SU Spring Elections 2026 Interviews: Jack Thompson, VP Welfare & Campaigns

In the run-up to the Warwick Students’ Union (SU) Spring Elections, The Boar offered all Full-Time Officer (FTO) candidates the opportunity to be interviewed.

Jack Thompson, who is one of the candidates for the position of VP Welfare & Campaign, sat down with The Boar‘s News team to talk through his campaign and ideas for the position, if he were to be elected to the position.

Why did you decide to run for this position?

Thompson admitted that he hadn’t “really done too much with the SU before”, but said “I don’t think that makes me a worse choice. It just means that I think I have a different perspective from people that have been more engaged with it.”

He said that he decided to run for the position “because campaigns is something that I’m super interested in, in the context of [the] University.” Thompson said he had many campaign ideas as a student “that I wasn’t able to see into fruition based on my engagement with the SU”, adding that he had no responses from SU forms.

“That lack of communication for me as a student made me want to go into this role so I could at least communicate to students with ideas as to why their ideas might not be able to come into fruition, or more ideally, help as many students as they can have their ideas come into fruition.”

How will you seek to continue to improve mental health and wellbeing provision on campus? 

Thompson said that from speaking to students, he identified key areas of “what is causing student stress” including “culture, costs, and careers”.

To help students alleviate concerns surrounding career stress, he would seek to “help [them] feel more prepared for post-uni”, which he added he doesn’t “think the SU is doing enough of”.

He would also seek to make “a safer environment for students on campus” by seeing what safety services are “effective”, “what needs to be changed”, and whether “we can offer a greater diversity of events to make campus a more welcoming space for students”.

Regarding costs, Thompson said he would try “to reduce costs for students as much as possible, trying to continue the schemes that we already do have, and promote them further so they can have more use for more students.”

Report + Support disclosures rose for the fourth year running in 2024/25. Are you concerned about these figures, and what more can the SU do to support students? 

“Obviously, if they continue to rise, it is a cause of concern for sure. I think it’s good in some senses that people are using these services […] but obviously it is a major concern that they are rising.”

Thompson said, as VP for Welfare & Campaigns, he would ensure the SU “investigate what these services are actually doing when the reports are coming through”, asking: “Are they being taken seriously enough? Are people feeling listened to? Is action actually being taken that can then help these students who do report and use these services?”

The cost-of-living crisis is still affecting students on campus. Even though the new Co-op replaced Rootes, prices didn’t drastically fall for students. Across the SU-run outlets and the SU’s relationship with the University, what more would you do to support students with the cost-of-living crisis? 

Thompson said that one of his main manifesto points is on cost: “This is obviously a big issue for most students”. He said he would investigate costs on- and off-campus, and “create a resource for students to use so they can best know where they can spend their money most appropriately” and how to “manage their money”.

He also said that if the SU developed that resource, it could be used as a “great tool for pushing the SU to reduce their prices in their institutions like the Dirty Duck and Curiositea”. If the SU aren’t “offering prices better than other places nearby”, they “shouldn’t be promoting the use of [their] facilities unless [they] can reduce these prices, or make quality better, or make things more accessible.”

Another point Thompson had was surrounding the cost of sports. He said that the current cost for joining a sports club, which stands at over £100, is “so outrageously expensive and, as [sport is] so important for mental health, that would be a big thing to try and lower that cost as much as we could”.

What campaigns would you seek to run over the next year?

Thompson would seek to continue existing campaigns, such as the Eat Well Hub, which he said was “an improvement on, or an attempted improvement on” the Free Breakfast Club. He would also seek to introduce new schemes, such as swap shops where students could swap items they no longer need with other students.

His main campaign, however, would be pushing for a “greater diversity of events” run by the SU. He referenced past concerts at the SU by the Smiths, Oasis, and Radiohead, saying that “we don’t get those kinds of events anymore” – except one concert in the last three years, he said, by Welly.

“For me, that’d be something I’d love to push because I think a lot of students would love to have live music events way more accessible, way easier. And obviously if it was in the SU, there’d potentially be the option to provide cheaper tickets for students of Warwick. And I think that’d be a great thing to achieve.”

This interview, along with all other interviews for Full-Time Officer positions, can be watched in full using the link here.

You can also view a list of all candidates and their manifestos here.