LSE Elections

Well I've certainly found the balmy glow of Students' Union democracy this week exciting; I like it when people I've barely spoken to since the first year rush up to greet me in the street like an old friend; even better than that was walking the length of Houghton Street today with gangs of people trying to grab hold of me and thrust pieces of paper at me - the Siberian temperatures not withstanding, I could've been walking around an Indian market.

Yes, today was the last day of the SU Elections.. Very much in vogue this year was the battle cry (if indeed the motivations were strong enough to merit the word battle) of 'students not politics' - thus the candidates were falling over themselves (and each other) to get across how little they believed in (we used to have a word for people who couldn't be bothered with politics in this country - conservatives). Whilst it obviously makes sense to priorities student issues this approach has now been taken to its ridiculous extreme; some of the best attended UGMs have contained motions over divisive 'political' issues - for instance the Israeli 'security fence'. Nothing gets the monkey house that is the balcony going more than the sight of LSE's few remaining lefties (who should in my view receive legal protection as an endangered species) arguing over antiwar sit-ins and demos. Given that apathetical materialism (aka investment banker syndrome) arguably represents the new politics at LSE, maybe we should only be talking about issues that affect our own self interest...but its undeniably sad.

So whoever is declared the winner of the £24,000 jackpot tonight, does it really matter ? We are all but guaranteed a bunch of clean cut, smiling and (on the face of it) apolitical people who will almost certainly do average or above job of running our Union. So why should I care who the faces are ?