Cheers Josh

Cheers Josh, for sending out the information about motions for the General Meeting, just TWO DAYS before the deadline.

By the way if you wanted to pass a motion, you had just 48 hours to

1. Think of it.
2. Research it.
3. Write it.
4. Get 100 students to sign it.
5. Tell students who hadn't heard of the General Meeting until then, to come.

Those of you who managed that, well done (the deadline is 12pm tomorrow)

Thanks to the reader who wrote in highlighting this. Sorry to quote without permission but he tells us that

"i emailed him on the matter but he never replied."

Josh, give people more notice and improve accessibility for all. Please please please. And reply to your emails.

In addition, don't lie to people on your NUS campaign website Josh. He claims that he will make a commitment to students above his political party (i.e. Labour).

"My record couldn’t make this clearer. For three years I have continually stood up for the interests of students over political parties, whatever belief they hold."

Yeah right.

A Christmas message from EUSA-less...

Seems to stream slightly faster on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYjPMPQzxFo

WE NEED YOUR HELP

EUSA-less have sent an email to Josh MacAlister asking for more information about the demolition of Potterow.

He's refusing to answer emails from us now, ostensibly on the grounds that we're anonymous and he can't be sure that we are all students.

We want to send another email, but it needs to be from a named person.

Can anyone who is prepared to put their name at the bottom of our next email please post it below so we can get some detailed facts about this? It would be great to have a few names so we could demonstrate real interest, and we'll put them all at the bottom.

Otherwise Josh can just continue to hide in his office.

Cheers,

EUSA-less

Facebook-Poll-The Journal

Congrats on the Facebook group setup by Scott George McCombe which now has 200 members.

It's great to see everyone there is prepared to post under their own name. If you haven't been there yet then the link is http://ed.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5927093663

If you have time and want to help out, invite all your Facebook friends to the group.

Needless to say we're trouncing Tom French and his ironic Facebook group entitled "Vote Tom French No.1 as EUSA's worst sabbatical," which had just 48 members.

Commiserations to him however as Josh MacAlister pipped him to the post in our poll for EUSA's worst sabb. Mysteriously, the votes leapt up over night to overtake Tom.

Perhaps this is Josh trying to help out Tom as part of their "good" relationship or just someone being a sad gimp and voting for Josh all night. You decide.

And just for the record, we're not anything to do with The Journal. Both student newspapers have printed letters from our supporter, Sarah Arbroath, and The Journal covered us because we're damn newsworthy! I'm sure the Student newspaper will cover us too.

Trouble in paradise?

Today's Journal made for some interesting reading this morning. Not only did they cover our blog in gory detail (THANK YOU!!!) but also there's a nice little piece about Tom French being acquitted from that indecent behaviour saga.

Its clear to see that things are not quite as cosy at the top as our noble President made out in his last statement to us.

Here is a little game of spot the difference loyal readers:

a) "Tom and I get on really well so this isn't an issue." Josh MacAlister in an email to EUSA-less

and

b) "Mr French has lodged a counter-complaint against the mishandling of the investigation by EUSA, including leaking of the allegations to the press and the "general procedure" followed.

The conduct of EUSA president Josh MacAlister and the lack of support given to Mr French were criticised in the counter-complaint. Mr French has asked that Mr MacAlister's communications with the EUSA-funded newpaper, Student, be investigated for suspected breach of data protection laws and association policies. " The Journal

Keep and eye on this one people.. could get messy.

But in reality are these investigations actually going to find anything out? Well they are undertaken, it seems, by one of EUSAs very well paid permanent staff, Mr Graham Boyack, the permanent secretary to the Association and also its Returning Officer. Hardly the most partial of opinions. This looks to me like the sort of investigation that Gordon Brown would instigate... but that doesn't surprise me either. These investigations should be undertaken by someone from outside the inner working circle. Why not start with the University.. it does after all keep EUSA afloat with seven figure cash injections every year...

The Sabbaticals respond - well, kind of...

EUSA-less wrote to Tom French and Josh MacAlister asking if they wanted to comment on the emails we've put up proving that the Vice President threatened the Student newspaper with a ban from EUSA property (see the evidence here)

Tom French refused to give his own comment and merely told us he agreed with Josh.

Josh MacAlister commented

"Tom and I get on really well so this isn't an issue."

That's all very well and good Mr. MacAlister, but what of the more pressing issue concerning your Vice President threatening student societies?

Did you not think that this was worthy of a statement from your office? Can you not measure the gravity of the situation facing you as your Vice President's credibility as a student leader is seriously compromised?

Get a handle on the situation now Mr. MacAlister.

----------------------------------------------------------

We've received a request to print the rest of the email sent from Mr. MacAlister. We inititally decided not to as it was even more irrelevant to our request for our explanation of the threatening behaviour. But in the interests of free speech, here it is

"On a general note, this blog is really interesting. We try our best to represent students and do a good job. However, if people have got concerns, criticisms and suggestions then the whole team would be more than happy to sit down and see what we could do better or change."

So, if anyone does have concerns, criticisms and suggestions after reading our blog, you know who to go to!

Vice President of EUSA threatened Student newspaper & slagged off President

Apologies to return to a bit of mudslinging but this one really can't be helped, especially as it is from impeccable sources and backed up by written evidence.

The Student newspaper published a story in week 2 of this semester about rising drinks price in the Unions.

Tom French, Vice President of Services, threw a hissy fit; calling up the editor and claiming the prices were wrong. The drinks prices had in fact been confirmed by another source, Tim Gee (last year's Vice President).

Despite it being basically one man's word against anothers, Tom French fired off a hugely unprofessional email worded

"You can go ahead and withhold a correction, but if you do we (EUSA) might have to consider withholding your right to distribute on campus buildings"

That's right, Tom French threatened to ban Student because it printed some drinks prices he didn't agree with. Surely an example of that power-hungry, office abusing little specimen we've been banging on about...

The situation culminated apparently in a two - hour slanging match over the phone, in which Tom French verbally abused the editor of Student newspaper and even slagged off the President with

"yeah he likes to act like a hard-man but he really isn't, he gets upset about everything"

Well, sorry to drag Tom French into this again but it really looks like he did a bad job here - threatening a society with sanctions while slagging off his colleagues at the same time.

Make your own conclusions about the clique running EUSA now, do we want a change? I think we do...

EUSA - By students, for Labour!

As those of you who read this blog know (and after just a week there are about 350 of you!), one of the key objections that EUSA-less has against EUSA is how it is so tightly controlled by external political parties.

How many of our so called "student leaders" are in fact Labour party stooges?

In particular, this comes to the fore when the President, Josh MacAlister, abuses his position as President to spout out the party line from Labour HQ.

Josh, a proud New Labour supporter, came out in the press recently as being in strong opposition to the SNP's distribution of nationalist flag packs to universities for use on St. Andrews day.

EUSA-less doesn't necessarily agree with these flag packs (they're undoubtedly a waste of money and a kick in the teeth considering the recent cut in university funding) but when our President uses them as a way to attack the SNP from his Labour camp, the issue becomes serious.

The President is pushing his luck when he decides to mouth off to the newspapers under blatant instruction from No. 10. He's been doing it for a while too, have a look at this quote from The Independent from the 28th June (just after he started his presidency)

"Overall, Gordon Brown's record over the past 10 years has been pretty good. Britain is a much better place now..."

Pretty generous.