The face that emerged from this year’s elections is Daniel Hutchinson. He worked his way up with a decent manifesto and a subtle campaign, and as a bit of an extra, with his old school conservative dress sense. Still, Daniel went under heavy criticism from many members of the student body.
“To judge people by their looks is the worse thing one could ever do. […] It should be down to the person’s ability and the policy he set out with,” answered Daniel Hutchinson when asked about his appearance. Instead, he replied that “As long as people come to me and to the other sabbatical officers, if they feel they got someone there […] if they feel they got the ability to make their views heard, that’s the important thing.”
“I’ll just go into the elections, just to make it a bit more colourful. I didn’t care if I was going to be elected or not, just to make people aware of the elections.” The reasons that got this year’s candidates’ votes stirred quite a debate around the student community.
A variety of factors were entered in the voting reasoning equation: from comedy to friendship and from sabotage to beyond. Still, for Daniel it seemed quite simple: “Perhaps my dress sense got me voted, but I hope it wasn’t, because some people thought it was a joke; perhaps not.
“With attacks on his ability to generically represent the university by simply wearing a branded hoodie, Hutchinson reasoned: “Why should I? I don’t see what the point is. What’s so important about a hoodie? I can obviously wear that (University of Lincoln logo) if it is on a scarf or on a tie. I just don’t like wearing hoodies. […] It’s not a big deal.”
But the new SU president is saying that there “might be a possibility” adding branded ties and scarves to the current official apparel line. “What shocked me most in my first and second year was that I knew nothing about the Student’s Union. The elections came and went and I knew nothing about it.”
A total of 18.8% of the student population voted this year. In the light of these facts, the turnout for the Lincoln SU elections was one of the largest in the East Midlands area. The numbers show that Daniel Hutchinson was voted by roughly ten percent of the total student community. With that in mind, he encourages higher turnouts and more political awareness.
“The negotiation for the Tower Bar is going to take years, and it’s on for years already, so we have to make sure that is on track.” Starting June, Daniel Hutchinson will take over Mike Beddoes’ SU presidency seat and he doesn’t plan to sleep while on duty. Even though his campaign manifesto is not a contract, he plans on engaging a 24 hours library, move the Uni shop back in the Atrium, put together a student accommodation guide and continue the negotiations to take over the Engine Shed.
Regarding his new SU team, Daniel says “We’ve got a great mixture from all sides in the SU team. We’ve had a good time on the campaign trail. We’ve all got our own politics.” Still, if it comes to discrepancies between them, “We’ve got to realise that when we argue or when we tell each other off, that is just the professional side of things. At the end of the day we don’t mean it personally.”
People tend to fear what they do not understand, or even worse, not care at all. Yet again, a minority of people (one percent) chose who will represent the majority of students. But as Daniel Hutchinson says, “There no use grumbling. If you’re not going to be bothered to do it, who is?”
The branded clothing is a choice sabbaticals make and certainly not enforced. Unique branded items of clothing will be an option this year for the officers to choose something that shows they are part of the SU while representing their individual tastes.