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LSE SU election endorsements

As various readers will know, I am currently studying at the London School of Economics. There are currently elections going on in the LSE Students' Union and I would like to give some endorsements.

LSESU endorsements: Alex Peters-Day for Gensec

I would like to endorse Alex Peters-Day for General Secretary of the LSE Students' Union.

This may come as a surprise to some; I have disagreed with some of the decisions that Alex has made this year and I am quite sure that I would do again were I here next year. Nevertheless, I want to throw, for whatever it is worth, my weight behind for this election. I have given the matter some consideration.

LSESU endorsements: Jack Tindale for Community & Welfare

Welfare, as understood in the SU context, is something close to my heart. As previously mentioned, I had to take the scenic route for my undergraduate degree because of illness and the good welfare support on offer meant I was able to complete my degree; something that was by no means certain.

I would like to endorse Jack Tindale for Community & Welfare.

Jack has been involved with the SU and School and knows how it works. I've had disagreements with him - ahem - in Democracy Committee meetings and I thought he handled the situation, and me, well.

LSESU endorsements: Duncan McKenna for education

My impression from the UGM was that Gaurav Srivastava is not a serious candidate, and so I will leave him aside; his was, though, one of the most entertaining stump speeches I've seen. I will therefore only deal with Duncan McKenna and Lois Clifton

For me, this choice came down to two things.

LSESU endorsements: Damini Onifade for Activities

I am not massively familiar with these candidates. My decision to plump for Damini comes down, essentially to his greater experience and my understanding that he has been effective on the Student Activities Committee against the issues I have with some of Matthew's ideas.

Damini has run the incredibly successful Afro-Caribbean Society, and so had a damned good idea about what societies actually need, not least from the point of view of promoting their events.

On the other hand, each of Matthew's ideas made me raise an eyebrow.

An open letter to Nadine Dorries, MP

Dear Ms Dorries,

On the seventh of this month, you tweeted

Really disappointed with lack of trolls in response to my troll tweet. Where are you all? Come back!

Mr Michael Haslam, using the Twitter username @mrhazzers, tweeted:

The Spanish Elections

The short version is that Mariano Rajoy's Popular Party have won an absolute majority and Alfredo Rubalcaba's Socialists have taken a drubbing. Results aren't quite fully counted at the time of writing, but the PSOE have gone from around 44% of the vote to less than 29%. That translates into going from 169 seats to 110. More importantly, the PP are at 186; the magic number of the 350-seats Congress of Deputies is 176. Where the outgoing Socialist PM, Jose Luis Zapatero, didn't have an absolute majority, Rajoy does.

The influence of the Crown

This post originally appeared on my old blog on 27th September 2009. Given the story in the Guardian that HRH has had an effective veto handed to him on twelve bills since 2005, it seemed appropriate to reproduce it..

On the 6th April [1780], Mr. Dunning moved … ‘that the influence of the crown has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished.’

Eclectic link dump: the riots

This is nothing more than a list of sources that I compiled for a video I was going to make on the riots that recently affected England. I've not had time and, were I to do it know, would use different information, there being new sources.

On "The Meaning of 9/11's Most Controversial Photo"

My attention has just been drawn to an article from last month on the Guardian's Comment is Free by Jonathan Jones. It concerns this photograph, taken on September 11th, 2001.

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