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Day: 13 December 2010

Coalition help for poorer students ahead of Commons vote

The coalition government proposed to help pay the cost of tuition fees for some of the country’s poorest students ahead of the tuition fee vote last week.

The proposals have prompted speculation that the government are softening the impact of the tripling of tuition fee costs. Universities Minister David Willetts announced that up to 18,000 students could receive funding to help cover the cost of their degree for up to two years.

The money to fund the proposals will come from a £150 million fund, called the National Scholarship Programme, which has been allocated to help potential pupils eligible for free schools meals.

Universities who plan to charge over double the current amount of £3,375 in fees will need to show that they are taking measures to attract students from disadvantaged backgrounds. If they fail to show this, they could face fines or a cut in funding.

The announcement came shortly before a vote was passed last week in the House of Commons, giving universities the green light to charge students up to £9,000 in fees from 2013.

Mo Saqib, Humanities Officer for the University of Manchester Students’ Union (UMSU) said: “It’s obviously great news that 18,000 students can now expect not to be saddled with such great debt. I only wish that the proposals were extended in some way to the hundreds of thousands of other university students.”

NUS president Aaron Porter also criticised the proposals: “David Willetts is on another planet if he thinks that by telling universities to ‘do all they can’ on access that they will actually do so, particularly the elite institutions which have such a woeful record on access for underrepresented students. “Universities have an appalling past record on meeting access agreements and Offa has always been a weak and toothless regulator.”

Concessions may have encouraged some Liberal Democrats and a very small fraction of Conservative MPs who had been uncomfortable with the prospect of supporting an increase in fees to vote in favour of the proposals.

So how did they vote?

After much agonising we now know how each Liberal Democrat MP cast their deciding vote during last Thursday’s crucial debate. As expected, every Lib Dem at the centre of government, including Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and Business Secretary Vince Cable voted for the rise. Here is how some of the others voted:

Simon Hughes, Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats – Abstained. Since being elected, Hughes has been seen by many as the inner conscience of the party whilst in government. His abstention comes after publicly stating his unease at the government’s tuition fee proposals. The coalition agreement drawn out in May gave any Lib Dem MP the right to abstain on this issue.

John Leech, MP for Manchester Withington – Voted against the rise. This local backbencher has always stressed his ardent opposition to tuition fees. Representing an area with such high student numbers, it is likely that Leech will be spared the anger of so many of his constituents by sticking to his pre-election pledge to vote against a rise in fees.

 

David Laws – Voted for the rise. Laws famously lasted just under three weeks as Chief Secretary to the Treasury after an expenses scandal. He is known as someone on the right of the party and therefore more likely to vote with the government. Indeed, the Conservatives liked him so much that the Chancellor, George Osbourne, asked him to join the party before May’s election.

Michael Crockart – Voted against the rise. It emerged shortly after last week’s vote that this Edinburgh MP took the step of resigning from his ministerial job so that he could vote with his conscience and oppose the fee rise. While this was not enough to swing the vote the other way he is likely to be thought of positively by many students for his actions.

 

Here’s how some other key Lib Dems voted last Thursday:

Menzies Campbell (former party leader) – voted against rise

Charles Kennedy (former party leader) – voted against rise

Danny Alexander (Chief Secretary to the Treasury) – voted for rise

Gordon Birtwistle (MP for Burnley) – voted for rise

Steve Webb – voted for rise

Tim Farron (Party President) – voted against rise

Academic staff fills ranks to march on eve of Commons vote

The march was “very peaceful”, protestors said. The protest was the fourth march against cuts to higher education and the rise in tuition fees. A notable number of lecturers and PhD students joined the demonstration. Around 250 academics and PhD students from the University of Manchester have signed a public statement declaring their opposition to the higher education proposals.

Staff and academics from the Faculty of Humanities say the reforms threaten teaching and the value of higher education and research. The statement issued by the department argues that students from poorer backgrounds will be worst affected: “We strongly believe higher education should receive strong public funding and support, and that higher education is of value to UK society as a whole,” read the statement.

The academics were joined outside Manchester Metropolitan University’s (MMU) All Saints building by university and college students as a small group of speakers roused the crowd for the day ahead. The students were surrounded by a considerable police presence, which one speaker described as “excessive”.

The protestors set off for Piccadilly Gardens at 12.30 pm with police to join the city centre protests. A sea of brightly coloured homemade banners and posters were distributed by activists from the Respect Party. At the time of the march, dozens of Lib Dems were threatening a rebellion against party leader and Deputy PM Nick Clegg after the pre-election pledge to oppose an increase.

On arriving in Piccadilly Gardens, the protestors held a rally, with a diverse range of speakers addressing the crowd. Those addressing the crowd included Mo Saqib, the University of Manchester Students’ Union (UMSU) Humanities Officer, President of Manchester Metropolitan University Islamic Society, Ali Yousef, and Jamie Woodcock, a representative of the Roscoe Building occupation.

There were also speeches from trade unionists, community workers and interventions made by speakers from the Aim Higher programme and the Education Activists Network. UMSU General Secretary Sarah Wakefield told The Mancunion: “It was nice to see a strong protest, with people making their point in a peaceful and constructive way. The high number of lecturers and academics demonstrates the academic voice against higher education cuts is coming through.”

Following the rally, which finished at 2pm, a group of activists allegedly spread a false rumour that a group of MPs were meeting at Manchester Town Hall, according to one eyewitness. This led some of the protesters to disband and head to the Town Hall. Those who took part in the day’s protest were keen to emphasise its non-violent and incident-free nature.

So how did they vote?

 

Deputy Lib Dem Leader Simon Hughes agonised publicly over the decision before abstaining in Parliament

After much agonising we now know how each Liberal Democrat MP cast their deciding vote during last Thursday’s crucial debate. As expected, every Lib Dem at the centre of government, including Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and Business Secretary Vince Cable voted for the rise. Here is how some of the others voted:

Simon Hughes, Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats – Abstained. Since being elected, Hughes has been seen by many as the inner conscience of the party whilst in government. His abstention comes after publicly stating his unease at the government’s tuition fee proposals. The coalition agreement drawn out in May gave any Lib Dem MP the right to abstain on this issue.

John Leech, MP for Manchester Withington – Voted against the rise. This local backbencher has always stressed his ardent opposition to tuition fees. Representing an area with such high student numbers, it is likely that Leech will be spared the anger of so many of his constituents by sticking to his pre-election pledge to vote against a rise in fees.

 

David Laws – Voted for the rise. Laws famously lasted just under three weeks as Chief Secretary to the Treasury after an expenses scandal. He is known as someone on the right of the party and therefore more likely to vote with the government. Indeed, the Conservatives liked him so much that the Chancellor, George Osbourne, asked him to join the party before May’s election.

 

Michael Crockart – Voted against the rise. It emerged shortly after last week’s vote that this Edinburgh MP took the step of resigning from his ministerial job so that he could vote with his conscience and oppose the fee rise. While this was not enough to swing the vote the other way he is likely to be thought of positively by many students for his actions.

 

Here’s how some other key Lib Dems voted last Thursday:

Menzies Campbell (former party leader) – voted against rise

Charles Kennedy (former party leader) – voted against rise

Danny Alexander (Chief Secretary to the Treasury) – voted for rise

Gordon Birtwistle (MP for Burnley) – voted for rise

Steve Webb – voted for rise

Tim Farron (Party President) – voted against rise

Album: Yann Tiersen – Dust Lane

Yann Tiersen

Dust Lane

Mute Records

3 Stars

He’s probably the most successful composer you’ve never heard of, but having written stunning soundtracks to films like Amelie and Goodbye Lenin!, this French multi-instrumentalist’s pedigree is assured.

This is Tierson’s sixth studio outing and his first offering since signing with cool-as-biscuits indie label Mute, whose roster reads like a Who’s Who of alternative music. He shares this illustrious kennel with the likes of Depeche Mode, Dinosaur Jr, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Goldfrapp and Can, to name but a few.

Dust Lane sees our friend map out the world with bright colours and a ruddy great canvas; a ruddy great canvas indeed. It seems fitting after listening to this album to find that on his upcoming tour of the UK, the Breton will be playing at Manchester Cathedral.

This is music made to be played ear-bleedingly loud, marrying the symphonic post-rock of Sigur Rós with the sheer intensity of fellow Frenchmen M83. Having said this, at times this album can end up resembling the wrong side of a Snow Patrol chorus. Sure, the sound is massive, but does it go anywhere? Too many times the answer is no.

But let’s give credit where credit’s due. Tiersen can switch from a fragile whisper to the musical equivalent of jumping out of a plane at 50,000 feet with breath-taking ease. The frenetic title track flirts gleefully with the likes of ‘Ashes’ and ‘Till the End’.

As political statements go (if it is a political statement you are intending to make) calling one of your instrumental tracks ‘Palestine’ won’t really get anyone’s fists pumping or really do anything about the Gaza crisis – but if you just want some ear candy this is for you.

The bizzarely titled ‘Fuck Me’ is also a charming little acoustic ditty sounding a wee bit too much like those Snow Patrol guys for comfort. But hey, that’s just my humble opinion.

Do student ethics go up in smoke when it comes to tobacco companies?

Coca Cola, charged with tacitly supporting the murder of trade unionists in Columbia, and Nestlé, with causing the deaths of babies in Africa by undermining breastfeeding in order to sell formula milk, have been the target of student boycotts overseas and in the UK for several years. Unions and guilds at universities around the country claim a uniquely responsible approach to retailing, but an ethical trading policy recently renewed at the University of Manchester Students’ Union (UMSU) contains a glaring omission: tobacco companies.

Some Union Executives, including UMSU’s General Secretary, say they believe large numbers of politically active students smoke, and that this is one reason for a lack of protest on the issue. Others point out that large (and successful) governmental campaigns against smoking may have caused complacency.

But with a turnover of millions across the UK’s student unions, the percieved financial benefits of tobacco remain a threat to potential anti-smoking campaigns by students.

The National Union of Students, through its retail services arm, supplied individual students’ unions in the UK with over £5.5m worth of tobacco products last year, almost £400,000 more than the year before. These figures represent the wholesale value, before VAT and the retailer’s mark-up. UMSU, the country’s largest students’ union, spends over £60,000 a year on tobacco, the equivalent of about 300,000 cigarettes. There are 23 unions that spend over £100,000 on tobacco per financial year.

Manchester is not unique in terms of student apathy towards the cigarette industry. Last year a member of the Edinburgh University Students’ Association tried to pass a motion banning the sale of cigarettes on the premises. The motion passed, but in a heavily amended form: cigarettes were to be hidden from display in the Association building, meaning the removal of vending machines from the bar, which “can be accessed by under-18s”, as the motion stated. The financial impact of banning cigarettes was cited as an argument for watering down the motion.

But Deborah Arnott, Chief Executive for Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), Britain’s largest anti-smoking charity, said that retailers are less likely to be financially reliant on tobacco than other products: “You don’t get much profit from cigarettes; they’re high turnover but low mark-up. So why sell them; why sell a product that kills when you’re not even making much profit from it?”

When legislation passes in October 2011 to ban cigarette vending machines, which bars are paid a flat fee to have on their premises, most license venues say they will stop selling tobacco altogether. “Having to sell individual packs of cigarettes behind the bar is a waste of time,” says Arnott.

Hannah Paterson, Welfare Officer for UMSU, is resposnsible for representing the health and wellbeing of students. She said she was not aware of any anti-smoking campaigns on campus:  “Nobody’s brought it up as an issue,” Ms Paterson said.

“Anti-smoking campaigns have won a lot of big battles recently with the ban on smoking inside and the ban on advertising tobacco. I think people feel they’ve won a battle there and want to focus on things that are, in their eyes, more urgent.”

Students may be more active against tobacco companies if the problem were recognised as an international human rights issue rather than a personal health issue, says Arnott: “It’s not really seen as an international issue as much, yet it is an international issue because actually, and we’ve produced reports on this, it is a very unethical industry, hardly surprising I suppose.

“If you look at countries where tobacco is produced like Malawi or Kenya, the producers are in a form of bondage in that they are lent money by tobacco companies to buy fertiliser and stuff like that and they have to sell the tobacco leaf back to those companies. They get sucked in and have to keep growing the leaf because they don’t have the money to get out [of debt]. It’s a lot like sharecropping was in the States.”

A report published by ASH with the help of Christian Aid details a host of corporate abuses including how British American Tobacco (BAT), along with others, blocked a malaria prevention programme in Uganda because they feared the pesticides used to kill mosquitoes in farm workers’ homes would damage tobacco crops.  The aggressive marketing of cigarettes towards children, and the exacerbation of famine, are also explored in the report.

The NUS said they were too busy with campaigning around last week’s tuition fees vote to comment on tobacco sales. One member of staff said “I don’t think it’s as big a deal as you’re making out.”

This attitude is reflected by others in the politically active student community: one cannot campaign on everything at once; there are cuts to worry about at the moment.

Arnott advocates engagement with students, rather than forcing the removal of cigarettes from unions, “Why do they care about Coca Cola but not Lucky Strike or British American Tobacco? I don’t know. If they care about one, they should care about the other.”