We are the Penguin. We’re less than one year old, but already we’re established as a plucky young upstart and we’ve put ourselves on the map. We hope to be bringing you the latest discussions and rants, covering pub economics and campus trash, to probing exclusives and the funniest, most incisive election coverage you’ll find at LSE.

So this is us, saying “hello”.

Freshers; welcome to LSE. It’s a veritable treasure trove of crazy, and we’re pleased to welcome you to the fold.

Not-so-Freshers; welcome back. We hope you’re ready to drill take more courses in knowing the causes of, what will likely seem, inane rubbish.

We hope you’ll get on board the good ship Antarctica, help us produce some more great content, and make this year one to remember!

The piece sparked outrage from students across London on Monday 17th October when the piece was released prompting action from the LSE Students’ Union on Tuesday morning. Paper copies of the London Student were temporarily removed from circulation in order for the LSESU to insert a statement, co-signed by the SU General Secretary, LGBT Officer and Welfare Officer. The statement, below, calls out Wong for his transphobic comments and calls on the London Student to issue an apology for printing the piece.

This isn’t the first time this year that the new London Student Editor, Jennifer Izaakson, has been treading a fine line. Earlier this month at the University of London Union Senate, her report on her work came close to rejection, with an equal split of votes from members present; 6 for, 6 against.

Speaking to the Penguin, John Peart, LSESU LGBT Officer condemned the comments made by Wong, going on to say that “[the Students' Union] will be investigating ways in which we can deal with the repercussions of this article’s publication over the coming days.”

As it stands, our Students’ Union might be best summed up as suffering from Spaghetti Western Syndrome; there’s a little Good, some Bad, and a lot of Ugly. Whilst we continue to benefit from some great enrichment through societies and sports clubs, and see the Students’ Union launching genuine sector-leading campaigns like “Freeze the Fees” and “The Only Way is Ethics” that get thousands of students on board with their original messages (even if they quickly fizzle out or descend into incoherence), we also see a severe lack of oversight, an inability to look outside the box, and an attitude from some that will perpetually see the Union as a reserve of the few rather than a organisation for the many.

The Good: Activities and the Big Messages

There’s a lot that LSESU has to be proud of. It has an impressive number of student societies and sports clubs and, per student, the highest level of engagement with those groups of any Students’ Union. More than that, if there’s one thing the Union knows how to do, it’s put on a show. The range and diversity of events the Students’ Union runs is a testament to the breadth of work the Union does; from parties to petting zoos, there is rarely a day goes by when there isn’t something to do.

When it comes to campaigns, for two years running – first with “Freeze The Fees” and then again with “The Only Way is Ethics” – the Union has set records for the highest number of students signing up to a single SU campaign anywhere in the UK; few can argue that the Union’s simple tactic of making a simple pledge, and getting students on board quickly, has been a poor show. Far from it.

But it’s not all chocolates and roses; there is a problem. This activity isn’t mirrored across the rest of the organisation. Too little thought is put into getting people to participate in clubs and societies and campaign work, and too much focus is just on sending text messages and emails out to the masses, asking for people to come to a demonstration. It’s fine to play to your strengths – and organising and joining demonstrations is definitely the Union’s campaigning strength – but too often the hustle at the beginning of the year losses momentum because the messaging is off and the activities no longer have relevance or impact. That’s why hundreds of students turned out for the 2010 National Union of Students demonstrations, and the numbers fell away quickly there after. LSESU is good at inventing the wheel but it thoroughly fails to build the car and take people on a journey.

The Bad: Democracy… but not too much!

The constitutional changes that have been implemented over the past two years, far from providing the “best upgrade yet” promised by referendum posters, have merely served to show, with staggering obviousness, how antiquated and irrelevant some of our ideas of engagement have become. What was once a vibrant and engaging body that students of old wax lyrical about, has veered into a direction that leaves democratic engagement at little more than signatures on leaflets and a good election turnout. Students are turned off by democratic bodies that they don’t understand or know exist; turned off by the way the Students’ Union operates in cliques and cliches.

Do you remember the last time you got excited about the letters U, G and M? No, me neither, and it’s pretty obvious the rest of the student body feels the same, judging by the appalling attendance of Union General Meetings over the past two years. It’s a familiar sight nowadays; less than 30 people in the room, no motions (or motions that people don’t give a toss about), and half-arsed reports from officers that would rather be getting on with something that isn’t a total waste of their time. Oh, and let’s not forget the awkward silences as the UGM Chair attempts to inject some life back into a party no one wants to be at.

Then there’s Assemblies; these poorly attended, poorly utilised, largely undemocratic, largely unaccountable, constitutionally powerless bodies that were meant to bring democracy to students. Well, that worked, didn’t it?

Both the UGM and Assemblies are meant to be places that students go to bring up new ideas, argue the details of policy commitments and change our school. Right now, they are little more than talking shops for a minute army of hacks and politicos, thanks to their increasing irrelevance, their inflexibility, and the lack of weight thrown behind making them work. It seems pretty clear that students were promised an upgrade and ended up with a clapped out old Nokia.

The Ugly: The (Quite Literally) Invisible Hand

You could be forgiven for thinking that the only problem the Union has is that people don’t like going to meetings. But oh no, it doesn’t stop there.

Our Union has a trustee board that takes decisions without our consent, forcing through changes without a breath of consultation, and shuts down debate by virtue of the fact that no one knows when or where their meetings take place, who they are, what powers they have or even whether ordinary students are entitled to turn up to meetings to question their actions. The trustee board has the power to shift around budgets, to remove officers from their posts, veto policy passed at UGMs and more. And these aren’t idle powers, they have, and do, use them without a single question being asked of them in public – because they don’t give members a public forum to hold them accountable. This board holds all the cards, and yet after their election, the trustee board’s members vanish into the ether, never to be seen again. It is, quite literally, the invisible hand behind our union.

Then there are our supposed bastions of democracy, the Democracy Committee. I say supposed because they are consistently overridden or ignored by, well, pretty much everyone! When changes to the Union General Meeting’s quorum were silently forced through last year by the trustee board, the Democracy Committee had no idea it had even happened until this publication highlighted the issue. It’s incredible that, as the protectors of democratic process, the members of this committee are oblivious to what is going on around them. And, no doubt, the illustrious commitments made by candidates successful in last year’s Lent Term elections joking aside from some will go unfulfilled and the Union’s democratic processes will once again continue to be uninspiring as no one thinks out of the box to change anything.

To be fair to the Democracy Committee, it’s hardly their fault that the UGM and other democratic bodies are dying on their feet. For years there has been resistance from almost every part of the Union’s elected leadership and from union hacks without a clue to plot a course of “steady as she goes”. The way we do things, is the way we always have done, since the dawn of the Union itself; and direct democracy in students’ unions is a tradition, don’t you know. Up there with other British traditions like queuing and drinking tea. Every level of the organisation seems intent to keep banging a broken drum, and it’s time they reached stage five of the Kubler-Ross model and realised something simple: we’re in 2012, not 1912, and the old way of doing things don’t cut it anymore.

And I know what those same people will say. “We tried something different with online voting and it didn’t work! We’ll stick to what we know works.” Total and utter rubbish. Attendance at the UGM in 2009, the year before the referendum that implemented the current structure, was below the level required for quorum in 9 out of 20 meetings held. Clearly the old way of doing things didn’t work either. There are bigger issues at play with the way students are engaged in the Students’ Union than just what voting mechanism we use at our policy making bodies. It’s about the culture, the structure, the expectations placed on students, the debates, the leadership, and more.

Light at the end of the tunnel

This year has the potential to be a watershed. For the first time in years, the overwhelming majority of the Union’s executive aren’t allied with the “far-left” factions that normally dominate our Union’s political direction. This new team has the chance to do something truly different; to use the experience of the organisation to continue with vibrant campaigns, but to deliver Union 2.0. Along with the trustee board and the democracy committee, this executive team need to take the bull by the horns, show the initiative and genuinely make a difference to students’ lives by putting LSESU on a stable footing for the future.

Fixing a culture of democratic disengagement isn’t easy. It’s not a problem of apathy; apathy suggests that LSE students don’t care about what happens in the Students’ Union, the School, or wider society and that isn’t true – everyone is passionate about something, even if they don’t realise it, and in fact, the strong attendance of students at their club and society AGMs proves that students don’t have a particular aversion to turning up to meetings. This is a problem of singing from the wrong hymn sheet – LSESU needs a new set of lyrics and some better compositions to engage students beyond their societies once more.

Part of the reason this publication believes the UGM is failing is because of the obsession with keeping the UGM as our Church of Democracy. It’s unhealthy and a hindrance. By calling the UGM out as the be-all-and-end-all event for students to have their say, we are devaluing our other methods of engagement. And in fact, we’re devaluing the UGM itself. We hold so many UGMs that we don’t know how to fill the time. Week after week over the past two years, writers and editors for this publication have sat through UGMs where no reports of any significance are given, no questions are asked of officers, and no motions are even submitted let alone debated. It’s gotten so bad, that officers in the past have not bothered showing up for entire terms, and no one has bothered questioning it, because they’ve lost faith in the very body that holds those officers to account. Why do we waste our time? Our constitution mandates us to have only ten UGMs per year. The Democracy Committee should take control of our democratic timetable and cut the UGM down to once every fortnight, and they should table a referendum for next year’s Lent Elections (or earlier if they think that quorum can be reached) that cuts them down even further.

There also needs to be a radical shake-up of what happens in UGMs. The reports from officers turn into little else but a diary recital far too often, and scrutiny of the executive’s work is pitiful at best. Worse, this time-wasting exercise takes away time from policy debate on a regular basis (assuming someone bothered to submit it, of course). This publication would like to see these functions separated properly. Dedicate an entire UGM to policy debates, and a separate meeting to holding officers to account; this gives policy debate the time it deserves, and our executive the scrutiny it needs.

Beyond the UGM, this publication feels broader changes must happen. The trustee board and Democracy Committee need to be able to be held accountable for the decisions that they take. It is unacceptable that the members of this union can only hold trustees formally accountable once a year – at the Annual General Meeting. When the trustee board can line-veto policy set at the UGM, and both it and the Democracy Committee fails to fulfil its purpose in enabling the wishes of the student body, then they should be held publicly accountable for their failings. As such, The Penguin believes that all elected trustees and democracy committee members should be held accountable at the Union General Meeting, and reports from these bodies should be given regularly, in order to appraise the members of their decisions. The trustee board needs to be grounded; it needs to realise that it is not above other Union structures, but in fact is tasked to support and work for them, and likewise the Democracy Committee needs to realise the power it has and use it to improve our democratic engagement.

We also believe that Assemblies to shape-up or ship-out. The fact that Assemblies are poorly attended is one thing, but the fact that several officers completely fail to hold them is unforgivable. Officers need to take Assemblies seriously as a root to real engagement with students, and they need to give them teeth. Assemblies need to be given constitutional power to pass policy that binds the Union to act, and that policy should also be ratified by the UGM, forcing the wider Union structures to work on policy areas it might otherwise overlook.

A key concern that this publication has however, surrounds LSESU’s lack of investment in democratic structures and services more broadly. We strongly believe that engagement in decision making is so low, not because people don’t want to get involved, but because the Union doesn’t invest enough time, money or resource in telling them how, when, where and why they should care. The Union must become more proactive in promoting the benefits of involving students in democratic events, or they will continue to be ineffective and poorly attended.

Whilst the suggestions made thus far are broadly procedural and structural in nature, we recognise that there is a cultural shift that needs to occur too. And it’s not in the student body, but in the Union itself and the hacks that frequent it. For too long, it seems, there have been some corners of our Union that believe that engagement will happen on a basis of “if we build it, they will come”. And that belief is a lie. No one should expect students to get involved with campaign work, democratic activity, or any other activity for that matter, if they don’t want to put the work in to make it happen. What needs to be realised is that you don’t create engagement without going out and making it happen. Sure, some people will grab some flyers for their upcoming demo, but do you see anyone doing the same ahead of an event that isn’t a demo or a piss-up? Shake off this lazy idea, go out and talk to students in the 4th Floor cafe, the Garrick, the Quad, go and find out what students are really thinking, and then, just maybe, you’ve got the start of something magical.

All this publication can offer is an opinion. We’re not experts, and we don’t pretend that we have definitive answers. We’re just students, like you, that feel our Students’ Union does great things, but could be so much better. Here’s hoping they realise it before it’s too late.

Johnson, fuming after his row with fellow mayoral election candidate Ken Livingstone during a live radio hustings at LBC 97.3 on Tuesday afternoon, visited the Marks and Spencer store near City Hall to purchase some smoked salmon to calm his nerves. Johnson went to the checkout, paid for his salmon with a £10 note and received £4.53 in change. Convinced that he’d handed the cashier a £20 note and was hence short-changed by ten pounds, the mayor of London aggressively remonstrated with her. After being told numerous times that he had in fact paid with a £10 note Johnson leaned into the cashier’s face and repeatedly told her that she was “a f***ing liar,” causing the cashier to burst into tears and run to the staff room.

Kenny McManus, a customer who witnessed Johnson’s outburst, was appalled by the event. “It was an absolute disgrace. I mean, £5.49 for a bit of smoked salmon? What’s this country coming to?!” Benedict Militia, a spokesperson for the Back Boris 2012 campaign, told The Penguin that the claims made by the cashier were totally unfounded. “Time and time again we’re hearing false allegations from Boris’ detractors regarding his financial arrangements. I have a statement from his accountant right here confirming that Mr Johnson always carries twelve £20 notes in his wallet as well as a condom and a Ministry of Sound membership card. This is the most transparent administration in Britain and we’re proud of that.”

Mr Johnson was unavailable for comment. The London mayoral elections will be held on 3^rd May, right after a mayoral candidates’ rap battle on Radio 1′s Tim Westwood show.

Dr Voorhoeve, who last week was voted Sexiest Egalitarian Of All Time by readers of Philosopher’s Digest magazine (narrowly beating such stiff competition as John Locke and Karl Marx), told The Penguin that the Philosophy Department is introducing the new policy to ensure that male students achieve all of the course’s intended learning outcomes. “If you’re unable to drive at least two girls wild with your tentative appreciation of moral relativism, your affection towards David Hume’s poetic writing style and the bits of Cheetos stuck in your “thinking beard,” then you’ve learnt absolutely nothing from me. What would be the point, then, of you taking my exam? The PH103 exam is for players, my friend. Anyone who fails to bring two luscious ladies along with them can always take the Abstract Mathematics (MA103) exam instead. Let me know how all that “greatest common divisor” stuff works out for you when you’re trying to flirt with the babes at post-exam Crush.”

Neil O’ Doherty, president of the LSESU Male Society, was outraged by Dr Voorhoeve’s plans. “I’ve spent the last six months campaigning my ass off to protect men’s rights at LSE. Dr Voorhoeve’s overtly sexist door policy is a massive kick in the teeth after all the hard work my committee and I have put into stamping out this sort of discrimination. I simply won’t stand for this… unless he buys me a pint of London Pride and two packets of peanuts: then I won’t care. I’m a man, you see; alcohol and salted snacks are the solution to everything for me.”

The PH103 exam is scheduled for 6^th June followed by a hot tub party at Professor John Worrall’s house (scientific anti-realists will not be allowed in).

With the introduction of OS X 10.8, Mountain Lion, Apple is bringing what it does on the iPhone and iPad operating system – iOS – and shoving it into a traditional computer, evolving the small changes that we saw in Mac OS X 10.7, Lion.

I’ve been using the developer preview of OS X 10.8 for a few weeks now, and I think whilst this isn’t the final stop on the line, this is another step in the evolution of computing.

When Mac OS X Lion was launched last year, it was obvious where the inspiration was from. Whilst a brand new MacBook Air was released to great fanfare with phenomenal boot times, all day battery life and more, the really significant changes were at the OS level.

First there was Launchpad – the fast, if somewhat aesthetically sub-par, application launcher – that brought the iOS home screen to your computer. Then there were multi-touch gestures. Oh so many gestures. The new hardware and software allowed you to pinch, pull, swipe and twist to perform dozens of iOS inspired manoeuvres. There was also auto-saving with Versions, the introduction (resurrection?) of iCloud, and more.

This momentum hasn’t stopped with 10.8. Apple has expanded their iOS inspired repertoire; introduced a unified notification system, made the OS almost completely dependent on the Mac App Store, attempted to simplify and reimagine the file system in baby steps by giving all apps access to iCloud data storage, brought iMessage to the desktop, and added a bucket full of other features, all in one fell swoop.

If you can’t see where this is going, it’s time to book an eye test.

Some have called this the dumbing down of computing. In fact, the same people have been calling Apple computers the dumbing down of computing since the Mac vs. Windows OS wars of the 1990s. But they’re wrong. This isn’t dumbing down, this is levelling up.

For many, even those born as “digital natives”, the desktop computing world is a maze of confusion. It’s certainly true that children are more knowledgable of computing than their teachers and parents, but right across the age range, very few people would, I think, consider themselves “advanced” or even “competent” users. For many of these people, an iOS device is the first time they’ve even held a computer – yes, these are computers, in all but name – in their hands. This is the first time there has been an interface that your gran could learn to use, opening up a world of possibilities. And here is the advent of the Post-PC era.

Those that say this is about dumbing down are missing the point; missing the long game. Think back to 2007. When the iPhone was released, it couldn’t even send picture messages. There was no copy-and-paste, no App Store, no Notification Center. Over time, Apple has added extra layers of complexity to iOS to try and level-up the ability of its users – users that, remember, may never have used technology before. The same with iPad. When it shipped with iOS 3.2, it brought with it no multi-tasking and limited multi-touch gestures. Today, you’ll find 10 and 100 year-olds alike swiping through apps, pinching to close them and more.

“Big deal”, I hear the old guard say. “If it doesn’t have a command prompt, it isn’t good enough”, you cry. But if you truly want to open up technology to the masses, you need to take them on a journey. Until people understand the basics of email, you can’t expect them to be the next polymaths.

What the old guard don’t get is this. The Post-PC era isn’t about dumbing down, it’s about the democratisation of technology.

And so when people wince as the new features of Mac OS X Lion and OS X Mountain Lion, and even Windows 8, it’s important to remember this isn’t about “dumbing down”. It is about levelling up. OS X and iOS, just like Windows Phone and Windows for PCs, will move ever closer together because they have to. We need unification to support a computing revolution; to open up technology to the masses. Then, and only then, can we start to add more complexity again – to level up.

OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion is just the next step on a path to technological democratisation. And I for one can’t wait.

In a leaked internal memorandum revealed exclusively to The Penguin, Seth Wachowski (Director of the Russell Group) asks Nigella Burbank (the Group’s Public Relations Manager) how best to go about telling LSE representatives that the quasi-business school no longer has a place in the group of elite UK educational establishments. Reasons cited for the LSE’s pending exclusion include: Prof. Pissarides’ on-going work into his embarrassing LSE Poverty Index, the awarding of a PhD to Saif Al-Islam and the planned incorporation of TV-style adverts in EC102 lectures. Even the uncouth behavior of LSE representatives at a recent engagement was given as grounds for the excision of the social-sciences-based institution from the Russell Group, as the following excerpt illustrates.

Come on Gella (Nigella Burbank), you saw how the LSE lot were at the Xmas party. Judith (Rees) even had the nerve to bring Saif (Al- Islam) as her plus-one; you should have seen what they were doing to each other next to the finger buffet. And the number of times that (Prof.) Pissarides asked me to pull his finger doesn’t bear to mention. LSE has to be given the boot.

 Later on in the document Wachowski mentions how the LSE can be reasonably replaced by Hamburger University.

You’ve seen the quality of research over at HU (Hamburger University): their “diminishing returns to burger” thesis, their attempts to quantify the effect of Happy Meals on aggregate utility and their contribution to the debate on whether potatoes should be given the right to fry. LSE’s research quality, on the other hand, is slipping. As far as I’m concerned there’s only one solution: burgers in, economics out.

 Judith Rees, interim Director of the LSE, was livid about the prospect of her institution exiting the Russell Group and being replaced by a fast-food chain’s corporate university. “How dare the Russell Group propose to replace us with Hamburger University! It’s only LSE, after all, that truly understands the causes of things… as long as you grant it various drastically simplifying assumptions as to what those things are and you know what an indifference curve is. Furthermore, Hamburger University bears no resemblance to the LSE whatsoever; HU does nothing but churn out graduates who are only equipped to work in one particular industry, have very narrow personal development goals and… oh wait.”

LSE is due to lose its prestige on 1stApril. Anyone caught defecting to a more prestigious university will either be shot or forced to meet with their Academic Adviser (whichever is deemed to be the more severe punishment).

The talk, entitled How To Steal Children And Alienate People will explore how LSE graduates can utilise their analytical pedigree to commit heinous crimes against humanity while simultaneously racking up ten million “likes” on Facebook. “We have lots of students at the LSE who want to do good in the world, but also lots of students who want to do bad. TEDxLSE feels that the latter are an under-exploited market segment and so we’ve taken it upon ourselves to invite one of the most evil individuals in sub-Saharan Africa to deliver a thirty-minute PowerPoint presentation beset by technical problems to those students; we’re simply rolling with the times” said Benedict Scrambled-Eggs, president of TEDxLSE, at a press conference in The Quad.

Alicia Davies-Gaddafi, a third-year law student, was thrilled by the announcement of Kony’s presence at TEDxLSE next week. “I think that RAG Week, the model UN and other positive student activities that we currently have at LSE are, quite frankly, unbeneficial to students in this current economic climate. Graduate employers are constantly saying that they’re looking for more ruthless recruits and I think that learning a lesson or two from an African child snatcher will give students clear insights into how to enhance their morally reprehensible tendencies. Joseph Kony speaking at TEDxLSE is the breath of fresh air that I’ve been waiting for.”

Joseph Kony will be giving his talk at TEDxLSE on 17^th March from 12:30pm to 1pm, after taping a special episode of Prank Patrol for the CBBC channel.

Putin, who also “won” the recent Russian presidential elections, was ecstatic about his Bee-Keeping Society election victory when The Penguin’s vodka correspondent accidently bumped into him at a vodka party being held near Moscow’s Red Square. “I fought long and hard to become president of mother Russia for the very third time. Having said that, ever since my days as a young, care-free KGB officer, I’ve had my eyes firmly fixed on the role of LSESU Beekeeping Society president as well. To win “the double” simply blows my mind. I’m touched that LSE students  have “chosen” me to lead them into a new era of bee-stings and honey-based social events” said Putin before judo-chopping our reporter in the face for never having read the allegedly popular SuperPutin comic book.

Political commentators within the LSE have questioned the legitimacy of Putin’s claims of Beekeeping Society electoral victory. The Penguin has heard numerous accounts of voter fraud, with one eyewitness claiming that 10,000 bees, who were unregistered to vote, arrived by bus at the Beekeeping Society elections on Sunday and stuffed the ballot box with honey-laced voting slips. “It was an absolute disgrace; a mockery of the democratic process. Some people have a complete disregard for the sanctity of the LSESU Beekeeping Society elections and Vladimir Putin is one of them. What’s more, during all the madness, my girlfriend (Beekeeping Society Treasurer Helen Stickyfingers) was stung in her eyeball by a bee in her bonnet” said Jenkins Urquell-Nepotism, a BSc Geography and Economics student who attended the elections.

More sinister claims have been made by fringe elements of the LSESU following the disappearance of Henry Capp-Pacino, Putin’s main opponent in the Beekeeping Society presidential election. The rising star of the beekeeping world has not been seen since Saturday evening, leading to claims that Mr Putin had Capp-Pacino assassinated by FS-Bee operatives in the early hours of Sunday morning. Even though these claims are yet to be verified, outgoing LSESU Activities and Development Officer, Stanley Ellerby-English, has promised to carry out a full and thorough investigation into the matter…after the latest series of Take Me Out has ended.

Mr Putin will be inaugurated as LSESU Beekeeping Society president on 1^st September in a lavish ceremony at the Moscow Municipal Judo Dojo. Any attendants that are allergic to honey may or may not be arrested and incarcerated.

We learned today that the LSE Students’ Union’s elections were rigged in favour of certain candidates.

We stand for investigative journalism and we appreciate that one often has to work on limited information, but this is disgraceful. Running such an incendiary story on the back of such flimsy evidence is simply irresponsible. These elections dictate the course of four people’s lives for the next year, and unwarranted stress should not be placed upon their shoulders due to what seems to a case of sore-loser syndrome given the ordeal that is the campaign season anyway.

The case seems to hinge on this document: a screenshot of a Google Doc of an Excel spreadsheet. Claiming that the discrepancy here of 28 votes between the demographic data and the actual votes recorded is indicative of vote fraud is nothing short of opportunistic hacks attempting to get a story where there is none. Had the proper research been done, a discrepancy of 33 votes between the demographic data and the actual voter turnout would have been discovered in the 2011 Lent Term elections, with this being 33 votes extra: these facts were found from publicly available data from the Students’ Union. This is the same complaint. The inconsistency in the approach to this election over others certainly points to a political bias on the part of the London Student and those involved with the complaints made the Students’ Union: the candidates of the ‘Left’ won last year and not this year.

Now, the discrepancy between demographic data and turnout is better explained by incomplete or incorrect demographic data logged in the School’s databases. People move around during the year: they may be recorded in two halls of residence; they may not release this information to the School; their classification as staff of the School may remove the demographic data from access by the Students’ Union.

We are not willing to discount the possibility of electoral irregularities at this point, but the evidence given so far is beyond insufficient to make the sorts of claims that are being made by the London Student.