduled for 5pmsharp and Wolf turned up at5:35pm sharp. Perhaps he’d readthe helpful e-mail, which said“meet behind the German socie-ty”. He appeared with wine butwithout ballots or a ballot box.Wolf says he booked this roomand a second one. What the sec-

Immanuel Wolf

included. “However the pointwas made that the motion wasmeant to represent 19,000 stu-dents and therefore your support[that of the motion’s supporters]is inherent in the passing of themotion. And that a very smallpercentage of students made arequest to say they didn’t supportthe action.” She means a verysmall percentage of 19,000. ButYoung said that 14 students hadpassed the motion, not 19,000,and she had attached the namesof 106 opponents. Did she notwant the UCEA to think that themotion was worthless? She in-sists that she did not. The use offigures, however, is inescapable.And why did Debating Societyget a mention, when they are notan executive meeting of the Un-ion?

And why was a list ofnames included at all? In a sub-sequent London Student article(‘Sack the UCL sabbs: They needthe time off so they can learn howto count’), it was stated that over130 students wanted to havetheir names attached to the let-ter. Over 100 of these, as men-tioned, did not e-mail Young;they joined a group on Facebook,whence their names were collect-ed. The sabbs have got very shirtyindeed about this article, andinsist that it is idiotic to use thenames of people second-hand.But as mentioned above, becausethese names were on Facebook,each one had a real person be-hind it. Actually, what’s idioticis to ignore one set of names.Faced with evidence of a largebody of feeling on both sides,Mary-Beth Young opted to in-clude a list of names that couldin no way be said to be repre-sentative of student opinion as awhole. In this way, the lists ofnames differ fundamentally fromthe AGM motion. The AGM hadbeen publicised, and anyonecould turn up to support or op-pose the motion (some whoturned up were finalists, despiteexam commitments). The firstlist of names, however, was ac-cessible only to those in touchwith Zoe Davies, who was try-ing to amass opponents of themotion, and to the people theyin turn contacted. All with thesame aim in mind: to weaken themeaning of Young’s letter. Thesecond list, of supporters, onlyarose as a reaction to the first,and this list was not open to all

UCL students either, only to thosewho got e-mailed. Surely ifYoung had wanted to representstudent opinion, she could havecalled a referendum? Or put outmore of those suggestion boxes?“The sabbs didn’t feel it was ap-propriate at the time.” Instead,she went for something self-evi-dently far less representative andfair than a referendum. She couldhave ignored both lists, and theDebating Society, stuck to themandate of the motion andavoided all injustice. Mary-Bethdid neither. Though Student Af-fairs Committee (including her)took the decision, this decisionshould not have been allowed tooverrule the spirit of the AGMmotion, which it undoubtedlydoes. An AGM has far superiorexecutive powers under the Con-stitution than a committee; thishierarchy was ignored. Young,like all sabbs, is entrusted withupholding the Constitution.

We did mention thatYoung has acted unconstitution-ally. The failure to incorporate ademand into the letter has al-ready been noted. Furthermore,the letter Young sent to UCEAwas copied to only two people:Sally Hunt of AUT and the Prov-ost. What about Bill Rammell?What about Emily Bell, editor-in-chief of Guardian Unlimited?What, in fact, about the long listof carbon-copy recipients of herearlier (April) letter, whom she’dbeen mandated to send copies ofthis letter to? Mary-Beth says shenever got the second page of theApril letter she signed, eventhough it clearly runs onto twopages and the AGM motion re-fers to it going to more than oneperson. Result? The media werealerted to the April letter oppos-ing the AUT action (which madeno reference at all to studentsbeing split on the matter), and itgot a lot of coverage. The mediawere not at all alerted to Mary-Beth’s May letter (which spentmore words referring to a stu-dent split on the matter than itdid enforcing the motion) and soit cannot have been expected toachieve anything.

Even if you are a sabbati-cal officer, you can understandthat it is possible to removemeaning from what you say byadding enough words. The let-ter Mary-Beth wrote is a cardi-nal example. A generous observerwould conclude that, in trying

ond was for he didn’t say, butwas it no bigger? By the time heturned up, there were about 60people in a room hardly biggerthan the CSC meeting room…whose capacity is 20. Therecould not have been room toswing a cat and it was a clearhealth and safety issue.

The meeting proceeded…slowly. There was no clear agen-da and Wolf needed constantprompting as to what came nextthroughout, despite the fact thatthe Union’s club & society hand-book contains a basic AGM agen-da. Given that, had anyone actu-ally tried to submit an agendaitem of their own, it seems un-likely Wolf would have remem-bered it.

The committee asked ifeveryone had paper and a pen tovote. They handed out tornsheets of notepaper to everyonewho didn’t. How could they besure that only members voted insuch a large society where noteveryone knows everyone else?The electors were told to writetheir names on the scraps of pa-per. When they complained, theywere fobbed off with “Don’tworry guys, it’ll be strictly con-fidential!”. (Lache nicht. Es istwahr – Ed.) They continued tocomplain until someone suggest-ed circulating an attendancesheet. The wine crate was appro-priated as a ballot box. Couldeveryone vote? Wolf insists theycould: “Persons having their So-ciety cards could vote. Those thatdid not all had UCL ID cards andI had of course a membershiplist… Anyway most people hadboth cards and nobody has theright to come on campus with-

*Yes, Immanuel, we know theFrench for AGM is AGA. We

are taking the piss out of you.

L’AGM,c’est moi*


petence. But we will say this.

1) Last year, TommyMichaelis left as Union securitymanager.

2) Now there is one lesssecurity officer at the Union.

3) The Union employs pro-cedures to guard both its bars andthe entrance to the premises dur-ing licensed evening openinghours of club nights.

4) Under the LicensingActs, it is illegal for a hypotheti-cal licensed doorman to leave thedoor unattended while they goand keep an eye on somewhereelse.

5) 2+2=

What of Mike McLeod,the General Manager who hasbeen the toast of London Studentthis year? Given that he left un-der a cloud (see LS passim, de-spite incorrect protestations ofinaccuracy by UCLU sabbs) you’dhave thought Ben would distancehimself from the overpaid oaf.But no. Criticise the Establish-ment? Never! We did ask Benwhat he thought of the egregiousex-GM, but answer came therenone.

IT’S ALL too easy to cari-cature the sabbs as in the Prov-ost’s pocket, isn’t it? They havea hard job, work long hours andhave to go between the Provostand the rabble, I mean students.But they do try to stand up forstudents’ interests. Right? Er,wrong. Exhibit A: Lucy AnnRobertson “Judas” Gould,former SSEES Site President,current Finance & Administra-tion Officer and winner of HLM.

If you cast your mind backonce more to the lecturers’ in-dustrial action this year, you willrecall that all students’ unions,including UCL Union and theNUS, were unanimous in sup-

pretty Sabbatical Officer poloshirt, but apparently no-one elsedoes. Because nobody actuallynominated him for HLM; andwhen everyone else’s was votedon at Union Council, he had toadmit he’d ‘forgotten’ to submithis own. Which is exactly whathe was forced to do at the nextCouncil. Still, he’s made it abun-dantly clear this year that hethinks he speaks with the voiceof the whole of UCL Union (de-spite moves to no-confidence himlast year), so who better to givehim an award than his self-be-loved self? Let us see what Ben,sorry, the Union, has got in re-turn for its award.

This year Ben has beentackling the age-old problem ofUnion space, which has got con-siderably worse after the cut incapacity last year. And it doesseem that the Provost, who afterall holds the purse strings, takesthe issue more seriously now thanhe did. But neither Malcolm norBen seem able to dispel the fan-cy – now over a decade old –that UCL Union might get con-trol of the ULU building onMalet Street, with its much great-er capacity. “One already set-uparea which closely resembles theprovisions we have for our serv-ice space is obviously ULU. Ithasn’t been taken off the table,”Ben told The Cheese Grater. “TheProvost has made no direct at-tempt to give us ULU or even saythat we should take it over, orthe space, but it obviously is onearea which could possibly beused as a future venue for UCLstudents.” But sabbs do admitthat he has a habit of banging onabout ULU, and it would bestrange if that was nothing to dowith space. Anyway, he can’t“give” us ULU or its space, andULU’s staff are thought to hopeit will stay like that forever. Infact, ULU are not in any discus-sion with UCL Union to sharespace.

Ben has also been accusedof breaking the Licensing Actsand thus exposing himself toprosecution (see how the sabbstake after each other?) There’s alimit to we can say here, becauseof the odious, retarded, Stone-Age, worse-than-the-Official-Se-crets-Act, perverted dungheap ofa fucking cunt of a regulationknown as the Staff-Student Pro-tocol, the magic students’ unionformula for covering up incom-

Hey! ThatsMY job!

Not youtoo, Lucy!

out ID card.” Actually, some peo-ple had neither card (contrary toWolf ’s insistence, you don’t needa card to enter the UCL ‘cam-pus’, as if there was such a thing),and may not have been able tovote. Voting was done withouttransferable votes and without anoption to RON (Re-Open Nom-inations), despite this being bestpractice. The vote may not havebeen very secret, but the countmore than made up for this. Wolfand treasurer Babur Yusupovwalked out with the crate andcounted the votes… in secret.This is particularly worrying asthere is clearly some oppositionamong German Soc’s membersto Wolf ’s methods… or whywould all this get reported? 20minutes later, they returned. Theelection for treasurer was, some-how, we know not how, ‘tooclose to call’ and had to be re-ferred to the Union. Wolf waswarned that he wasn’t preparedfor the AGM, but ignored thewarning.

If Wolf ’s organisationalskills are so hopeless, was hereally responsible for GermanSoc’s more successful events thisyear? Anyway, the society canlook forward to a bright futurenext year. Without him.

WILL MAD Mustafa nev-er leave university? He’s been atImperial for six years and nowhas spent a seventh at its would-be breakfast, sorry, bride. As aunion president for two colour-ful years, and now president ofthe Postgraduate Association atUCLU, his will to serve studentsis clear, but for a winner of So-cial Colours, his ethics leavesomething to be desired. NoUCL student seems to have dis-played quite as much affectionfor the arms trade as him.

The gory details of how thearms trade works can be foundon the Campaign Against theArms Trade’s website,www.caat.org.uk, so read themif you’re not convinced of theneed to oppose it. London Stu-dent has been campaigning forcolleges to withdraw their invest-ment in companies linked to thearms trade, and appear to havescored a hit with SOAS sellingtheir investments in SmithsGroup and military aircraft firmCobham. Following this, whenthe subject was discussed at ULU

Lucy Gould

Ben Williamson

Council in December, Arif toldLS editor Patrick Ward that “thearms trade benefited students oncertain courses,” according tominutes. He declined to men-tion how the arms trade benefitscitizens of countries with poorhuman rights records where thearms, by hook or by crook, getsold.

On 27 February, Arifstruck another blow for armsdealers: he helped defeat a mo-tion to UCL Union Council onUCL’s arms shares. While una-ble to attend Council, he sent ane-mail stating his opposition,which was then read out. Themotion, proposed by Environ-ment and Ethics officer LouiseBroadbent, fell. Not to be de-terred, she presented anothermotion to Council on 20 March.The motion resolved to lobbyCollege to sell its shares in armscompanies (UCL holds nearly35,000 shares in Cobham, val-ued at the time at over £60,000).This time, Arif was present: heobjected to the notion of UCLselling shares in companies itworked with, and apparentlythought doing nothing a muchbetter option. He also objectedto arms firms being targeted as agroup “rather than those compa-nies guilty of malpractice”, de-spite the fact that Cobham hadalready been indicted in the mo-tion. The motion eventuallypassed – stripped of all referenc-es to arms firms.

With a degree in Informa-tion Systems Engineering andanother one in Spacecraft Tech-nology & Satellite Communica-tions, perhaps Mustafa will sin-gle-handedly help George Bushresurrect Star Wars one day.

P.S. So unpleasant is Arifat ULU Council that he was oneof the people who provoked amotion on ‘common courtesyand respect’ to be put to the fifthCouncil in February. Under ‘ThisUnion Believes’, it stated: “Thatthere have been examples of alack of respect and understand-ing towards individuals at ULUCouncil meetings” and “The cur-rent atmosphere does not showrespect for the mental well be-ing of others”.

PITY POOR BenjaminArthur Williamson. He maythink he deserves an HLM onaccount of his ownership of a

Mustafa Arif


ad hominem attack on VickiSlater of Queen Mary College for‘protecting her friends’, whichsources describe as unwarranted– she was defending her positionon the resignation of ULU presi-dent Stewart Halforty.

This – coupled with herpolicies – has provoked a trench-ant attack on Gould from fellowsabb Sam Thomas, acting Presi-dent of ULU:

“I suspect that UCL stu-dents have this year gained morefrom the £300,000 paid to ULUthan from the £1.7 million paidto UCL Union. UCL studentshave consistently shown theirappreciation of ULU’s campaignsand services, but UCL Union hassadly failed to represent their stu-dents’ views. Lucy Gould hasalways put her right-wing poli-tics and subservience to MalcolmGrant ahead of students’ inter-ests. When UCL students werethreatened with 15% staff cuts,Lucy Gould rushed into a frenzyof inertia [I prefer ‘masterly in-activity’ – Ed]. When the lec-turers made their pay claim, sheraced to assure Malcolm Grantof her opposition to it, moaningthat ULU’s support for the payincrease would undermine her. An observer might wonderwhether it is UCL’s students orUCL’s Provost who Lucy Gouldhas been elected to represent.”

In reply, Gould told us:“This is clearly ridiculous. Ihave upheld Union policy (all ofwhich has been formed throughthe correct procedure ie. Coun-cil, Exec, GMs [Union GeneralMeetings] etc) and what thewhole Sabbatical Team felt wasin the best interests of the stu-dent body at every meeting withCollege.” So sabbs oppose thepay claim, do they? Mary-BethYoung doesn’t. And the argumentfor the pay claim was settled longago. Gould declined to actuallytell us whether the story was trueor not, and we confidently assertthat it is true.

Maybe caricaturing sabbsisn’t so easy after all. Not if theydo the job for you.

IT SEEMS UNFAIR –Gardner would almost certainlysay ‘churlish’ - to attack a manwho gave such a nice speech forThe Cheese Grater at the SocialColours dinner, and recommend-ed its editor for an award [which

I’ve now rejected, pace Dex –Ed.] But we cannot overlook theflawed governance and poor ed-itorship which has dogged Gard-ner’s year.

The Media and Communi-cations remit has become unten-able. The officer is meant to editthe main student magazine, workas a member of each media soci-ety (the officer has an ex officioposition on each society’s com-mittee – although Gardner hasdeclined to grace our conferenc-es with his presence) and com-municate with the outside world.There is an obvious conflict ofinterest which has been aroundsince the year dot, and Gardnerhas done nothing to address this.The M & C cannot act as amouthpiece for Union policies,often decided only by the execu-tive or even just by sabbs and theGeneral Manager, and be trust-ed to give Pi a free rein. Wouldyou trust the Downing Streetpress officer to edit a nationalnewspaper? Gardner has not, itseems, tried to rein in Pi or thismagazine in the way his prede-cessor did – which amounted tocensorship (CG 4). But while theterms of his remit remain thesame, the position of M & C willremain open to considerableabuse.

Nor can the officer betrusted not to obstruct the activ-ities of elected members of themedia societies. The Union’sStanding Orders effectively ex-pect the officer to be a servant toan infinite amount of masters. Itis not Gardner’s fault that theywere written thus when he ar-rived. It is his fault that they re-main thus nearly a year later. Ah,but there’s a review of govern-ance underway, isn’t there? Notonly are the terms of this reviewsomewhat questionable (CG 9)but why must we wait forever forsome simple reforms? Gardner,or anyone, could have submitteda motion to Council last yearstriking out the relevant parts ofStanding Orders and replacingthem with something more help-ful. It would have been easy.Nobody did.

We turn now to Pi. As aman who has to attend manyimportant committees, such asMedia Management (stop laugh-ing), Gardner’s quality control onPi is limited. He can claim cred-it for the idea of themes for eachissue. He can also claim respon-

Alan Gardner

porting the lecturers’ demandsfor higher pay (see CG 9 and thepro-AUT motion above for de-tails). Only the methodology (toboycott exams or not) was a realissue. And in her e-mail of 6March, Mary-Beth Young reiter-ated this view: “Whilst we rec-ognise that lecturers nationwideare underpaid compared to oth-er professions with similar skillsand expertise…”. And then againon 12 April, with that letterfrom Gaston Dolle (above): “OurStudents’ Unions are supportiveof your claims for better pay. Webelieve that academics havebeen underpaid for too long andthat improving lecturers’ pay canonly mean better education forour members [i.e. students] inthe long term.”

This view remains thesame regardless of the change inpolicy Young so faithfully hon-oured (above). So is there anyexcuse for a sabbatical officeracting against this long-avowedUnion policy, which has re-mained unchanged over at leastfour academic years? Becausethat’s just what Gould did, ac-cording to ULU. After the lec-turers announced their strike inFebruary, ULU sabb Sam Thomasput out a press release saying theysupported the lecturers’ 20% payclaim (but not the action). Cuephone call to ULU from a dis-gruntled L. Gould ofBloomsbury, complaining aboutthe press release. Why? Becauseit would make it harder for herto go to the Provost… and tellhim she supported him on lec-turers’ pay. Even though it wasthe stated policy of her Union todo the exact opposite! In doingso, Gould puts herself in suchaugust company as Knob Jock-ey.

Gould has also failed torepresent students’ interests onthe subject of the Provost’s 15%staff cuts. We have known formonths that some UCL academ-ics think courses will be lost be-cause of job losses – it is the stat-ed view of the Arts and Human-ities faculty board. Gould, how-ever, failed to come out againstthis policy, and remained reso-lutely on the fence.

The sabb’s people skills arenot highly rated. When asked tocomment on her manner, onesource pointed us to the eventsof ULU Council in November2005, when Gould launched an

sibility for when things gowrong. Pi’s distribution has tra-ditionally been bad. Of its budg-et of £20,000 (only 50 times big-ger than our budget next year), alarge proportion is spent on print-ing 4,000 hard copies. Manynever get read, and in the pasthave been pulped en masse. Infact, we found an e-mail fromGardner, sent in the autumnterm, begging his chums to helphim throw away entire boxes ofold copies of Pi that had not beendistributed and were clutteringup the Union building. Un-touched boxes of the magazinehave also been seen loiteringaround common rooms. For thisPi deserves its fat budget, ofwhich £10,000 is a grant and therest is pretty well assured everyyear?

The sheer crapness of Pican be laid at the door of its stu-dent editors, and that’s whatwe’ve done. But if it had a full-time editor who wasn’t trying torun part of the Union at the sametime, like London Student andImperial’s Felix, it could be a lotbetter. Instead, Pi has two part-time editors, and just look at theresult. Someone did try to reformthis state of affairs, but the Pi staffapparently preferred to sit intheir own excrement (CG 4).Once again Gardner has donenothing to change this. Thereare, indeed, plans afoot to givePi a full-time editor, but not com-ing from him, and we doubt theywill come to anything.

Staff-student protocol pre-vents us from saying anythingabout staffing for the Union’swebsite (also Gardner’s respon-sibility). We ask you to count thenumber of people who’ve heldthe post of webmaster recently,and draw your own conclusions.RL

Oi! Why haven’tI got HLM too?

cg09aspecialjuly2006

Documents

ucl studentfor

humour desk

ystudent publication

orgstudent publication

sabbsget hlm

hlm statequite

thechair of social colours

shedidntthis little