Etan Smallman

Etan Smallman

Trust Britain’s youth to be characteristically ungrateful. The Government goes to all the effort of making a website for 16 to 25- year-olds to express their views on identity cards, and all they get in return is a solid mixture of scorn, sneering and scepticism smattered across their fancy new forums.

In a bid to get the country’s youngsters on board the controversial scheme, the Home Office has launched MyLifeMyId.org, where 16 to 25 year olds “can have their say about identity issues in the UK.”

But anyone browsing the discussions on the site would be hard pushed to find a single positive comment, with contributors branding the controversial scheme as “creepy,” “dirty” and “illegal” and the website itself as an “online propaganda machine”.

One contributor writes: “I think it’s pretty disingenuous of the government to come out and say “hey, yo, cool dudes! If you sign up for our hip hoppin’ ID card scheme you’ll never have to carry a heavy s*** passport to prove your age to some wack bartender again” or however it is they think we talk.” Meanwhile, amcs1983 had this to say: “So far the stats look like 100% say no to ID cards. Time to lose these results in a train station…..”

Another is equally censorious: “A Note to Jacqui Smith”, which contained the advice: “George Orwell never intended 1984 to be a manual for society. You’re a smart woman, I’m sure you knew that but I thought you ought to be reminded.”

Complementing the MyLifeMyId website is a YouTube video featuring Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary. But rather curiously for a scheme that sets out to spark debate, the page indicates that “adding comments has been disabled for this video.”

Consequently, one intrepid YouTuber has re-uploaded the video to offer this facility. WillHowlett says: “Thought I’d reupload this piece of propaganda on behalf of Jacqui Smith but with the option to post comments and rate ON. You know, seeing as the video’s meant to be promoting discussion and everything.”

At the beginning of the year, when leaked documents revealed the Government’s proposals for the first stages of the rolling out of the contentious scheme, there was a ripple of discontent from a certain sector of the population. It was announced that the first ‘guinea-pigs’ for the project were to be students.

The National Union of Students (NUS) described the proposals as “extremely disappointing” and “morally reprehensible”. Ama Uzowuru, the NUS Vice President for welfare, said: “We would also be concerned for the safety of students’ personal information if they were forced to enter the ID card system.”

In March, the NUS expressed concerns that students would be in effect compelled to join the ID card scheme because they might not be able to gain access to key services – like the student loan system – without one.

The Government however is adamant that this will not be the case: “We will issue identity cards on a voluntary basis to young people from 2010, and there are no plans to make it necessary to hold an identity card to access any services,” a Home Office spokesman said.

“Young people who do not have an ID card will still be able to get student loans, and indeed no other public services will be denied just on the basis of whether they have an ID card.”

Nevertheless, the NUS say the Government may make it harder for students to claim loans and enrol at college without ID cards.

Although it is now evident that the overwhelming majority of comments on the website have lambasted the scheme, it is unclear what effect these views will have on its rollout in the run-up to 2010.

The Home Office’s spokesman was noticeably ambiguous on this question. “We want to know what people in this age group think of the National Identity Scheme, and their reactions to what services could be included with it,” he said. “The website will run for 12 weeks (until mid-October), and the feedback we get will be assessed, and the findings will help us shape how we roll-out the voluntary enrolment system for ID cards.”

However, one of the site’s users was less equivocal: “If they get a large negative reply [the Government will say that] ‘online figures do not necessarily represent the greater population’s opinion.’ If they get a large positive reply [the conclusion will be:] ‘We have received positive feedback from the population.’ Thats politics for ya!” he wrote.

After trawling through London’s art colleges, viewing all the degree shows, going to the studios and meeting the aspiring student artists for themselves, Saatchi and Warren have handpicked the cream of the crop. They are crossing their fingers that among the 21 aspiring artists showcased in the Anticipation exhibition, they have discovered the next big thing.

The result is a smorgasbord of artistic delights. From painting, photography, graphics, video and sculpture, to a zimmer-frame roundabout and an inflatable bunker-cum-bouncy castle.

The featured artists pocket all the profits from the sale of their work. Saatchi and Warren say that they have never heard of another show like it. “Even the college degree shows normally take a percentage,” Warren remarks. It was a central to the concept of Anticipation from the beginning according to Saatchi: “We always wanted to make it a philanthropic show, and Catriona and I definitely don’t want the artists to think we’re trying to exploit them in any way by making money off them.” Last year’s show generated over £100,000 in sales, and this year’s is set to make even more.

American-born Kay Saatchi is the ex-wife of art collector Charles Saatchi. When she dipped her toe back into the art world after her divorce, headlines abounded about her “invading Mr Saatchi’s turf” by trying to unearth new talent herself. But with 20 years experience in the London art scene after arriving in the capital and starting a contemporary art gallery, she seems more than qualified to give her ex a run for his money.

Catriona Warren was editor of ArtReview, Britain’s longest-established contemporary art magazine, for 20 years. In 2001 she introduced ArtReview’s acclaimed supplements on the best student art, highlighting the hottest emerging talent. With Anticipation in its second year, Saatchi and Warren may well be on their way to unearthing the next Damian or Tracey.

So what marks these 21 artists out from the heaving crowd of aspiring young talent out there? Warren says that the work usually grabs her instantly. What makes these artists special is that “it just gives us a sense of excitement to see their work,” she says.

They both agree that it adds an extra dimension to talk to the artists about their creations. “That’s one of the reasons we make it a philanthropic show,” says Saatchi. “We feel we are given access into their studios where collectors and other people aren’t.”

One of the chosen artists is 22-year-old Sarah Lederman, whose enchanting nudes caught the eye of the two talent-spotters. Lederman describes her work as “strongly influenced by my childhood fantasies; fairytales, castles and the loss of innocence.” Her delightful drippy oil paintings seek to “build up cells and filth to allude to the surface of the skin [making] the disgusting and repulsive become beautiful.”

After a series of mishaps involving a missed email informing her of the curators’ visit, Lederman “just happened to stumble on them in my studio space [at Chelsea College of Art]”. When realising that she had been chosen for the show, she says, “it felt amazing.”

Lederman had sold a substantial amount of her work before her degree show at Chelsea had even finished, two weeks before Anticipation opened. Lederman is delighted with two new patrons on her side. “They’re such nice people. And they really care about every single artist – they push and root for them, and I think they’ll do that afterwards as well. I just get that feeling.”

Also in the exhibition is fellow Chelsea graduate Giles Ripley with a zany video piece showing five clones of himself orchestrating and then performing a mimed rendition of The Temptations’ 1964 hit ‘My Girl’.

The description of the exhibition boasts that the “artists reflect the new climate in the art world today.” Saatchi explains that “a lot of young artists used to feel that the only way to get their art noticed was to make it either huge or very shocking.” That is one thing that has changed, but one theme that runs through this show seems to be a determined focus on animals.

“We’ve seen lots of animals dead or alive,” Saatchi chuckles. “It’s part of a trend that’s been coming along for a few years” apparently, so not just a general student fixation.

Simon Ward’s grisly but beautiful works are intensely detailed scanned reproductions of recently deceased animals, some still bloodied.

Saatchi and Warren clearly love cultivating fresh young talent. “We do form quite nice relationships with them,” Saatchi comments, “kind of like their aunts. We introduce collectors to them, explain their work … and they call us up for advice.”

There is also a sense that the collector in Saatchi finds it difficult to resist acquiring some of the work for herself before Selfridges shoppers have a chance to get their mitts on them. “Kay ends up wanting to take some of the work home herself,” Warren says with a sideways glance. “I try not to” Saatchi protests. “I’m out of space!”

So if you’re after a glimpse of the next generation of British artists, want to grab a bargain before they really hit the big time, or just want a visit to an exhibition where you can actually meet the people behind the paintings (and animal heads), this is the place for you.

And if you’re a student artist toiling away in your studio and you receive a tap on the shoulder from two smiling middle-aged ladies, take a deep breath. You might be about to strike it very lucky indeed.

Anticipation is on show in Selfridges, Oxford Street until 3 August. Admission is free.

Last week saw youngsters taking over BBC’s flagship political programme, with students producing the show, populating the audience and one lucky young person even winning a place on the panel. Etan Smallman, one of the final 10 contenders for a prestigious panel position, reviews a groundbreaking night of political engagement.

If you haven’t already heard, Britain’s youth are going down the tubes. We’re stabbing each other on a scale never before seen, we’re binge drinking and when we’ve got a spare moment, we’re adding a couple of noughts to Britain’s underage pregnancy statistics. Oh, and if you’ll excuse the pun (and mixed metaphor) you can cut the apathy with a knife.

So when, last Thursday, the BBC teamed up with the Institute for Citizenship to put on a day of events focusing on engaging young people in politics, economics and 21st century citizenship, it is no exaggeration to say that a minor revolution was underway.

Nearly 2000 youngsters were crammed into Westminster’s Central Hall to debate the issues of the day. Knife crime was unsurprisingly the hot topic, but also on the agenda were the credit crunch, climate change and the portrayal of young people in the media.

There to help them were no less than the BBC’s brightest stars, from Andrew Marr and Mark Thompson to Huw Edwards and David Dimbleby. The summit was an unprecedented gathering of youngsters and will ultimately result in the production of a Young Citizens’ Action Agenda, which will be handed to the Prime Minister and London’s Mayor Boris Johnson in October.

The main event however was the BBC’s annual Schools Question Time which led straight on from the summit and made those attending the largest ever audience of the show.

Winning students from four schools were producing the programme and they were charged with selecting one winner from all those that had applied through the BBC website. Applicants had to send in a 60 second video clip explaining why they should represent the younger generation on the panel and be given the chance to battle it out with the parties’ big beasts on primetime BBC One. A shortlist of 10 was drawn up for the public to then have their say on the website’s forum.

The eventual winner, Michael Heaver, 18, from Cambridge (not the university – he was keen to point out in his audition video) was only the third member of the public ever to grace the Question Time panel in its illustrious 29-year history.

After getting into the final five for a Westminster studio audition with David Dimbleby, Heaver was up against four other young hopefuls, including an eco-warrior just back from a trip to the Arctic, and the so-called “world’s best debater.”

But it was only after winning the competition that his mettle was really put to the test, on the show itself, arguing against, among others, Conservative big-cheese Iain Duncan Smith, and Apprentice big-mouth Saira Khan.

“It was nerve racking,” Heaver tells Times Online Student. “You can’t really explain it until you’re actually up on that stage with 2000 people in the audience.”

An impassioned UK Independence Party member, Heaver is UKIP’s brightest (and unlikeliest) rising star. But he himself is surprised that the BBC plumped for an outspoken anti-Europe activist.

“I thought it would hinder me quite a bit,” he admits. “Because they might have thought that [a Labour or Conservative party member] is a more representative young person. Well I actually disagree with that view. I actually think they selected someone who was slightly on the fringe because a majority of young people aren’t interested in politics anyway.”

“So, I’m very surprised that I got selected. But I think it helped me in a way in the actual audition because what it allowed me to do on nearly every angle was put an alternative view across. And not just the slightly different, argumentative, mud-slinging type of opinion; an actual completely different vantage point on the issue,” he contends.

Heaver became aware of the party whilst studying for his A-Level in Politics. “I was researching Britain’s political parties and couldn’t find a difference among any of the [three main parties], and all I could find outside of them were the lunatic fringe. That was until I found out about UKIP. I actually joined UKIP for its sensible policies on education especially.” Indeed, in the audition, the show itself, and this interview, Heaver couldn’t resist bringing in his views on grammar schools, asserting that UKIP is the only party that’s going to bring them back.

Despite some heated debate on the show, Heaver has nothing but positive words for his fellow panellists. “The guys that I was on the panel with were all really nice, particularly Iain Duncan Smith,” Heaver says. “We got on really well backstage. I thought he’d be an idiot from his Conservative leadership stint, but he’s actually a really nice guy”.

The die-hard Euro-sceptic is now bound for a degree in European politics at the University of East Anglia come September, but doesn’t anticipate a career in the political arena.

“My inspiration is nothing more than simply wanting to really make a difference. Hence why I’m in UKIP, you know; if you’re after career prospects, UKIP isn’t where you go. I’d be quite happy just to remain as somebody involved in the political process just in my spare time, rather than a career.”

As Founder President of the Institute of Citizenship, and of course, long-time presenter of Question Time, David Dimbleby has had a pivotal role in establishing the ‘Schools’ version of Question Time as an annual event.

Alongside Heaver on the BBC Breakfast sofa, he said: “You know I’ve been trying to persuade the BBC for years to do this as a regular thing; that they should have a regular younger version of Question Time.”

“I think [young people] are interested, but don’t have access to the airwaves, don’t have access to the argument. And people wait till they’re hoary 22 year olds before they get stuck in,” he asserted.

The Schools Question Time extravaganza may be over until next year, but it appears it won’t be the only chance Britain’s under-22s get to voice their opinions to the nation – at least, if David Dimbleby has anything to do with it.

The Home Office is out to quench students’ thirsts for alcohol with a multi-million pound, multi-media campaign, designed to shock

Bladdered. Rat-arsed. Sozzled. Wasted. Smashed. The extraordinary number of synonyms we have for getting pissed must say it all about Brits and our attitude to alcohol.

The statistics almost speak for themselves. The British Crime Survey shows that 46 per cent of victims of violent incidents believed the offender to be under the influence of alcohol and 18-24 year-olds are most often associated with alcohol related offences.

Little wonder then that the government is so keen to discourage youngsters from hitting the bottle that is has just launched a high-profile £4 million media assault across television, radio, and the web. With one advert aimed at boys and one at girls, this week saw the premiere of the commercials targeting 18-24 year olds.

The adverts reverse the sequence of a drinking session gone wrong, showing a young man and woman preparing for a night out. The young man can be seen tearing his clothes, smearing himself in a take-away, ripping his earring out (with accompanying sound-effect), urinating on himself, and proceeding to thrust his face into his wardrobe door.

The girl has the indignity of wetting herself, throwing up in the bathroom sink, rearranging the vomit in her hair and breaking the heel off her shoe, before hobbling out of the house ready to paint the town red. The ads carry the punchy strap line: “You wouldn’t start a night like this, so why end it that way?”

The government is clearly resorting to shock-tactics reminiscent of the campaign against drink driving, but with 50 per cent of girls and 44 per cent of boys in England having been drunk at least twice by the age of 15 – according to a World Health Organisation report – they have an uphill struggle ahead of them. For the average British youngster, drinking in moderation is a thoroughly alien concept. “Responsible” drinking is consigned to a small-print suggestion in the corner of adverts like these.

The brains behind the campaign wanted to avoid it being didactic in favour of driving home a hard-hitting message; torn clothes and vomit-encrusted hair are just the comparatively lighter side of alcohol taken beyond its limits. On the darker side, the consequences of drinking yourself to distraction can be physical assault or even rape.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith warns: “Binge drinking is not only damaging to health but it makes individuals vulnerable to harm. People who are drunk are much more likely to be involved in an accident or assault, be charged with a criminal offence, contract a sexually transmitted disease or have an unplanned pregnancy.”

The tentacles of the campaign certainly extend far wider than a traditional TV campaign and sound bites from the Home Secretary. In a bid to create as much buzz as possible around the campaign, there is a viral video intended to sweep the net (even more graphic than the TV ads). The government will also be targeting Facebook, YouTube, and the like.

To help launch the campaign, a fashion display taking up a four-window shop front has been unveiled in London’s Covent Garden. It looks like a rather twisted reimagining of a Harvey Nichols’ shop front showcasing what’s de rigueur for any self-respecting young binge-drinker.

Among the neon lights of your average high-fashion window display, there are half-dressed mannequins stooping and staggering in their underwear. One female mannequin is replete with what looks like the latest designer dress, but stands above a distinctly personal puddle.

Most London city slickers appeared to pass by the subversive “Nightlife Collection”, as it has been branded, without so much as a second glance. However, the display did intrigue a few passers-by enough to take a second look, helped along by some clipboard-wielding girls in black “KNOW YOUR LIMITS” T-shirts quizzing youngsters on their drinking habits. The set-up will be on display for the next fortnight in Long Acre, WC2 (with the clipboard ladies on hand at weekends) and there are plans to recreate the scene in a town centre near you.

With delicious irony, there happens to be a pub directly opposite the faux shop-front. Unfortunately, drinkers leaving The Freemason’s Arms will not likely be confronted by the thought-provoking display. Blinds are drawn across the window displays as the evening dawns, because those coming to the end of a heady night out are thought not to appreciate the message of the campaign. “They wouldn’t be receptive to it” was the description by one of the people involved in the campaign’s conception (a veiled reference to fears of drink-fuelled vandalism, perhaps). Is this proof to the sceptics that the campaign is doomed to fail? Or is it perhaps just further evidence that the government message is more prescient now than ever?

Sex, politicians, and a creeping invasion of student privacy in this month’s weird and wonderful campus news …

Students. Sex. And ethical endeavours. A triumvirate of elements that form the perfect student news snippet, I’m sure you’ll agree.

So it is with great pleasure that we report that the NUS is on the lookout for “condom ambassadors” for an ethical brand of rubbers to rival market leader, Durex. The people who brought you One water are now presenting “One” condoms, using the money raised – fittingly – to combat HIV and Aids in southern Africa.

If you would like to be one such ambassador, helping to encourage students’ unions and universities to stock the ethical brand, email stephen@global-ethics.com to jump on board.

They’re like buses aren’t they? You wait for one condom story and then three come along at once. Admittedly, last week was national condom week, would you believe it. But it is surely a matter of complete coincidence that it coincided with a veritable rash of condom-student related stories.

In Coventry, students have been showered with condoms and other safe sex goodies, while Nouse, the York University newspaper, reports that “negative feedback” from students “including reports of breakages and a sharp increase in requests from students for pregnancy tests” have led York’s student union to switch back to market-leader Durex.

— Are you one of those people who is simply dying to be a funeral director? Well, guess what… your mortal wish has now come true. Adding to the list of what those darned critics dub mickey-mouse courses, the University of Bath is now offering a two-year degree for funeral directors. Let’s just hope it doesn’t lead to a dead-end job (every pun intended).

— While you’re all striving for that 1st/ 2:1/ any-old-pass – delete as applicable – there’s one commodity that is proving to be just as sought after: privacy.

Professor Geraint Johnes of Lancaster University has been ticked off for breaching data protection laws. The economics lecturer gave details of a student’s timetable to his mother, after she emailed to say that her son was drinking and smoking too much.

The mother surely deserves an accolade for the most concise summing up of student life ever uttered: “I, very wrongly it seems, assumed that he would be fully engaged. He is now quite addicted to alcohol, smokes and has spent a great deal of time over the last nine months asleep.” In turn, the student concerned, Christian Gardner, complained to the university. He has since expressed surprise that information was disclosed to his mother without his permission.

“Other parents had telephoned and had been told the university could not say whether a student was alive or dead”, he said.

— Meanwhile, Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, has been embarrassed by a piece of information which was also a little too freely available for his liking. The latest issue of Varsity, the Cambridge paper, reports that Clegg has been invited to re-join the Cambridge University Conservative Association after he was exposed as an active Tory during his time student days.

Mike Morley, the CUCA chairman, has been rubbing his hands with glee at the news, and written to Clegg advising him of the benefits of re-joining, including reduced priced tickets to “our social events, including the May week garden party and termly chairman’s dinner.” Mr Clegg has responded with a statement that he is “one hundred per cent adamant that this is not true”.

Clegg joins a growing list of politicians whose student days are a source of mounting embarrassment. But one can only dream what copious quantities of juicy and incriminating evidence would be cropping up, had Facebook been around in the days of Clegg, Cameron, Johnson et al.

Crucially, with just a solitary old photo well and truly thwarting Cameron’s attempts to portray himself as the humble man of the people, you dread to think what cyberspace holds in store for today’s generation of future political stars.

How interesting then that in the very same issue, Varsity notes that proctors at Oxford University are using photographic evidence gathered from Facebook to fine students for misbehaviour. With fines ranging from £80 to £500 and increasing numbers of indiscreet photos popping up on the social-networking site, the student union claims that the university’s revenue from the fines has risen by 465% to £11,065 in the last year alone.

So it seems we don’t even need to wait to reach the dizzying heights of political power, before our student excesses come back to haunt us.

Hold on, what’s that? The sound of students across the country scrabbling for the “Disable Account” button, by any chance?

With Facebook friends like these, who needs enemies?

If you know of a student story that you think should be featured in our news round-up, please contact Etan Smallman at etansmallman@gmail.com.

Mr Streeting is the first non-female and non-blonde president of the National Union of Students in six years, but more to the point, he is the only Labour president in four years (despite Labour dominating the presidency for the overwhelming majority of NUS’s illustrious history).

Fresh from victory, the president-elect has launched himself into a spot of good old Boris-bashing (all the while heralding Ken as a “student-friendly” saviour). In a blog post and Facebook note, Streeting urges students to avert what he describes as “the nightmare of our capital being run by Boris Johnson”. It is fair to say that NUS officers across the spectrum are getting in a spin about the looming prospect of Johnson as mayor, with Facebook groups, notes, profiles and statuses cropping up daily to alert students to what they see as London’s impending apocalypse.

While Labour Students, along with all manner of other left-leaning student groups, are vigorously united around the anti-Boris banner, one gets a sneaking suspicion that Tory students (or Conservative Future, to give them their proper name) are utterly chuffed that Boris is the Conservatives’ man for mayor. After all, Boris has all too literally been a poster-boy for the group. He was the man chosen to adorn the rooms of students across the UK, when Conservative Future printed a set of what came to be highly-prized posters that made Conservative stalls at freshers’ fairs across the country the places to be.

It all started with “I heart Boris” badges that first popped up at 2006′s NUS Conference and then re-appeared at the nation’s students’ unions along with those quite delightful pop-art posters: Boris Johnson reincarnated as Marilyn Monroe in one design; Lord Kitchener in another.

Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson may be a poster-boy for a generation of students, but you could be forgiven for assuming that he would want to get as far away from his own student days as he possibly could. Alas, not. For his part, Boris has been dredging up his good-old-student-days as if there were no (election) tomorrow.

“Have you ever seen his room?” one senior Conservative asked political aficionado Andrew Rawnsley, “before going on to describe in aghast detail how Boris’s quarters at the Commons were a smelly anarchy of papers and old gym shoes”. “It’s like the worst sort of student dig,” the MP revealed; the observation proving to be quite a dig itself, for a man who may well rather wish his student days were forgotten about, thanks to membership (along with David Cameron) of the infamous Bullingdon Club.

Then, it was those pesky drugs. Earlier this month, the press jumped on the “revelation” that Boris had taken cocaine as a 19-year old Oxford undergrad, as disclosed to Janet Street-Porter.

However, as any Boris/ Have I Got News For You fans will attest, this was far from news. In one of his numerous legendary stints as host, the MP for Henley revealed that he “tried to” snort cocaine once, “unsuccessfully, a long time ago.”

What exactly was unsuccessful about it?

“I sneezed, I, I, sneezed … it was only a very small quantity, it was a long, long time ago; I think it’s probably a totally disgusting and ridiculous thing to do and I’m very, very, very, very, very – wrong and bad”, he told the HIGNFY audience to hoots of laughter all round.

“I think you’re commendably honest actually Boris”, one of the panellists declared. But as usual, it is Boris himself who probably best sums up the situation: “I think recklessly honest is probably the right word”.

— Finding an issue to unite the disparate and warring student factions is as difficult as getting Ken Livingstone to apologise. But they seem to have found one. Student Round-up can reveal the one thing marginally worse for the fate of mankind than Boris Johnson: the British National Party. The message coming from all corners of the student movement is that every student in the country must use his or her vote for whoever, in order to thwart the BNP from claiming much-anticipated success in the upcoming elections.

The last time the BNP caused such a rumpus in student circles was only in November of last year when its leader, Nick Griffin was offered – along with holocaust-denier David Irving – the hallowed platform of the Oxford Union. It is clear that the Union has lost none of its fervour for provoking controversy, placing themselves in The Thick of It once again. This time it’s Chris Langham, the BBC sitcom star convicted and jailed for 15 counts of downloading images of child abuse, who was invited to speak at the self-proclaimed “world’s most prestigious debating society”.

Unlike Griffin and Irving, whose invitations were dishonourably honoured, Langham’s was quite swiftly withdrawn following unwanted press attention. “We probably should have realised the uproar it would cause but hindsight is a great thing, it was probably a mistake” said Ben Glazer, spokesman for the Oxford Union. So the massive and highly-publicised protests outside the Union in November, which resulted in some students even storming the building, weren’t enough to bring on such a realisation?

So Mr Langham was invited purely for his artistic achievement? Mr Glazer added: “We felt with the negative press and comments surrounding the debate it was over-shadowing the great term of speakers we have booked.”

By that, Mr Glazer must be referring to a glittering roster of speakers that will confirm the Union as a hotbed of high-brow academic discussion. This term’s speakers include Jodie Marsh, Geri Halliwell, and Barry from Eastenders, no less.

If you know of a student story that you think should be featured in our news round-up, please contact Etan Smallman at etansmallman@gmail.com.

“University politics are vicious,” Henry Kissinger once quipped, “precisely because the stakes are so small.”

On the latter point, the 35 student activists running for positions at the forthcoming NUS Annual Conference are out to prove old Kissinger wrong. But vicious, the NUS elections are most certainly turning out to be. The first saga to emerge from the student scrum centres on an argument between NUS presidential candidate Wes Streeting, and Kevin Atkinson, a man that Streeting alleges “is a leading figure” in the campaign of one of his rivals, Ciaran Norris.

Streeting, currently NUS Vice President for Education, proclaimed in his blog that “the dirty tricks and smears are now well underway.” That was in response to an article published in The National Student newspaper, under the headline “‘Dirty Games’ – NUS presidential election stitch-up”.

The National Student reported that Kevin Atkinson, a Manchester Metropolitan University officer, had accused the NUS top brass of “backroom deals” and “dirty games,” by allegedly stitching up a deal “that will see NUS president Gemma Tumelty’s ‘Organised Independents’ faction being handed the vice-president higher education position for Aaron Porter, in exchange for them not standing a candidate against Streeting for president.”

Tumelty had announced this earth-shattering political deal at a Labour Students Political Weekend in Grantham, Lincolnshire, the paper claimed.

Factions and back room deals in student politics? Surely not. (Well, surely not a surprise to anyone with any experience in NUS politics.) But the utterly curious thing is that at the time Tumelty allegedly revealed the deal, she appears to have been 120 miles away from the venue reported. Far from being in Grantham, she was at the NUS Disabled Students’ Committee in London, her presence presumably confirmed by the numerous people she made her presentation to. This was followed, Wes’s blog helpfully points out, by a trip to see The Sound of Music. He continues: “On [the following day] Sunday November 18th, Gemma was introducing her partner to her parents for the first time. If you’d like to corroborate this, then I suggest phoning the NUS press office for comment from Gemma’s Mum!” That’s okay Wes, we’ll take your word for it.

– No doubt the student politicians are hoping to emulate their predecessors in making the short leap from student union oblivion to national parliamentary success, like Jack Straw, Charles Clarke, or Lembit Opik. Or maybe not.

If Charles Kennedy was Chatshow Charlie, then Opik is swiftly turning out to be Light Entertainment Lembit, popping up on our screens more times than you can shake a glitzy showbiz stick at. This time it was in aid of Sport Relief on a celebrity version of The Apprentice. It wouldn’t have done much for his street cred down Westminster way, or indeed for the credibility in general of former student politicians (he sat on NUS’s National Executive Committee following a stint as Bristol’s student union president).

Following team leader number one’s resignation 45 minutes in after ex-Sun chief Kelvin Mackenzie (in his usual diplomatic way) compared him to Hitler annexing Poland, Opik stepped into the breach. But the verdict on his leadership skills (he is hoping for his second presidency to be of the Liberal Democrats when the incumbent stands down) was far from overwhelming. The contestant who was ultimately fired, Hardeep-Singh-Kohli, offered a particularly scathing appraisal, calling Lembit “a welterweight politician from a c-list party”. Ouch.

On the other side of the board-room, Sir Alan sneered: “I don’t understand this Lembit fellow in the middle there – every time I ask him a question, he goes off into some kind of like party political broadcast.” It seems you can take the man out of politics …

– Meanwhile, you certainly can’t take the politics out of the nation’s student unions, with election fever certain to be sweeping through a campus near you. For those of you with political leanings, here’s a debrief.

LSE seem to have missed a century or so of female political emancipation, with The Beaver’s front page hailing “Jobs for the boys” as it reported on the election of “an all male self-proclaimed ‘dream team’ of close friends as its new paid Sabbatical Officers.”

It was more of the same at Cambridge and Bristol, with re-elections for both presidents, and all four of the 07/08 sabbatical officers at Cambridge who stood for a second year also winning their campaigns. At Manchester, the student paper proclaimed“Hard Left Suffer Crushing Defeat” as Rob Pinfold, “the Labour pin-up boy, beat [incumbent] Tom Skinner in a fierce battle between the hard left and the ‘Incredible’ slate.” Disney and Pixar’s ‘The Incredibles’, that is.

– Following my report last month that the student press have surveyed us and found us to be body-obsessed, sex-mad, binge-drinking individuals, Student Roundup was hoping for a let-up in the current round of student bashing. But the student press themselves aren’t helping things. This time, it was the turn of two of the so-called “elite” universities. Bristol’s Epigram proclaimed on their front page that “60% of Bristol students take class A drugs,” while Cambridge’s Varsity reporters hit tabloid gold with the headline “Class A Cambridge”. The crux of the stories? Apparently students take drugs. Quite a lot. We await more positive news in the coming fortnight. In the meantime, one word comrades – solidarity.

If you know of a student story that you think should be featured in our news round-up, please contact Etan Smallman at etansmallman@gmail.com.