No Confidence in No Confidence

Well if we thought that LSE students were non-committal before, the batch of no confidence votes at today’s UGM can only serve to further illustrate that unfortunate trait of ours. The UGM this afternoon, while significantly less jam-packed than last weeks, was nevertheless a busy one, they even managed to reach a quorum!

Things moved quickly out of the gate, with UGM Chair Joe Meadway kicking it off by announcing his decision to allow the contested vote on the Make Apartheid History motion to stand. He said he accepted that the procedure was imperfect, but decided that no procedure was likely to satisfy everyone and that it would keep the SU stuck in a virtue-less circle if he had annulled the vote and called for a new one. He did invite the proponents of the measure to submit it again, if they chose. So perhaps we can call an end to the apartheid saga and get on with our lives?

Not so fast! Just about as quickly as could be expected, there was a motion of no confidence in C&S coming from the Athletics Union sector of the Old Theater, which triggered an interesting chain of events. First, the favoured son of the AU went on stage and rambled on for a bit about the ‘disgrace’ of the various conflicts of interest among the C&S officers. Next, surprisingly, even those arguing against the motion allowed that there were failures on the part of C&S. They did, however, appeal for stability and argued that nothing would ever be accomplished if they had to keep on reelecting people to C&S. After the debate was briefly suspended due to a barrage of paper missiles, the motion was voted on and failed to achieve the 2/3 majority required to pass.

Quickly on the heels of the defended assault on C&S was a no confidence motion in the chair, initiated by Mature and Part Time Students officer Ziyaad Lunat, who declared that the chair had abused his power and was not meant to make decisions regarding the vote at all, but simply to facilitate the UGM. Meadway defended himself, and didn’t seem terribly concerned about losing his position. He needn’t have, as the motion easily failed to carry.

And so, with a lot of thunder and no lightning, the meeting delved into the usual string of dull reports and sterile business motions (the motion on updating the methods of electronic campaigning was tabled until next week, however a motion mandating the General Secretary to petition the university to improve computing facilities passed in an amended form). Even when it comes to booting out officers, the SU is non-committal.

At the UGM: A New Approach to IT?

Although the agenda today is meant to be one of daily business and housekeeping (including votes on motions that are considerably more dull – if necessary – than controversial), one can only presume that there will be a lot of discussion about both last week’s vote against the motion Make Apartheid History and the subsequent annulling of the vote by C&S this week. The final decision now sits with the Chair, Joe Meadway, who will certainly face pressures at the meeting this afternoon. It shall be interesting to see what attendance looks like in the aftermath of last weeks over-full UGM.

The main motion to be considered today is related to election and campaigning procedures, and it contains an effort to update the rules and procedures for the use of electronic means to campaign in next month’s election. It notes that allowing candidates to use Facebook status updates would be an ‘unobtrusive’ means of indicating their candidacy, but still contains considerable restrictions on electronic campaigning, most notably a ban on non-SU controlled websites and mass emails soliciting votes. We’d be interested to learn more about why such measures have been adopted in the past, and continue to be upheld now – why don’t you chime in on the comments?

Maybe it has to do with the general ineptitude of the IT efforts of the Students Union itself, with poorly designed and often abandoned websites littering the field. Hilariously, one of the other motions to be considered today would mandate the General Secretary to criticize the LSE for its own supposed IT failures! Granted, there is an important difference to be noted here, which is that the complaints have more to do with the lack of available computer terminals and printing facilities, however given their track record when it comes to computer technology and internet savvy, one can only imagine how much worse the problem could be if the SU were running computer labs.

“A Narrative That Has No End”

No, the title does not refer to the ongoing Make Apartheid History saga, but is instead a choice quote from last nights Polis panel discussion on the McCann’s and the Media. Charlie Beckett has a lengthy post on his blog covering some of the highlights from the event, including the above quote which was offered by Roger Graef, the producer of a Channel 4 documentary about the disappearance of young Madeline, when referring to why the story continues to dominate headlines. Others also offered a ruthless economic incentive: daily sales were said to increase by an average of 3% on days when ‘Maddy’ was on the front page.

Clarence Mitchell, the spokesman for the McCann family, also attracted some press coverage today by declaring at the panel that the McCann family were not under suspicion and that British police were instead treating the case as a “rare stranger abduction.” Meanwhile, the Mirror reported that the Portuguese police were dropping inquiries into men said to resemble the presumed stranger drawn in a sketch based on the description of a witness.

The overall themes presented by the panel led Beckett to extract several points that he expounded on in his blog post, most significantly that the McCanns took a gamble in launching the public relations campaign that they did, which first led to immense sympathy and support for the family, only to result in the public turning on the family in spectacular fashion. As Beckett put it: “The media initially swamped them with support and then finally drowned them in bile.” Thanks for that image, Charlie.