I’m Chris Jenkinson, the Academic Affairs Officer at the University of Manchester Students’ Union.
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 Mar 17th, 2008
I just thought I’d mention that I’ve been elected as the new Academic Affairs Officer for the University of Manchester Students’ Union for the 2008/9 academic year. The post is to represent students, individually and collectively, within the University, to advise students on education/academic issues, and to inform students about education issues.
It’s a full-time position, [...]
Posted in Student politics on Mar 11th, 2008
Not able to gracefully admit defeat, learn the lessons and move on, several members of the Socialist Workers’ Party at the University of Manchester have started attacking students for democratically booting them out. Dave Sewell, one of the few SWP members who will be on Union council next year has written a rather bitter message [...]
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 Nov 11th, 2007
The University of Manchester Student Union’s Council is an interesting contraption; it’s frequently criticised as being rather pointless. The obvious question is why is it pointless? I am going to attempt to answer that question, and propose some solutions. That question can be broken down.
Is Council pointless:
- because of its structure?
- because of its [...]
Posted in Student politics on Nov 3rd, 2007
This post is a little on the late side, but must be said anyway.
At last academic year’s National Union of Students conference in April, a motion was passed calling for a review of the governance of NUS. The proposed changes are now available. To actually implement the changes, two conferences need to be held, and [...]
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 May 4th, 2007
This year’s been a much better year for the Lib Dems in Manchester than 2006, with us holding all the seats where our councillors were up for re-election, and gaining one seat in Chorlton - congratulations Paul Ankers! Lev unfortunately did not get elected in Northenden despite being a wonderful person (with the best campaign [...]
Twitter Liberal Democrat blogs