NUS to take on Blair?

Oh NUS is a hell of a laugh isn’t it? Not only do they fail miserably to put on a workable education campaign but then there is the nightmare of ensuring the left gets a voice at Conference.

This week is going to be the miss named “week of action” to stop the government lifting the cap on fees. Blair must be bricking himself as we speak, wondering if he’ll survive with his job. The only national part of the campaign will be the Mass(?) lobby of parliament this Wednesday. Even the demo called beforehand by a handful of left Unions and student campaigning groups isn’t really enough to spark life into the event and mobilise new activists. If the NUS had called a rally before hand they could’ve made it a slightly more student friendly event. But why bother if you can go through the motions. The most frustrating bit still has to go to the conference delegate elections. It is only through trying to get people to vote that the shocking irrelevance of the organisation hits home. How can you tell people to vote for a real national education campaign when most students have never seen even a pretend one?

Since the demise of labour students NUS has stopped even pretending to be a campaigning organisation concentrating on selling naff discounts to unsuspecting first years (and shopping data to multi-nationals.) The stark comparison to this is other national organisations like Unite against Fascism and the Stop the War coalition actually have far more direct student involvement and interest. Thank fuck we don’t have to rely on our National Union eh? So the slogan has to be: Come to the club nights. Come to the demo’s and try not to fall asleep at national conference.