As the recently concluded Guild Officer elections fade to a happy memory, you may be inclined to turn to an opinion piece [http://www.redbrickpaper.co.uk/2011/03/after-the-campaign-the-friction-within/] published in today’s Redbrick. Journalist Joe Jervis gives his assessment of the election results and the composition of the new team.
But in an otherwise almost passable piece, a gross slander is committed against many of my friends and colleagues. Jervis alludes to the success of former BULS Chair Dora Meredith in being elected Guild President last year, and the role many BULS members played in that victory – yet barely a breath later BULS are written off as lazy and ineffective campaigners:
“However, this year lackadaisical campaigning [without vigour, interest or determination] from the BULS contributed to losses for its respective candidates in every position.”
I’m prepared to overlook the lazy research in referencing us as “the BULS”. I’m prepared to overlook the pompous use of “lackadaisical” and the needless showing off it implies. What I will not stand for is seeing my fellow BULS members declared to be half-arsed campaigners. Many BULS members worked their arses off for two weeks on the campaign trail; for Emma, James, Rachael and I. They stood to gain very little other than the satisfaction of a good campaign and of supporting the right policies and ideas.
In all their door knocking, leafleting, lecture shouting and banner waving; Oli, Catie, Luke, Max, James, Jake and many others besides were the exact antonym of lackadaisical (whatever that may be). They have all been insulted by this unsubstantiated slur from a misinformed hack.
Further to all of this, what Jervis overlooks is the simple fact that Guild Officer Election candidates run as individuals, not as party candidates. We may have met through BULS, but we campaigned together as friends; and it was out of friendship, not blind party loyalty that many in BULS joined us as campaigners. Labour Party members campaigned alongside non-members. Party affiliation is utterly irrelevant in an election where it is the wellbeing of all your fellow students and your student union that is at stake.
I take full personal responsibility for my own defeat. My own reluctance to adopt a cheap gimmick, and my preference for speaking with people on the doorstep instead of shouting at them on campus, were both far bigger factors in the loss than any perceived idleness on the part of my team. To make scapegoats of BULS as a whole or of any individual member would be dishonest, petty and vindictive. I would not contemplate even the slightest ingratitude against my campaigners, even though our efforts were in vain.
I concede that this blog may read as a bit of a rant, but when people I know to have worked bloody hard for me are slagged off by someone who not there and whose critiques are without citation; I tend to get slightly irate. From Mr Jervis I request an apology and a retraction of this pathetic accusation against us all.
By Chris Nash, BULS member and former VPDR candidate
Will consider commenting on the rest later however felt it useful to point out that Joe jervis is in fact a BULS member and also campaigned very hard for James.
In which case his criticism of fellow BULS members is even more mystifying; does the author consider himself among the lackadaisical? Perhaps an editor has oversimplyed what may have initially been a more balanced assessment?
I’ll concede that I was unaware that Mr Jervis was a BULS member – our paths have yet to cross at a BULS event. Had I known I might have been a little more gentle in my critique.
My main points still stand though; It does the club no favours to have our campaigning strengths rubbished and our members smeared in the campus newspaper.
Sorry but how exactly is his criticism mystifying. Unless you are unable to interpret his criticism of BULS as anything other an all-or-nothing statement applied to every BULS member.
The point he was making was that overall the club were lackadaisical in their support, which is true. A few people came out a lot, and split their time between the candidates, significantly more did not. This is did not affect my campaign much, as I drew my team predominately from outside BULS, but definitely had an impact on other campaigns.
And actually critique does do the club favours. Even if I didn’t agree with Joe’s point (which I wholeheartedly do), I would find it hard to comprehend, firstly, how BULS ‘campaigning strengths [were] rubbished’ – his point was that BULS have a huge strength in campaigning, citing Dora’s, but that it wasn’t used this year; secondly that our members were ‘smeared’ – not a single person was mentioned by name, and saying the club’s overall campaigning was lackadaisical is by no stretch a smear. A comfort-zone mentality is good for no society that wants to call itself political.
Incidentally the use of ‘lackadaisical’ is not a form of showing off, its journalism, and I’m pretty sure most people would understand it.
When you attack BULS as one, you attack us all. It was precisely because not a single person was mentioned by name that the insult can be taken to apply to the entire club.
I for one do not believe that our members were lazy or disinterested in the campaigns.
“The point he was making was that overall the club were lackadaisical in their support, which is true” – on what basis is this assessment made? What testimony, what first hand observation? Mr Jervis could not possibly have witnessed the efforts made by my team – drawn predominantly from BULS.
BULS strength *was* used this year – but it was split between 4 of us rather than just the one. Lets not also forget we all faced strong and able opponents. To call the club as a whole lazy now – if I could ever contemplate doing so – would betray nothing but ingratitude and bitterness on my part.
It is not a “comfort-zone” mentality to seek to defend comrades from an unfair criticism. I hope more will rally to the defence of BULS, as individuals and as a whole.
I completely agree with Chris’ sentiments, and I don’t really understand what james is trying to argue. The article makes the uninteresting observation that the 4 BULS members running for positions failed to win, and then follows it with a ridiculous assertion that BULS campaign was basically lazy. For the reason Chris mentioned this is nonsense. Firstly, a large number of BULS members campaigned a lot, including on James’ campaign, and as is always the case a smaller group campaigned especially hard.
The fact is that as a political society, BULS is unable to ‘campaign’ for any candidate so there was very literally no attempt at all to organise campaigning from the society. It is the campaign teams role to organise campaigning.
Far from criticising any of the BULS members running, I felt all had strong policy based campaigns. But if there were faults among the campaigns it was certainly not down to the hard work of the many buls members who campaigned for them. The disappointing results were most clearly down to the fact that the number of excellent candidates many BULS members wanted to support was far greater than last year, and so their (limited) time was split between them.
James is completely wrong to state that ‘a critique actually does the club favours’ in this situation. This is a smear on the club and those members who fought hard for james and others. If the author wanted to provide a critique of the clubs campaigning methods I’d suggest he’d be better to come along to a few events and talk to the committee and other members, or even that he’d have been better off doing so during the campaign. I am certain that those on the new committee would have been more than happy to have listened to advice about how best to help BULS members to become active in Guild elections.
Thanks to everyone for all the feedback, constructive and otherwise. I thought it only right that I write a detailed response. You can find it here http://britainandthenextgeneration.blogspot.com/2011/03/response-to-criticism-of-after-campaign.html
@Joe Jervis
[not certain if my comment worked on your site, so i've reposted here, in response to your response]
Now this IS well written.
The line “this year lackadaisical campaigning from the BULS contributed to losses for its respective candidates in every position” was indeed the one I took exception to. Thank you for expanding on this in a more balanced manner than (I assume) word limits allowed for in the original article.
I don’t believe I have personally accused you of bias. As you state it is an opinion piece after all. I for one feel that your coverage of the Harrop campaign was quite fair, that Mark fought a good campaign, and that on balance that he deserved to win. The focus on Mr Bauer was I felt a little over critical, but I’ll leave that battle for hearts and minds well alone for the time being.
As for “misinformed”, well yes. Campus presence isn’t everything. My preference was for actually engaging and talking with students on the doorstep rather than shouting at them on campus. Campaign strategies are multi-faceted, and to focus entirely on campus campaigning will lead to an unfair assessment of a team’s efforts.
One final clarification on party politics. It is not necessarily a contradiction to be non-partisan in Guild elections whilst having sympathy for defeated candidates, who happen to be fellow BULS members. I have always supported and voted for the candidates who I felt were the best for our student union – BULS member or otherwise. I am genuinely pleased for all who won – it was a highly competitive year and they’ve all worked bloody hard for it. Good luck to them all.
Thank you again for your clarification, made with far more grace than James managed. With pretty much every point of contention addressed, I consider this issue closed.
Again, I think Chris’ analysis is exactly spot on. I also wasn’t sure how to comment on your blog, but I was going to make the same point. It’s not a contradiction to state that many BULS members are capable of making non-partisan voting decisions while also saying it was a disappointing night for buls members running for positions, and therefore for BULS.
Secondly, and most importantly, I wanted to state that a lack of ‘campus presence’ is not necessarily indicative of a lack of effort. As Chris said, some candidates believed talking to students, explaining policy, and getting feedback was a better campaign method. If these candidates didn’t win it was not due to lack of effort, but maybe a failure to realise that the few students who bother to vote in these elections, possibly don’t do so as a result of hours of policy scrutiny, but rather on reputation, on gimmicks and on banner size.
Oh gosh Chris, I do so sincerely apologise for my lack of grace. It would appear the self-righteous, breast-beating, ‘THIS IS SPARTA’ arrogance of your attack on a good friend of mine who made a pretty fair and balanced point to begin with, brought out my graceless side. For this I can only hope you accept my most humble of apologies.
I would also like to reiterate a point I thought I made earlier, but evidently did not. The fact I lost I do not feel had anything to do with the support from the Labour club, but in tactical mistakes on my part. So while I do actually agree with Joe’s point about the club as a whole having a more ‘lackadaisical’ campaigning approach, certainly than last year, I do not think this affected my team or indeed my chances of winning. And while I do feel it affected other campaigns, its not my place to get them involved in a debate they’ve so far shown no interest in getting involved in.
Thanks for the support James. I thought the point you made about ‘comfort-zone mentality’ was important. And I don’t think your comment had any less grace than my response! Both valid.
But like Chris said, I’m happy to leave it now, we’ve all had our say and with all due respect I’m getting quite bored of it!
[...] The news of the arrest and imprisonment without trial of Guild Vice-President (Education) Mr Ed Bauer (see here) trickled through to me rather late. I’m very much out of the University/Guild bubble these days, and so my only sources for the story are Facebook (peer-reviewed in the unorthodox manner) and Redbrick (*spits in corner* -Nash passim). [...]