March 20th- Student Finance FE presentations at Christ the King Sixth Form College, Lewisham.
March 21st- Liverpool Guild union visit.
March 22nd- HQ
March 23rd NEC extra logistics meeting
March 24th- HQ, running around chaotically getting everything ready for Conference

Saturday 25th- Up to Blackpool for Annual Conference…!

In hindsight, I wish I’d blogged before now about Annual Conference, but to be honest it was all a bit raw at the time so I suppose I’ll have to try and reflect on it now with some perspective.

The first thing I should say is that it was only my second Annual Conference, so unlikely many of my NEC colleagues I don’t have a wealth of experience to compare 2006 to. However its fair to say that between nus extra, coca-cola, targeted grants, HT and a hotly contested presidential election it was always going to be a memorable conference.

I was really relieved to see NUS Extra pass. Like a lot of the membership I spent last year umming and arring about Extra, eventually deciding to vote for the trial. The evidence from the North West trial further convinced me just what a difference Extra can make to unions- as a sabb at a NW union last year with major financial difficulties I’m happy to hear about the money they’ve made from Extra this year. With a national roll out the opportunities for other unions, particular in FE, to develop themselves as a result are real. And anyone whose read NUS’ estimates should see what a difference Extra will make to us.

For me, the biggest low point of conference was the policy we passed on targeted grants. When the policy against means testing EMAs fell alarm bells went off in my head, but I didn’t really believe that at such a crucial time for our movement in our fight for free education that conference would vote to ridiculously water down our own policy. The fact of that matter is, means testing consistently fails to work effectively. The failing system and all those students who it fails to take into account are likely to be deterred from entering higher education- ultimately meaning that access to education is based on ability to pay rather than to learn. For me, proper state funding is the solution to the problem, in particular given that the UK is the 4TH richest country in the world. I’ve been sickened in the last weeks by people in our movement telling me that this is ‘unrealistic’- after all, in the fight against the introduction of top-up fees how many times did politicians tell us (and continue to tell us) that any alternative to introducing them was ‘unrealistic’? How many people now turn around and tell us that its ‘unrealistic’ that we can get rid of them? Does that mean we should give up, and water down our policies on that too? Turn around and say…oh well yeah its ok because we have the cap?! I still cannot believe that we have effectively made a mockery out of our own policy for a FREE FAIR and FUNDED education for ALL. I continue to be shocked, appalled and disgusted on this one.

So as for the rest of conference- I was disappointed but not surprised we didn’t get through more of the text in the welfare zone. I’ve been proud of the welfare campaign this year and a lot of that’s due to the strong and varying mandates from last year I had to work from. I will be resubmitting the policy which failed to be discussed at conference in this zone to national council in order to try and redress this issue.

It was nice to be re-elected (many thanks, conference!), despite what some people said I wasn’t complacent about it though I’d be lying if I said it was as nerve-wracking as last year, and big thanks to everyone who helped me with my campaign- that’ll be the last time I subject you to yellow t-shirts I promise! Congratulations to everyone else who was elected or re-elected, and commiserations to those who weren’t.

Its hard to explain the emotional roller-coaster of conference when you are standing for election, let alone when you are also a current member of the NEC, and when you have been massively involved in an unsuccessful presidential election campaign in addition. I can’t explain just how physically and emotionally exhausted I was by the end of conference, suffice to say I was a real mess, and then Kat and Sian’s leaving speeches finished me off- they have both taught me so much over the last few years in addition to being really good friends- I’ll miss working with them next year and I think the organisation will miss them too.

Around the time of conference, we all hear so many accusations and claims about our politics (or lack of them) flying around. And the independents are always so easy to have a go at in this respect. I’ve always said that if you want to know about our politics you should just ask us, I for one have always been pretty open about where I come from politically even though I might not have a party label on me. So I was slightly irritated when one of my colleagues, who has never bothered to ask me, claimed in their leaving speech they can’t believe the independents when we say we have politics when we don’t say what they are. I’d really like to save going off on a tangent about this for MY leaving speech, but I’ve been so frustrated in recent weeks by misconceptions about me that certain people persuaded me to ‘blog and get over it’. So I will!

I was brought up to believe in the Labour party and the values they stood for, and from an early age I fiercely did. I was eight when the Labour party came so close in 1992 but lost, and I remember the morning afterwards running to my Dad and asking him the election results, and sharing his feeling of impending doom at another five years of Tory government. Similarly, I remember staying up for the 1997 results, and the jubilation and weekend long celebrations. When I was 17, I started helping out in one of my local MP’s office, Hilary Benn, MP for Leeds central, newly elected in a recent bi-election. I got heavily involved in my regional Labour party. I joined the party, I spent one afternoon a week telephone canvassing for the regional Labour party for the 2001 elections, for the next 8 months, in addition to being active in my constituency Labour party. I went off to University and stayed involved there. And then for me, a turning point came in my second year at University. I struggled massively with the government leading us to the war in Iraq, and from that point onwards ceased to be really active. Then a few months later I remember going to a CLP meeting in Liverpool, where everyone there turned around and told our MP they wanted her to vote against fees- and she told us that she wouldn’t be doing that, and if we didn’t like it we knew what to do at the next election, with an incredible level of arrogance as she held such a safe Labour seat. Then a few short months later we lost the battle on fees, and for me, events of that past year had really shook my confidence in the Labour party and what I had always believed it stood for, so that when my membership came up for renewal I wasn’t inclined to renew it. I didn’t want to stay part of a party that had let me down on issues really important to me. So that’s where I come from politically. Whilst I’m representing the students of this country I’ll criticise and thank the government where I find appropriate. Let me tell you this though- the only way I’ll ever vote is Labour, and the fact that I personally felt let down by New Labour does not make me anti-Labour.

I’m not too proud to say that I’ve learnt things whilst I’ve been on the NEC, and one of those things is that the best way to change something is to get involved/be part of it, and for that reason, maybe I’ll rejoin the Labour party in the future if and when I feel they start to represent me and my major views again. It won’t be whilst I’m on the NEC though, because that would just be giving into all those people who like to take a cheap pop at independents and aren’t convinced we ‘have politics’ until we join the Labour party- well frankly, apart from anything and everything else, I’m too stubborn to do that!

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