SU: Don’t speak for me

If I hear one more terrible use of Nigel Thrift’s surname I think I might scream. ‘Thrifty by name, not by nature’, ‘thrifty with the truth’. But since I’m a student I am a left-wing liberal automatically, and as a matter I object to anything that damages my preconceptions of free-speech, morality and equality. And therefore I approve of terrible punning, I attend all the strikes and demonstrations, I do not respect Thrift’s authority.

This is all a tad exaggerated but it is overwhelmingly true that the SU and other student run bodies often release political statements on behalf of ‘the students’. And even then, when statements aren’t written on behalf, they’re written by the body that represents students. The SU’s mission statement states many things, including that it is representative, a voice to Warwick students, welcoming and tolerant.

Tolerant, that is, I feel, unless you disagree with something vaguely left-wing. For example there are student councils which boycott things for their own moral purposes – how many of Warwick University’s 22,944 students realistically stopped drinking Bacardi because the SU told them that that was a terrible thing to do? We’re all adults here, ladies and gentleman, and if I don’t like something I’ll choose not to buy it, thank you.

This matters very little to me. Normally I’d dismiss it as the petty machinations of student politicians who chant their own socio-political beliefs like a war cry, but now education is being damaged. I am, of course, talking about the student-run lectures debate. In fairness I can see the arguments from both sides of the political spectrum, but I think, in reality, many of our 22,944 students don’t care about strikes, they care about the education they are paying for. Some people use university as a springboard for jobs, some choose courses that they find interesting, and some, like me, are just escaping the real world for as long as possible – some manage to do all three at once (kudos to you). But by and large, they don’t really care as long as they get what they pay for – education.

Here’s a brutal fact – the SU is a students’ union, not a teachers’ union. It should have solidarity with its pupils; with the University’s purpose of providing education; and with the student’s right to that said education.

So yes, I’m tired with awful puns. What Thrift is paid matters little. If he used his money to conduct orgiastic parties at which he chanted, naked, demonic rituals whilststanding on his head, I still wouldn’t care. It’s my education that matters and that should matter to the SU and other student bodies. It’s those organisations that are thrifty with the truth when they try and speak ‘for’ students.