Give me one candidate who mentions an anti-litter policy in their manifesto (though give me even half a candidate who mentions any policy in their manifesto and I’ll probably have a coronary embolism) because I’ve never seen such a waste of paper as the SU elections.
A pile of leaflets with someone’s badly photoshopped mug on isn’t going to persuade me to vote them vice president of anything. Bland statements announcing, “I’ll fight for you” are meaningless.
Fight for what? More bins to accommodate the growing leaflet population? Have some actually policies, people. At least Cheryl Cole wanted to fight for this love.
In 2011 our beloved SU has printed more leaflets than any year previously. 14,000 leaflets are getting ready to go onto the front line of Lincoln’s mangled version of politics. “14,000 leaflets means 14,000 votes, right? Right?!” squeal the candidates when last year the percentage of people who voted in the elections was just a mere 16%.
In these times we need to turn to the new found questioning hero Matt Baker as I’d like to ask the candidates, “How do you sleep at night?” The poor little muffins have to give not only their time and effort but also their bed sheets in the fight for democracy as instead of keeping them warm at night their bed sheets are dangling off the side of the main admin building.
“I think it’s nice,” said second year student Alice Jones when looking up at this years’ banners. “Some of them even got little kids to decorate them.”
This is only the beginning of campaigning though. I’m dreading the next week. Should I be setting out early to my lectures to counteract time wasted in wading through waist-high mountains of leaflets proclaiming “Vote for me! I’ll make everything much better because I vomit rainbows.”
By Thursday I’ll be diving out of the way of rows of hands thrusting leaflets at me in the atrium. I’ll stumble blindly past the uni shop and out into the sun, using leaflets I’ve untangled from my hair to mop up the blood from my hundreds of paper cuts. I try and shake the remaining leaflets off my person as all passer bys would see is a jiggling mountain of paper.
Last year exactly 1,586 different people voted in the SU elections but with many voting for everybody’s favourite candidate, Ron (re-open nominations) even that meagre number is not people voting for the actual candidates.
It’s rather sad that the SU has no ideas other than “more leaflets means more votes”.
Maybe next year they’ll realise that all these flyers are having more contact with apple cores and dirty plastic forks than with active political minds.
I totally agree with this, I refused a leaflet today and send to them about the trees and litter… and they just went.. “oh right…what a weirdo” this charming person has lost my vote and infact he was in orange so theres a tip for anyone else!!
There’s a Student Council meeting this Thursday at 4:30pm in MB1019. You should make sure the SU hear your complaint. I plan to bring it up after the elections as it does seem to be a gargantuan waste of paper, but at the same time I’m not sure what the best alternative would be.
Any ideas?
Alternatives – well, I dont know about you…, but they’ve been flooding my fb and twitter enough :-/
I have no objection to people having a voice but this is a farce the number of leaflets and mess adorning the atrium is astounding, I try and avoid any of them, I have voted but for the ones who win on policies and used minimal waste to spread the word. I dont think there was anywhere near the amount of paper and leaflets used in the countries election per square inch as there is in this one building.
Since this highlights the alarming rate by which paper is wasted for little gain, perhaps campus voices would like to do a piece on the non-recyclable food packaging found in the atrium that is currently in use all-year round, rather than just a single week.