Our Students' Union recently sent a bus full of lecturers, students and members of the Student Union Executive Committee to protest outside the Welsh Labour Party leadership hustings in Swansea
Firstly yes there was a coach from Uni Glam to Swansea however it was not the Students Union who arranged it was the UCU branch. The coach was nowhere near full in fact it was over half empty. Now this is not simply nitpicking. Clearly the article is meant to showing the students union to have done something but this is in stark contrast to reality. It was UCU who organised the coach and approached the Students Union to help build for the demonstration, which they agreed to do but in reality did very little, the real reason why the coach was over half empty. The only reason why there were as many students on the coach as there were was not because of the SU but because of the hard work of Socialist Students who held campaign stalls and leaflets sessions giving out close to 1,000 leaflets in total. Much more than the SU was prepared to do with their massive resources!
He goes on to talk about the proposed 5% cut in the budget of Higher Education in Wales and the impact this could have on students. Whilst everything he says in true he neglects to mention that the University of Glamorgan is proposing cuts of up to 16%. The SU gives the impression that they do not want to build a campaign against the cuts whilst at the same time appearing as if they are! It seems that the only reason they came to Swansea was for the photo opportunity, the photo which now appears on the front page of TAG.
The other article which caught my eye was an article by Matt Smith the chair of Glamorgan Student Liberal Democrats . The only thing which Matt says which makes sense is that our vote does not count, but he then goes on to say its all because of the choice between Labour and Tory and the bad policies they offer, plus labour and tory have been caught out in the expenses scandal as crooks. However he goes on to explain that the Lib Dems are not the same. Matt must be a member of a different Liberal Democrats than the rest of us know about. This would be the same Liberal Democrats who were equally exposed as crooks in the expenses scandal. The same Liberal Democrats who have equally promised savage cuts after the election, the same liberal democrats who in Cardiff council are already promising huge cuts now. The same Liberal Democrats who have already back down significantly on abolishing tuition fees before an election, how much further will they go afterwards?
You can get the picture it is clear that the picture Matt Smith paints is a very fake one, and even clearer that all the main parties are out for themselves and offer us ordinary folk nothing but cuts!
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