I’m Chris Jenkinson, the Academic Affairs Officer at the University of Manchester Students’ Union.
Posted in Student politics on Jul 2nd, 2008
JR Hartley has written some interesting aims for the new executive at the Students’ Union for Manchester Metropolitan University which are quite transferable to other unions across the country. A session or interview with the various officers on Fuse FM every so often (which could be recorded and put on the website) is a potentially [...]
Posted in National politics on May 4th, 2008
Apparently, to quote Dave Sewell on his blog Complex System of Pipes:
I think the message to take home is this: in Manchester, Birmingham and Sheffield, where we could effectively canvass and reach out to people, Left List did very well. In London, no-one had heard of the new name, and still looked for Respect; where [...]
Posted in National politics on Mar 24th, 2008
Backing a plan to bring in supplementary vote (having a first and second preference in an election) is hardly radical, as Jack Straw and the government seem to think. Supplementary vote suffers from many of the problems moving away from first-past-the-post should intend to avoid - many ballots will not be counted (in FPTP, any [...]
Posted in Student politics on Nov 20th, 2007
If you don’t want a motion to be debated or passed at a meeting, is it right to walk out of a meeting so that it no longer has quorum? I would generally say no, but on the other hand, is it right that turning up to vote “no” may actually lead to the motion [...]
Posted in Student politics on May 20th, 2007
I fail to see why LDYS needs a policy committee. Its members are volunteers doing the job in their spare time, and they don’t receive any special training - in other words they are just regular party members with a fancy title.
When committees are created they disenfranchise normal members. They take the power of things [...]
Posted in National politics on May 17th, 2007
Brown’s the next Prime Minister then. Congratulations I suppose. What’s the point of Tony Blair hanging on for another 6 weeks then? Say what you like about there not being a general election when Thatcher was booted out, but at least the Tories had a contested leadership election back in 1990, albeit one by MPs [...]
Posted in National politics on May 6th, 2007
Despite some rather optimistic press releases from the Bristol Lib Dems recently about our chances of taking control of the city, we lost two seats including the executive member for social services, and already the other Lib Dem councillors have forced out the council leader, Barbara Janke. Now we’re down to 31 seats out of [...]
Posted in National politics on Oct 22nd, 2006
Jack Straw’s ideas about House of Lords reform (leaked document) are a good first step towards changing the chamber away from a council of elders into something actually reflecting the electorate at large. In short, the plan is to:
Reduce the number of members by a third.
Half 50% appointed and 50% elected.
Pay elected members a salary [...]
Twitter Liberal Democrat blogs