letter

Mike Cowley

Dear Citizen

I tried to get through Jonny Garner's article (The Citizen, April 2005) on the recent rectorial elections at Glasgow University without throwing myself off the nearest bridge. Jonny has clearly experienced the full force of asinine, self-parodying Labour Student Hell. Extolling the somewhat vague merits of a soap star over those of a man who has sacrificed his liberty in the interests of world peace might appear to the still-sane amongst us as a little perverse, to say the least. However, my own adventures in the hallucinogenic world of the young comrades have braced me for tales such as Jonny's.

I remain extremely proud of what a left wing Glasgow University labour Club achieved during the early to mid-90s. I was chair for two of my four years at this august institution, helping the organisation onto the Student Representative Council, gaining two places on the Queen Margaret Student Union Board of Management (the first ever members to be elected onto the Board on a political platform), and. galvanising campaigns around a variety of issues, from student grants and a bum-crushing journey to London in support of the miners, to a rectorial campaign in favour of Helena Kennedy emphasising civil liberties issues (we came second -perhaps if she'd appeared on I'm A Lawyer, Get Me Out Of Here...). At this time, the Club had the advantage of being able to call on the services of a number of experienced Labour Party activists, many of whom remain present-and-correct in the Glasgow Labour Party today. Andy White, one of our early recruits, actually went on to be leader of Dumbarton Council.

We achieved all these things and more without sacrificing our politics. Indeed, we prided ourselves on being a non-sectarian Club, an aspect of our character that the likes of Jim 'read my lips, no tuition fees/student loans/graduate tax' Murphy (then an exemplar of the labour Students/NUS prototype climber) chose to ignore.
Within the hermetically sealed borders of Glasgow University, and conceding those environs are not exactly a microcosm of the 'real world', we stood as a living reproach to those who contend that a Socialism which doesn't feel the need to apologise for itself cannot be both electorally successful, and achieve a raising of consciousness amongst those it comes into contact with.

A last comforting world for Jonny. I still awake some nights to the sound of bleating sheep and pre-arranged standing ovations. If heavy sedation doesn't do the trick console yourself that there is an antechamber waiting for these people. My atheism aside, I kind of hope that I might pass through this portal one day, bearing a T-shirt saving "Vote for Mordechai, he's not going to hell."

Mike Cowley
Edinburgh North and Leith CLP