The Form of the Debate

This was the way the rest of the discussion went. The supporters of the motion gave well-documented accounts of the failings of the President. Paul Norman for instance explained how Andrew had failed to inform him of the Students' Arts Council meeting that was held last weekend Paul, as acting Cultural Affairs Officer felt that he had a right to know what was going on in this field, and the blame must lie fairly and squarely on the shoulders on Tees. Paul McHugh pointed out that the social life around campus this year had been extremely quiet (what activity there had been had been often organised by the "political heavies"), and yet improved social life was one of Tees' election promises.

Simon Wilson, who serves on the University Council as a student representative, told how Tees had failed to give him any support in the field of documenting representations at Council. Geoff Adams, the Education Officer, said that Tees' involvement in the bursaries campaign had been just about zilch. He had only attended two organising meetings, and when it came to painting banners was conspicuous for his absence. Phil Sowman, the Sports Officer, said that Tees had not researched the financial affairs of the Student Travel Bureau adequately, and was making decisions on this vital matter based on poor information Furthermore Tecs has attempted to axe SRC policy on occasions — the most notable being the AGM when he proposed motions that would mean SRC had no policy on abortion or international affairs.

The attitude of the opponents of the motion might charitably be put down to ignorance of the matter under debate, but in honesty it must be attributed to a desire to forget the issue and replace it in their minds with a blind, baseless hatred of a group of people they choose to think of as the "Left". The examples of this attitude are many. Patrick Mulrennan, speaking with a kind of transparent opportunism we have come to expect from him, stated as a fact that Salient had been conducting a smear campaign, and used as his evidence a letter that appeared in Salient signed "Andy", which he claimed was written by one of the Salient Staff. In another example of this groups selective ideas on democracy, he seemed to think that Salient should not print letters that disagreed with anything he believed. He went on to call for the Election of the editor — although how this was relevant to the topic, he didn't say.

John Hebenton, one time secretary of the Association, said that the Exec simply refused to be led. If this had been true in the past, it is merely because of his own obstructionist attitude (for instance, dissenting to motions such as That the minutes be accepted. That the Exec move out of closed committee.) Furthermore as Lindy Cassidy said, she a self confessed communist, had served as President for two years on a politically divided Exec, yet there was never the kind of divisions that have emerged this year. Why? The conclusion is obvious.