Election Rumours

Student Union elections will be taking place soon, with nominations being offered from February 11th. The gossips over at Hack Attack have offered up a list of rumoured candidates for those of you who salivate over that kind of thing. It will certainly be interesting to see what kind of race things turn out to be, and what role some of the recent issues in the Students Union become central campaign themes (who, for instance, has a plan for regaining quorum at UGMs? And how about a method other than yet another debate on Israel/Palestine?).

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What’s On

What more is there to be said about the numerous failures on the part of the American and British military before, during and after the invasion of Iraq? Well, apparently some more, at least. Jonathan Steele, a reporter and columnist for The Guardian, will be speaking at the LSE this week about his latest book, Defeat: Why They Lost Iraq. You can read an extract of the book here.

When, Where: Thursday at 6:30pm in the Hong Kong Theater

Given the serious news stories that have been coming out of Iraq (and many, many other nations), why is it that the media has been so stuck on the plight of a poor little British girl? The Madeline McCann saga has regularly been stealing cover stories from presumably more important global issues for months now, and Polis is hosting an event to discuss the significance of this kind of story, and whether or not it is right for newspapers and other media outlets to focus on this story to the exclusion of others. Speakers will include McCann spokesperson Clarence Mitchell and former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie.

When, Where: Tonight, 6:30 in the Old Theater

Whether or not you knew it, this week was India week at the LSE, and with a Bollywood-themed Crush coming up on Friday, you might want to brush up on your dancing skills. Well don’t fret, because  a student group has arranged lessons for Friday evening just in time for you to pick up some steps for the night ahead.

When, Where: Friday, 4pm in Parish Hall

C&A’s Take on the Letter Writing Scandal

The Letter Writing Scandal refuses to die down, with the Beaver running a pair of opinion pieces in the C&A section on its front page, as well as printing several letters to the editor on the subject. In one of the opinion pieces, Alex Teytelboym takes a strong approach against the ‘unconstitutional’ and even potentially illegal letter signed by General Secretary Fadhil Bakeer-Markar and Education and Welfare officer Ruhana Ali. The allegation of the letter of endorsement being an illegal act stems from the fact that the SU is qualified as a charity, and thus is not allowed to endorse political candidates. Of course the validity of this claim is contingent on the central question of this controversy, which is whether Bakeer-Markar and Ali signed the endorsement as private individuals (as Bakeer-Markar and Ali have regularly said – see the General Secretary’s comment on this blog here) or public officials of the SU (as their critics assert).

Teytelboym demands that Bakeer-Markar reveal who approached him to sign the letter of endorsement, and states that he believes that “murky, fraternity-like NUS organizations” and even members of Ken Livingstone’s office, are behind it. Teytelboym also suggested that Bakeer-Markar had meddled in the affairs of the Beaver, which considers itself to be independent of the SU despite being reliant upon it for funding, and ultimately calls for the General Secretary and Education and Welfare officer to resign.

As should be very clear, Teytelboym has an ax to grind with Bakeer-Markar, and theirs has been a back and forth over some time now. The second opinion piece, penned by new C&A editor James Pugh, may be somewhat more disinterested, but he, too, piles on to the General Secretary. His approach is somewhat different, however, instead taking on the suggestion that the signatories to the letter that appeared in the Guardian (as well as a previous letter he sees as being connected) could presume to speak for the “Muslim community” as a whole in their support for Livingstone. While stopping short of calling for resignations (he writes “if we expect the resignations of politicians each time they make a mistake, we will continue to have a continuous flow through of politicians”), he does end on a rather sour note, suggesting that between this and the previous letter scandal, Bakeer-Markar has shown a lack of contrition and refused to accept responsibility for a mistake or apologize.

Obviously this issue will remain in the spotlight here at the LSE, but as suggested in the previous post, it could well flood over into a broader attack by the mainstream media against mayor Livingstone ahead of this years elections.

Mayoral Mayhem

With continuing scandals associated with Ken Livingstone’s campaign for reelection, the letter of endorsement that has gained a lot of attention within the LSE can be seen as only one of the various elements of a press assault on the incumbent mayor. While we at the LSE Observer are most focused on the Letter Controversy mk II (and expect more on this in a subsequent post), let’s take a moment to review the various allegations that have been making the rounds recently.

Livingstone has recently been accused of spending public money in an attempt to discredit a Conservative candidate for the chair of the Commission for Equality and Human Rights.  The accusation, first aired in a Dispatches report, suggests that the mayor’s office may have been given too much power in recent years, and that ‘Red Ken’ has been willing to exercise it imperiously.

This comes on top of several other scandals, including a recent revelation that a deputy adviser had accepted a 3 day luxury vacation in Nigeria. The adviser, Rosemary Emodi, has since resigned. There have also been more spurious and ad hominem attacks on the mayor’s alleged drinking problem and his aides supposed ties to ‘Marxist cells’. Nevertheless, it appears that the press broadly has taken an interest in bringing the London mayor down before this years election. How long before the mainstream press picks up on the so-far in house scandals of the Student Union? Surely they would be delighted to draw connections between Livingstone’s alleged Marxist or Trotskyist predilections and the Fabian-inspired lefties of the LSE.