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Has the NUS really changed? Probably not.

I was pleased to read in The Daily Telegraph that the NUS has been successful in persuading HSBC to reverse its decision to charge graduates interest on their overdrafts. As a HSBC customer myself, I was not looking forward to the prospect of going through the process of switching bank accounts to avoid interest charges on my overdraft immediately after graduating. It does make a change to see the NUS achieve something for the benefit of students. One of my main irritations with the NUS is the time (and student money) it spends debating issues that it has no control over; whether it be UK and US foreign policy or third-world sweat shops, the fact is that whatever opinion the NUS expresses regarding such concerns (usually left-wing and often anti-capitalist), its view is insignificant to those making such decisions, if not ignored altogether.

However, I was interested to read an article on Conservative Home by Sam Rozatzi, a Conservative on the National Executive Committee of the NUS. He uses the recent publicity over the successful HSBC campaign to argue top-up fees have changed student politics, and have caused a shift in the NUS' focus from idealistic battles to practical everyday concerns facing students, making the organisation appealing to Conservative students and worthwhile to be involved in. I am not so sure the NUS has really changed that significantly. Granted, the HSBC campaign was a success, but it will have to do a lot more than that to convince the majority of us that it is not just a largely irrelevant debating ground for irritating leftist students with deluded political ambitions, remaining largely ineffective and inefficient in its operations. As Mark Wallace, campaign manager for the Freedom Association, adds in comments on the article “we know enough of NUS to get too excited too soon”. These are sentiments I would largely echo.

Pass fiasco looming?

One can hardly forget the ridiculous fiasco surrounding conference accreditation last year. Hundreds of people, including a peppering of notable MPs, where left queuing for days in order to secure passes to attend the conference.

Unfortunately my recent dealings with new organisers, Fingerprint Events Ltd, have hardly inspired me with confidence that a further disaster at this year’s conference will be averted. After receiving emails from Fingerprint Events claiming they had not received my accreditation form, despite the fact I had posted it several days earlier, I made a telephone call in order to ascertain whether they had in fact received my application. I was told that the applications were “in piles everywhere” so it was impossible to check if individual applications had been received. This level of organisation, indeed an apparent total lack of, is hardly confidence inspiring. Fortunately there is still plenty time for them to prove me wrong yet; if my pass hasn't arrived by mid-September, however, I might start to get worried.