Day: 13 March 2012

In issue 13 of The Mancunion Joshua Carroll condemned religion as rubbish, I’m going to let you know why his argument is the real rubbish.

If you recall, he started off by blaming religion for the lack of bins in public, and as the reason unattended luggage is considered a threat today. His grave mistake was to confuse religion with politics and despite what some people think they are not the same.  There are no bins in public areas because of the IRA, a political organisation in search of independence from Britain and regardless of their Catholic allegiances the terrorist act was for political, not religious reasons.

Luggage cannot be left unattended because of a series of terrorist attacks including but not limited to 9/11. In the case of 9/11 it was again not a religious attack, but an attack by a group that was against American intervention in the Middle East; religion was only the excuse. Unfortunately, nations often try to legitimise wars by telling the public it is to protect their religion but it is always about political power struggles; anyone who actually thinks religion is the only factor in any war needs to sit in a few politics classes and learn something.

Secondly, I thought I should bring it to everyone’s attention that the Trafford Centre, the Arndale, ASDA and Sainsbury’s, among others, are all open on a Sunday. So next time you’re going to throw wild accusations around, I suggest double-checking that the problem actually exists. And as for having to endure Songs of Praise on a Sunday, who told you to turn on the T.V. and watch it? Honestly, it’s one programme on one day of the week.  Are six other days and hundreds of other programmes not enough for you? No one said you have to watch the show and there’s this nifty appliance called a DVD player which you can use to watch something else rather than what national T.V. is broadcasting.

The one criticism of religion I’ll take as legitimate is the nuisance of door-to-door evangelists, because I can’t help but agree they get on my nerves too, especially when they don’t take no for an answer. But really, a picture of two fornicating men in a church is a real solution? Not only is that immature, but if I were an evangelist I would in fact take it as an invitation to knock on your door, because having sex in a public place, no less a church, does make you seem in need of some form of guidance. Might I suggest that you simply ignore them? In my experience they have never knocked more than twice before giving up and walking away – and, if you accidentally do answer the door, just say they’ve caught you at a bad time. Because let’s be honest, that is usually the case; more often than not they’ll just give you a pamphlet and march on their merry way.

Finally, apparently religion has ruined Sundays? Before reading Carroll’s article I had always thought people enjoyed Sundays, but I guess was wrong. I had thought it was the perfect day to nurse your hangover before starting another long week at university, visit your mum and eat a roast dinner, catch up with friends or just laze about and de-stress. But if religion has destroyed Sundays here’s what I think: let’s rebel against religion by petitioning for lectures and seminars on a Sunday, that way we can effectively eradicate God’s day of rest and claim it back for ourselves. And when we’re successful we’ll only have Joshua Carroll to thank for reminding us that the only reason we have Sundays off is because of religion and we don’t want religion to ruin our lives.

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There’s been a great deal of fuss lately over the government’s latest work experience programme backed, most notably, by Tesco. In fact, so loud has opposition to the scheme become that a number of organisations currently involved have threatened to back out on the basis that it is harming their business; some, like Sainsbury’s, have already left. What’s the evil plan at work here that has riled so many feathers? It is, according to certain people, ‘slave labour’. That’s right, our government is forcing people into petty labour under threat of death with no reward save some bread, water and a swift kick to the backside in return. Actually hang on, that’s not even slightly what’s happening.

In an attempt to address the record youth unemployment in the country, employment minister Chris Grayling has spearheaded this ‘workfare’ scheme, which sees companies like Tesco and Sainsbury’s offer short term unpaid work experience to young people currently out of work and receiving unemployment benefits. The companies pay expenses like travel, but offer no salary for the duration of the six to eight week placements. So, they expect people to work for them for free just because they have no previous work experience and often few or no qualifications? Outrageous!

Or, alternatively, just like almost every other employment sector there is. Newspapers offer unpaid internships, as do accountants, law firms, banks and various organisations in almost every field there is. These we are OK with; somebody doing an unpaid internship at the Financial Times is perfectly acceptable, but somehow doing the same for Tesco is not it seems. The reason for this is obvious I suppose: working at the Financial Times is a ‘good’ job, and therefore one worth undertaking unpaid work experience to get to, whereas stacking shelves is a ‘how-on-earth-could-anybody-ever-want-to-do-something-so-frightful’ job, and so unpaid work experience is slave labour.

David Cameron has denounced the most vocal opposition to the workfare scheme as ‘Trotskyites’; whilst this may be going a bit too far, I wholeheartedly agree with his assessment of the schemes’ critics as ‘job snobs’. Everyone reading this knows how difficult it is to get a job, stuck in the unbreakable cycle of needing experience to get a position and needing a position to get experience.

There is disagreement over the precise figures, but at least 50 percent and by some estimates up to 70 percent of people enter full-time, paid employment after completing a work experience placement under the scheme. Six weeks unpaid (and, by the way, these people are still receiving benefits so it’s not even really unpaid) for some experience and a job at the end? I’d take that deal.

Also, let’s not forget that these placements are not compulsory. People choose to go on them. If nothing else, that ought to stop the counter-argument dead in the water – if you don’t like the workfare scheme, then do not sign up for it. In all the debate over this issue, nobody seems to have taken into account the people actually using this scheme – do they want to continue it? Of course they do, or they wouldn’t be on the scheme in the first place. Would they rather be paid than work for free? Obviously, but if Tesco had to pay all of its work experience people then it would not be offering the placements.

There was originally an idea to cut the benefits of people who left their work experience placement half-way through. Whether rightly or wrongly, this has now been dropped and with it has gone the only reasonable argument that could possibly be made against workfare. I would give my left ear for an unpaid work experience placement at Clifford Chance LLP, it’s time everyone stops being so damned hypocritical and realises that the same is true for everyone else without experience, no matter what their line of work may be.

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As more big businesses continue to criticise and to drop out of government unpaid work experience schemes, it is surely the case that the system is flawed. There are several different schemes currently being employed, some of which are voluntary and others of which have some degree of compulsion, but the former schemes still carry risk since those who do not complete their placements can still be sanctioned. The situation has resulted in accusations of “slave labour” from detractors, whilst supporters have argued that people should be forced to work for their benefits and that they will also gain something from the experience.

The big issue is not that people are being forced to do menial jobs, but that they are doing them for nothing. Under the compulsory “Mandatory Work Activity” scheme, anyone may be forced to work for six to eight weeks unpaid for up to 30 hours a week. It may be argued that they are essentially earning their Jobseeker’s Allowance through this, but it is hardly a comparable sum to what they would earn from paid work. For example, a 21-year-old may be paid a maximum of £53.45 in a week, yet if their 30 hours of work were paid for at the minimum wage rate they would in fact earn £182.40. Despite the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) noting that less than 10,000 people should be referred to this programme in a year, between May and November 2011, 24,010 people were referred to it. It thus seems as though the scheme is being used to take advantage of as much cheap labour as possible.

It is also doubtful just how useful the experience is to those seeking work. If big businesses use these people purely for menial jobs, then they will not in fact learn any real skills. The “Mandatory Work Activity” scheme is also supposedly aimed at those “who have little or no understanding of what behaviours are required to obtain and keep work”, yet there are accounts of people with years of experience of paid work being forced to take placements. Clearly the guidelines set in place for this scheme are being either stretched or ignored completely.

There is also concern that these schemes are being provided at the expense of more paid jobs. Although DWP minister Maria Miller recently claimed that there “isn’t a shortage of jobs” in the UK, analysis of the data has contradicted her claim and suggested that there could be as many as ten people chasing every job. If businesses have the choice of hiring a worker for a wage or providing a work experience placement for free, they will have little incentive to do the former.

It has recently been suggested by an advisory body to the DWP that evidence had emerged by December that “work experience placements were being taken on to cover Christmas vacancies”. Even those already in employment can suffer, since there has also been evidence that less overtime is being offered in instances where the work can be covered for free.

Whilst being profitable for big businesses who are being handed an opportunity to slash costs, these schemes clearly aren’t going to get Britain back to work, and they should be given serious reconsideration before the situation gets worse.

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There seems to be a growing trend amongst humanities lecturers to teach their tutorials through the medium of student-led presentations. It’s not exactly surprising, seeing as there is a particular benefit to these lecturers which no other teaching method can offer: they don’t actually have to do anything. The premise of a tutorial taken in this way is simple; each week one or more students prepares a presentation on a given topic, then delivers it haltingly to the class and poorly fields questions on the subject afterwards. Meanwhile, the lecturer looks on with mild disappointment, making the occasional scribble on his notepad.

The ability to present is of course a vital life skill, especially for the 99% of history students who dream of working in the City rather than being history teachers. As such, an activity which promotes presentation skills would be an excellent addition to any humanities, or indeed science, course. What’s happened here though, is that this activity has replaced half of the actual course. The main purpose, one might think, of a history course is to learn history. For a standard humanities module though, you will receive a mighty two contact hours a week: a one-hour lecture and a one-hour tutorial; a quick bit of maths on the back of a napkin tells me that, based on a standard six module course for a UK/EU student, each one of those contact hours costs just a shade over £12 currently (although this will rise to £34/hour for students starting this September).

So every week I pay more than the cost of 12 magic bus rides for the privilege of listening to some dolt who doesn’t even have a degree lecturing me on the article we both read at twelve ‘o’ clock last night on our phones in the 5th Ave toilets. Even worse is when that dolt is me, and I have to stand up and deliver a presentation to a room full of people who know precisely as little as I do about the topic, on account of the fact that we thought there was the off-chance somebody who does know about it would have taught us at some point during our university course.

There’s a qualified lecturer sitting right there, who knows everything there is to know about post-colonial cheese consumption levels in the Congo (or whatever), often he or she will even have a PhD in that very topic. Yet we are given this one hour each week to have face-to-face time with them and instead I have to listen to a hung-over, unwashed student stutter their way through a word-for-word recapitulation of the same book everybody there has read. That is, until they get nervous half way through, forget everything and abruptly end the presentation mid-sentence.

How in the world does anybody think this is acceptable? Imagine if you paid £13 to go to a guest presentation and the speaker just sat there whilst a member of the audience delivered a pisspoor speech instead. You would be livid. Yet because we are told that it is developing important life skills, it’s supposed to be OK that we accept the same thing from our lecturers. Of course, there are those occasions where you look forward to the student presentations solely because the lecturer’s English is so poor that nobody can understand a damn thing they’re saying, but that’s another matter entirely.

Enough with the student presentations already. We spend 90 percent of every course teaching ourselves anyway, it’s not unreasonable to expect that for a single hour a week you might bloody teach US something.

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“Minds are not changed by singular actions, however singular. They are changed when society comes to regard these singular actions as the rule rather than the exception, when common sense shifts on to the side of the erstwhile heretic.” Conor Gearty, LSE.

I wonder what picture formulates in your head when someone talks about the Occupy London movement. I know that in spite of my better instincts, I can’t help but conjure up an image of stoned hippies, dreadlocks, a few bohemian older people and ‘alternative’ parents insisting on camping out with their children who are too young to know what on earth is going on. And then I take a step back and realise the ludicrousness of that image, mainly because it is actually probably quite accurate. Has our apathy become so acute that the task of democratic exercise has been left to a few clichéd activists?

As I’m sure most people are probably aware, on Monday night the Occupy London camp was finally evicted from St Paul’s cathedral. Now we are left with two questions: have they actually achieved anything? And, what next?

To critics and skeptics, Occupy is an aimless movement, too indulged in the act of resisting and protesting to formulate a coherent and realistic set of goals. The rhetoric is populist and anti-government, and it is arguably all too easy to find support and validation amidst our current ‘crisis of capitalism.’ The recession is bad. Everyone hates the banks and discontent with the government has not been so rife since the ‘80s. The Occupy movement is a response to the discontent, but it is ultimately fruitless and inconsequential, isn’t it?

Well, no. It really doesn’t have to be. In this movement there is a chance for us to reclaim the democracy we so fervently champion as we fly its flag all over the world. This was the real aim of Occupy London; for us, the people, the ’99 percent’, to take matters back into our own hands. The only way this aim is going to be realised is if we get up off our butts and do something about it.

Democracy entails more than just turning out to vote once every five years (or even not, if the queue at the polling station is too long.) It’s a fight, it’s a struggle, and this is what the occupy movement recognized and represented.

The extent of its misrepresentation and the warped perception of its aims was highlighted in the ridiculous comment made by the Conservative MP Louise Mensch on Have I got News for You a few weeks ago. In reference to the protesters shocking tendency to buy coffee every day, she said, ‘if they prop up a corporate titan like Starbucks they’ve got to ask themselves how much of capitalism they really don’t like.’ I found the remark quite staggering. But she is obviously not alone in identifying the protesters as a bunch of crazy communists who are breaching their lofty ideals by entering a chain coffee shop.

The reality is that the protesters (a few exceptions permitted) aren’t suggesting utopian Marxist alternatives of a world without profit or business. They are simply highlighting the staggering inequalities that exist in out society today and are resolving to try to do something about it. The aim is one of democracy, justice and greater equality – not the entire overthrow of the capitalist system.

We all need to be more vigorous in our assertion of what we think is right and wrong, we have a duty to be. Occupy London won’t see tangible results in terms of economic justice for a long, long time, and if you’re skeptical, you’ll deem it a failure now. And if everyone deems it a failure now, then there may not ever be tangible results, because it requires more than a handful of extremely dedicated (and sometimes annoying) activists camped outside a church for a few weeks.

It takes absolutely everyone who thinks there is something wrong with the world we live in to try to do something about, to express unhappiness and discontent through more than just a cross in a box at a general election. The Occupy movement in London has come to end, there is nothing surprising in that – it was always going to. But the reasons for its existence and the values it has attempted to promote are more rife and more alive than ever. The future of it is in our hands, if only we believe it to be.

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Eve Fensome tells us why the refusal to recognise male-on-male rape is harmful to women as well as men

Despite vast historical documentation, it was not until 2008 that the UN recognised rape and sexual violence as a ‘weapon of war’ used by armies as a tactic against civilians. The ruling means that now the perpetrators of sexual violence during wars may be prosecuted in world courts alongside other war criminals. Since the 2008 ruling, the UN and other international governance organisations have been engaged in discussions relating to many aspects of sexual violence during conflict, with one significant omission. Male victims.

If you were inclined to wade through UN Security Resolutions pertaining to sexual violence during conflict, you will find the term: ‘gender-based violence’ more times than you could (or indeed would want to) shake a stick at. ‘Gender-based violence’ is one of those slippery, insidious and politically loaded terms, which for what it lacks in clarity, makes up for by being blessed with numerous definitions. It could mean: any violence enacted upon a person on account of their gender, but it has come to mean violence enacted upon women (and girls), which in turn has come to encompass all sexual violence.

The justification for this is that sexual violence is overwhelmingly experienced by females and therefore a sex-neutral definition is unnecessary.  In actual fact, male-on-male sexual violence is perhaps far more prevalent in war than the international community has ever imagined. For instance, a study of 6,000 concentration camp inmates in Sarajevo found that 80 percent of males reported that they had been raped during their detention. Another study shows that of all the Sri-Lankan males seen at a torture treatment centre in London, 21 percent reported sexual abuse. A 2010 survey found that in Eastern Congo 30 percent of women and 22 percent of men reported conflict-related sexual violence. We might also remember that the most conspicuous aspect of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq was the use of sexual abuse as part of the ritualised humiliation of inmates by American forces.

Mostly, data on the incidence of male sexual abuse is extremely hard to come by since few organisations are interested or well-equipped enough to collect it. This in turn continues to compound the belief that the only victims of sexual violence are female; the upshot is that the UN and other international NGOs only run programmes aimed at vulnerable women and will turn away male victims.

For most of the tenure of these global institutions, women’s experiences during conflict have been wholly ignored, yet now analysis of civilian violence is focused almost entirely on women. This is harmful not only to men, but also women. For as well as the pain experienced by many male victims of sexual violence who are denied help on account of their sex, we see the continuation of a rigid gender stereotype: that of the perennially weak female victim and the monolithic invulnerable male aggressor.

The international feminist community set out to remove these prejudices, and yet a policy which focuses purely on women results in their continued existence, to the detriment of both sexes. The international community must grasp that feminism will not be realised by women becoming the powerful oppressors, but by removing the oppression of rigid gender roles. The UN must realise that the global gender issue is not a zero-sum game. If we put one sex before another the result will always be a loss, if, on the other hand our strategy is equality, everybody wins.

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David Cameron has led the charge, saying he will fight to keep the nations of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland united.  This ‘safety in numbers’ approach put forward by the Prime Minister promises to maintain the strength of the UK, whilst continuing Scotland’s position as part of a global authority. Indeed, the matter is a case of basic maths: more countries equals more power; the break-up of the UK after over 300 years will only serve to leave Scotland as a weak and isolated country with a limited lifespan.

Scottish independence threatens to challenge our position in the UN, NATO and Europe, as well as important global alliances.  The running of the UK is set up around it being a united nation, with defence mechanisms and the armed forces representing all contributing states.  The UK’s entire nuclear arsenal is to be found at two locations in Scotland: Coulport and Faslane.  Going it alone could prove risky for the Scots as their armed forces will be almost wiped out overnight, leading to the question of whether they will even be able to defend themselves. More worryingly for Britain, will we be expected to continue to defend the Scots despite their decision to part from a stable alliance?

The UK is one of the world’s economic powerhouses, a position which would be jeopardized by a break-up; seriously for Britain and fatally for Scotland. In 2010 the UK’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was ranked 3rd out of all European countries, closely following France and Germany.  GDP recognises the market value of all goods and services produced by a country in a given period of time, and so this reflects the success of our combined economies.

If the Scots were to go their own way, not only would the remainder of the UK suffer from a severely weakened economy, but the new Scottish country would find itself in a dramatically different economic state.  Scotland’s First Minister, Alex Salmond, claims that over the next 20 years an independent country could raise £30bn from North Sea oil reserves, but this figure has been ridiculed by geologists who say the reserves have already reached their peak of production – suggesting that oil offers a short term solution to the long term problem of Scotland supporting its own economy. Salmond’s calculation error exposes the independence question for what it truely is – a rushed and ridiculous scheme.

The questioning of Scotland’s commitment to union comes at a time of widespread financial turmoil, and with the eurozone crisis worsening daily there appears to be no logical reason why Scotland should become independent and risk the pound following the doomed trajectory of the euro.  Here perhaps Scotland should look to its neighbour, Ireland, and take a lesson from the daily worsening of their European-funded economy.  During the present period of instability, the union must be seen both for its past success and future potential; we don’t want the troubles of a divided UK becoming another factor on the growing list of worldwide problems.

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“They may take our lives, but they’ll never take our FREEDOM!” screamed Hollywood’s William Wallace. But as it turns out, we did. English rule over our rebellious northern cousins had been well established for centuries, and 300 years ago Great Britain was created with the 1707 Act of Union. Has the time finally come for Scotland to get their long harboured desire for independence? An upcoming referendum will decide just that.

Despite a long colonialist history, it would seem the greatest support for an independent Scotland would be found south of the border. A recent poll by YouGov for Prospect Magazine has found that English voters favoured either maximum devolution for Scotland or independence by 52% to 32% — a bigger margin of support than in Scotland itself. The logic certainly must be based on the general irritation that Scotland enjoys a generous financial deal which allocates more public spending per head there than in England and enough is enough grumble the English.

As a student, I wholeheartedly agree that it is unfair that I have to pay tuition fees while Scottish students enjoy a free education, subsidised by British taxes. Another example of English taxpayers being hard done by would be with the removal of NHS prescription charges for sick Scots in 2007, whilst those in England choke on the £7.20 charge.

For years, Scottish MPs (of which there are currently 59) have been able to vote on matters which affect English politics, but political decisions which affect Scotland are decided in Holyrood, devoid of English representation. Why should these MPs affect legislation which does not impact on their constituents? The West Lothian question would finally be resolved by the removal of West Lothian.

The alternative to complete independence would be “Devo Max”. A tricky phrase currently bandied around by politicians, it is largely understood to mean the full devolution of all powers with the exception of defence and foreign affairs. Independent in all but force. As long as this would look to balance the books of the ever-generous Scottish welfare state, it seems a reasonable alternative to the risk of going out on a limb with full independence in an unstable eurozone.

Currently, the plans for the referendum are to only open voting to Scottish constituents; however it is surely an issue that will have a massive impact on the rest of the Union. Perhaps it is feared that the oppressive English, with its “occupation”, will quash the Scottish desire for freedom, but I do hope that the government will look to promote a national debate. There are many benefits, especially to a stalled British economy, that can be found in the realisation of Braveheartian dreams.

They already have their own money, a flag, and even a prospective national language. Why not let them go and try it on their own? It shouldn’t be a battle of ugly nationalism, instead we should encourage and foster a feeling of good will with our neighbours.

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It is now possible to take a course in iPhone photography; Ben Green tells us about it.

As reported in the Mancunion last week, the London College of Kensington (a university apparently) is now offering a course in iPhone photography.

 Ah, an afternoon spent showing technically-challenged people how to use their phones, no doubt sponsored by Apple? No, a full-blown five-week course dreamt up by photography teacher Richard Gray (without so much as a contribution from Apple) for actual students to learn how to take better pictures with their iPhones. Although the University do say that they may increase the course in future to cover Android and other smart phones. This is a relief for all those aspiring professional android-photographers out there, rightly worried that without sterling education like this they won’t be able to eke out a living selling snaps of celebrities to the Sun that they’ve taken on their fucking phone.

Real photography is, after all, overrated and far too much effort to be bothering with anyway, and besides how many megapixels do you really need? An iPhone’s got 8; sure you can’t hold it steady and there’s no lens or mirror and it keeps vibrating because it’s a phone not a camera and that’s what happens when someone calls you on your phone.

Here’s a fun little test, take a picture of another phone with your phone and compare it with the picture next to this article. This one was taken with a camera and is good. Yours was taken with a phone and is crap. The reason your picture is crap is not that you need to attend a course in how to correctly handle the camera that was slapped onto the back of your phone to save the designer having to do any actual designing, it’s because no matter what apps you download your phone is not a camera. It is not for photography, it is for taking seedy pictures of your partner or blurry shots of your mate after he’s passed out on top of a killer whale at London Zoo because he necked a bottle of Lambrini twenty minutes beforehand. And even if you had the latest SLR and a real photography degree, it would probably be shit anyway because you’ve had three bottles of Lambrini and a pint of vodka.

Who the hell is this course for? It’s not even long enough to act as an entry-point for those who can’t get a place on a real degree but still want to go spend three years spreading venereal diseases and ill-will. Like Football Technology and Land Economy (these really exist). The course costs around £200, so strikes just the right balance of being an effective way for the student to piss money away and not actually bringing anything worthwhile in for the university.

This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, and I don’t say that lightly.

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A personal plea for you to vote from the Electionjacker

So last year I made a little video (Google “Electionjacker”) to raise election awareness in Manchester, somebody had to.

And now the elections are here again. Before I even begin to try to show why you are more powerful than you think, I have to make a few concessions. As we move inexorably closer to the candidacy submissions deadline, the Windy-Left area is for once seemingly without a clear General Secretary candidate. The Soft Left, fresh from its not quite so strong showing last year, is apparently in the same boat. Meanwhile, Inaction Palastine is calling on us to continue to twin with half a million other universities on Mars and M-Soc continue their policy of interviewing candidates before backing them; whereas the Balour-HIJK-Soc bloc continue to provide us with their own unique breed of candidate.

Woe betide you if you live in halls, in fact, you might want to temporarily move out if you are in a compact, popular one like Owens Park. The candidates and their campaign teams will come for you, knocking on your doors at 12am and shouting promises at you in your lectures. Primark’s white bed sheets sales will skyrocket and Gavin’s photocopier will probably earn him a small fortune. Crap puns, lame slogans and innumerable shitty “flash mobs” will inconvenience you into indifference.

The Union will spend hundreds of pounds covering ambitious candidates’ expenses, whilst yet again an appallingly low turnout will only reiterate your cynicism and belief in the age old, “yeah, but no one really cares about the Union anyway”. And then, suddenly, results will be announced and it will all be over and disappear as quickly as it came, this whirlwind of anti-cuts pledges, tacky videos and acrylic-and-bed-sheet-posters. Until next March, no one will knock on Halls’ doors, or seem to give a damn about these mythical “needs of the normal students”.

Cynicism, poor attempts at satire and crappy jibes at blocs aside, why should anyone give a shit about the Students Union elections anyway? Most importantly of all, why should you? After all, all these thinly-veiled blocs really do want to be better than each other; but are they really doing that for your benefit?

If you don’t like a candidate, don’t vote for them. It really is as simple as that. But for God’s sake, get your displeasure and disgust with them known by voting for someone else. On the other hand, if you do vaguely like whatever Joe Bloggs running for Derpin Officer says, look into it! And do feel free to support him. Not knowing candidates personally is not just a poor excuse for not voting; it’s dishonest. Under the current voting system, even if you don’t like the look of each and every single candidate, it’s still possible to say so by voting in the last option to Re-Open Nominations. Who knows, maybe someone with ideas you finally like will run next time.

As university students, we are privileged to study at a remarkable institution in a vibrant city. It is a small, almost symbolic act, free of charge and the right of every individual, with potentially far-reaching consequences. Before you finish reading this and go back to playing Mario Kart or swearing at the cleaner for bringing in the world’s loudest vacuum cleaner at four in the morning, please take a moment to think about the opportunity you have this March. You have the chance to matter as an individual, the chance to make the difference between telling your friends and children twenty, thirty years down the line, “oh yeah, we had a Union, but no one cared about it anyway” or  “I was there the year we took back the Union”. So make sure you vote on 9 March; it ony takes 10 seconds. Take care of yourselves Manchester.

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