| Description | Interview with Simon Varwell, President of the Students Association, recorded in the office of the Rector of the University, by invitation, on 25 June 2001 by Jennifer Carter.
This is the second part of the interview begun on MS 3620/1/115/1
Transcript of Interview :
V The turnout was disappointing..
C Because Alex told me he had a very big turnout.
V Yes. Twenty per cent.
C Which is huge in electoral terms..
V Very much so! But then there were three candidates then.
C Right and in your case…
V At the risk of making excuses, there were only two candidates. The Students Association was new. People didn't really know what the Students Association President was going to do. One of the first jobs of whoever won, was always going to be to define the job. And to be honest with you, I don't think I have properly defined it, it will need revision next year, and the year after, and the year after. It will evolve. So it was always going to be a position that would need to find itself credibility. It would need to fight for its own credibility from the word go, because it was a new thing. It didn't belong to either of the three councils, and trust either of their traditions or modus operandi. So it was always very new and so I won. There were two of us. Myself and a member of the UMC ran for the job. It was sad that it turned into a SRC versus UMC.
C Who was the UMC person?
V His name was Nick Tuberville, he was the Deputy Secretary of that year, and he had been a very longstanding, active member, and it was a very tight contest. It was 719 votes to 534.
C Not close.
V About 170 in it. A turnout of, I think about twelve per cent, which to be honest, I was disgusted about that eighty-eight per cent of folk didn't think it was worth voting. Maybe that's their fault, or maybe it was my fault, I don't know?
C Or maybe it was just because it was a new set-up like you say?
V So that really shaped the job of the SA and my job in the first year. It's all about telling people about the Students Association.
C We have arrived, we are here!
V You know, this is what we are going to do. This is what we hope to achieve. This is a message that students have to be told about. You know, there was one body to relate to, and the University had to get to used to having one body to relate to, and amazingly, perhaps sadly, a lot of my time was repeating old arguments as I tried to convince Council members that it was worth continuing with the project. I had idealistically hoped that my year would be all about delivering the Students Association, but no. A lot of the time people were going back on it, thinking, you know, the Students Association is something that happens to other people and they can ignore the Students Association.
C That's very interesting!
V Put their head in the sands. People were so used to the way things had operated, and the Students Association had the potential to completely shake up the three bodies and with its people's security.
C Of course. And their little careers which might help with their CV's and so on.
V Their own understand of how things worked was something they held very dearly, and so to have things shaken up was great in the long term, but it needed a lot of convincing. So I had to repeat a lot of old arguments. I was disappointed by that, because I thought the arguments were won, let's get on with it. But no!
C Is it won now? At the end of your year. Have you won?
V Yes. Yes. I think even those who still disagree with the Students Association, they are much less of a minority now, but they accept that there is no going back. I think that having the second round of sabbatical elections this year really helped, because a lot of people thought that they could bring it to the ground, and they could stop it happening. Particularly we had a lot of difficulties from the sports side of the Association. You felt very claustrophobic. You felt that they were being involved too much in other student affairs, and to be honest the Athletic Association were very conservative about the way they worked and very inward looking, and one of the things that has happened this year, is that they have actually opened their eyes to the new opportunities and skills and expertise of the other areas of the Association have got to offer them in terms of selling sport better. So they have accepted now that it's they way to go and it will bring great opportunities in terms of releasing new marketing expertise to the clubs and societies. You know, people for a time this year were thinking, this is not good, we can overdo this. We can turn the clock back. We can undo it all. Which I suppose we could have done, but not now. We have come too far for it to be undone. So we have won the argument and next year is going to be a very interesting one. So much more steps forward. The problem is we have no instant…
C You have no big issue to campaign?
V Yes. And also there were no instant benefits for the Students Association. The ones that were created were still in three different places, doing three different jobs. Very small benefits developed, but it was always going to take time. It was only just this month that we have appointed our new Marketing Manager, who before was a very Union position, marketing the Union, but now it's going to be about marketing anything from the Union to our representational services, to helping clubs and societies find sponsorship, to helping Gaudie run itself better and helping the fledgling radio station phase get sponsorship. So marketing was always one of the key lynch-pins that would draw the association together, so that will be a great stride forward next year, once that new position finds its feet. I think the second thing, which has been the biggest issue for me this year. The second thing that will bring the Association together is the physical aspect. The SRC is still in Luthuli House at the bottom of the High Street. The Union is still twenty minutes off campus and offers no commercial services to students on campus, and the Sports Council is still in a 'shoe-box' in Butchart.
C So what are the plans? Where do you hope to expand to?
V The problem is that there are no plans. I think that the Sabbaticals at the time were fobbed off by the University saying yes, there could be a brand new building! A brand new student centre. like other Student Associations around the country have, where you can walk into the one building and buy lunch, get a pint, meet your friends, join a club and society, find out how your academic appeal is going on. A 'One-Stop' shop.
C And it's not on the horizon at the moment?
V No, no. I mean it has been atrocious. Atrocious imagination on the part of the University. They say there is no money and they say there is… you know, they are going through a big review called Pathfinder, which is a massive review of the University's estates, particularly its residences and catering. So the hall stock is being reviewed and the University-managed catering operations at the Central Refectory are being reviewed. Until we can get our hands on some commercial outlets, until we can, you know, run something like the Union on campus, we have to wait for all these issues. Like what happens to Halls of Residences and what happens to the Refectory to be resolved, and in a sense were are going to end up with the crumbs from a table that hasn't even been built yet. The University is very keen on providing new food outlets on campus, which is right, because it is atrocious provision at the moment. Here we are, the Students Association, energetic, dynamic, an organisation willing to provide these services and the University isn't willing. We desperately need the new building, Luthuli House is very, very old and incredibly inaccessible and very unattractive and uninviting. We want somewhere where students can drop in for advice and information and to get lunch, and just be informal and in an attractive place. It is not just for our benefit, it's not just our business we are looking for, we are thinking about the student experience, and the way the University is going about looking at the Halls of Residence, the future of Halls and the future of catering on campus is very much the attitude of: well what can the private sector provide? How can we minimise our costs? How can we do as little work as possible? But their question should be: what do we want for the student experience?
C And what is the Student Association take on the idea, as it were, of privatising residences and catering.
V Well to be honest, the University on the whole...
C Have you been asked?
V We have been asked. I sit on the group that steers Pathfinder, so - mind you after having fought for that position. So they weren't all that reluctant to listen to us, but then my strategy of just constantly harping on about it, has won me that place, and they realised that we had so many vested interests in terms of our physical location. You know there is rumours of a new student village over on Crombie/Johnston, redeveloping that as a replacement to Hillhead. There should be a student centre at the heart of that. The Students Association should be at the heart of any student village, and that's our argument, and also we should be able to provide students with food. If they want food, we already provide it. We don't need the private sector.
C So you are not unsympathetic to the University, as it were, pulling out of catering, but you feel that you should move in rather than a private provider.
V Certainly, some private sector involvement will be necessary but what we dream of is a Students Association building where we can invite students in for all sorts, offer them all sorts of services, and we can run everything within that. A lot of the privatisation makes in terms of offering choice to students and particular in terms of residences. The University couldn't frankly be any worse at managing halls, and privately a lot of the University admit that. And so it's good that they admit that, and it's good that the private sector can be involved, just as long as student welfare is kept as a priority. It looks good for residences, as long as this issue gets resolved, but until then the Students Association is going to be homeless. It's not going to know exactly where it will be as an organisation in the commercial and development sense, and so the challenge to the University this year is, are you going to look in terms of bits and pieces, or are you going to look at the residences and resolve that, or are you going to look at the catering and resolve that? Or are you going to look more holistically, because surely the… what we should be looking at is student recruitment.
C And retention?
V Yes. There is a big retention problem in the University as well, and what we want to do is make the best possible student experience. Students should have facilities of the highest standard available to them, and you should start on that premise, not on some sort of commercial business premise. So we are very concerned that the University isn't thinking in a joined up way at all. It is not sitting down and thinking, how can we make student life better? It is thinking about how can we deal with our poor stock of halls? How can we deal with our crumbling Refectory? And these issues need to be dealt with in a hands on manner, but as part of a grander scheme. And it is only as part of a grander scheme that the Students Association will ever be able to play a part in it.
C Yes, just so I understand this bit correctly. If I understood you correctly, you could see a vision of a Students Association that would among other things take over the provision of food, but not the provision of halls. Do you see them as a walrus? Student Residences I should say rather than bodies of students!
V No. The student bodies have never been in the business of running halls.
C They do on the continent sometimes. Don't they?
V Right, right.
C I wonder it that was one of your ambitions as it were, student co-operative housing as it were, run by the Students Association.
V Well, you know, I think from where the Association is coming together is a big enough job and developing ourselves as an organisation is...
C So that would be a big issue - too big for you?
V I think that if we want to be able to run a catering operation that's a massive enough job as it is.
C I just wanted to be clear on that.
V Perhaps in the future. Why not? A lot of students associations up and down the country run the universities catering operation to the halls of residence so we could always run the halls catering. Also students associations run as independent companies, you know, we would in effect we would be AUSA Ltd., if the university would allow us. That allows student associations to develop their commercial activities greatly throughout the cities there are student associations that run ordinary pubs. Not student-focussed ones, ordinary ones, where you can buy at the same discounted levels that we do through NUS services but sell out pints for an extra 20p at the sort of local market. A lot of students associations do that, so they can make extra money. Car parks are a big one as well. They are fantastic money earners.
C I always said that if I had a large sum to invest I would invest it in car parking in Old Aberdeen.
V Quite right. A lot of students associations do that. They are big earners, and the more money they can make the, the more money they can put into funding their clubs and societies, and making their campaigns better run.
C From the University's point of view I take it, the prize is that they would unload onto whoever, whether it is yourselves or somebody else, what are at the moment considered money-losing and time-wasting operations. Like food and residence. I mean, do I understand that correctly?
V Absolutely. It could be very difficult to sell these thing, but on the other hand if you look at campus, and we have about 10,000 students, about 2,000 staff, and very, very few outlets for food. The Central Refectory is old and crumbling and unimaginative, beyond that there is very little. So there is a massive market out there. So if it is done rightly it can work wonderfully.
C Could I ask then, if you are willing to tell me, how have you personally and your Student Association officials interacted with the University on these issues? You speak with some sense of frustration, as if you haven't been listened to as much as you had expected or had hoped? I mean I am not sure what theatres this has been discussed in, at Court or elsewhere?
V Well this is the problem. It is not joined up! We have what is called the Pathfinder Project, which is steering the residences and halls.
C This the John Sewel thing is it?
V Yes that's right.
C He is leading it, I think, isn't he?
V They are doing things in bite-sized chunks. They broke down Pathfinder into four sections. First of all they were going to dispose of the so-called satellite halls, Don Street, Spring Gardens, St Peter's Street, Linksfield and Farmer's Hall at Rosemount. So to privatise these, let an expert student accommodation provider take them on. So one of them has been sold and the others seem to be sold. The second stage was then to redevelop Crombie/Johnston into a student village, and thirdly, they would dispose of Hillhead, and fourthly they would revamp the University's catering. You can call it the incompetence of the management in the University -I am leaving University at the moment, I can say what I like! - the incompetence of the Management can be seen in the fact that in the issue of catering it was realised that it couldn't be resolved in the end, it had to be sorted now, so that was brought up the agenda. Then as people started doing what seemed to be back of the envelope calculations, they realised that we could get away with not having a student village on Crombie/Johnston, and not replacing Hillhead. This issue has yet to be resolved. We are not actually sure whether we are going to have this student village or not.
C And meantime what about Dunbar and all the fuss about that?
V Oh, well yes. That was just a farce. A very old building, and you know if there is to be a student village, then yes, Dunbar should close, because it is out of date and requires a hideous amount of money to…
C The roof is falling in? I don't know if that is true.
V Fantastic atmosphere for students and they all love it, but Dunbar is not just an atmosphere, it is bricks and mortar. The atmosphere is with the people and the management, so you could make any of the halls into that good an atmosphere, so Dunbar had to close. The University's PR on that was terrible. They just didn't tell people the reasons why they were closing it down, there was no consultation of ordinary students who lived in Dunbar. So they made a bit of a balls-up on that one. The catering operation of the University. They have some weird scheme of a food court, replacing some of the buildings they own on the High Street, which presentations have been made to the University that I really shouldn't be telling you about, and these presentations have all focussed on you know, what would be done in these particular addresses in the High Street, leading to some sort of modern food court, well that's fine, but the question we should be asking, isn't how do we fill these addresses, and turn it into a food court. The issue is: what actually do we need in the first place?
C What sort of food do students want?
V Yes. How much and who should be providing it. So they need to take a step back and think about the bigger picture. You know the big issue at the moment for them is what are they going to do about this food court. Now that's not the big issue. The big issue is how do we recruit students to this university and give them the best experience possible?
C So how have you been able make your very powerful views heard or have they not been heard do you feel?
V Well they have been heard. They haven't been necessarily listened to! I sit on the Pathfinder Project board and I meet with the University Secretary on regular occasions.
C You are a minority on the University Pathfinder group?
V Yes. Luckily the Pathfinder Group is a very closely knit group. It is Lord Sewel himself, the University Secretary, some members of Facilities Management, one lay member of Court, who has specific expertise in property, and myself. So I am not that…
C That's George Stevenson I imagine, is it?
V Yes. George Stevenson. But the problem is that they are so fixated with the private sector, they are so fixated with efficiency…
C That they can't see the argument you are presenting?
V Absolutely. We received these presentations from the private sector and I may as well tell you the whole story.
C Totally unconvincing I imagine, but never mind!
V The question these private consortia had been asked was how would they provide food for the students on the University, using the premises of 15-25 High Street. Now this includes McIntryne's Coach yard which I think the University has just about bought, it includes the Chaplaincy Centre…
C Which would then have to be relocated?
V Yes, exactly. It includes the Clydesdale Bank, but a tentative agreement does exist that they would be relocated within that premises, and I think some other address, which I am not quite sure if the University actually owns yet, they intend to but they don't. So we had these presentations, fantastic visions that people were having from the private sector point of view, wonderful visions, but then we all sat down after we had these presentations, and the University Secretary said 'Right, ok so rumour is now going to seep out that the Chaplaincy is on the move, rumour is now going to seep out that it is going to be this food court. What do we do about the Central Refectory?' There were all these questions and issues. The people in Facilities Management were so obsessed with a good private deal that they hadn't worried about this. They hadn't thought about what they were going to do with the Refectory. Their question wasn't the wider student experience. So I almost exploded afterwards and I said 'Look, the premise should NOT be, what do we do with 15-25 High Street? The premise should be, what do we do with Catering on a wider issue? We are a fantastically efficient provider of catering to students down town at the Union. We are energetic, we are enthusiastic. We can't do it worse than you are already doing it. Give us a chance' And that was something I repeated at so many occasions that I was becoming blue in the face. So they eventually said there was nothing to lose if you make a presentation. So we will be making a presentation about how we would take on the University's catering operation, if they gave it to us in its doomed years. It will be wound down and it will be privatised, and they are essentially going to give it to us to be the undertaker. Well not just the undertaker, but also the sort of terminating doctor, if you like to be macabre. We are going to sort of put it to bed, make it run as efficiently as we can, and provide a good student service.
C While it is still a University operation?
V Well. Yes. Then it would be put to bed and it would be privatised. But if we if we did it well enough .
C Then you might be the private providers? Would you?
V I think there will always be private providers. There will always be high street names coming to the University. Which is good, but our issue has been, you know, we are asking for this dream building of a one-stop student centre, and the University has rightly said, there have been concerns about the business competence of the Students Association, in a sense it is brand new and we don't know how good it is at managing these things. Then in the past there were the concerns about the Union, you know, about ten - fifteen years ago half of it had to be sold off because it was in financial ruin.
C Yes, it has had its ups and downs, let's say.
V Absolutely. So it's understandable they were wary of this, and the University effectively told us this, 'if you can prove that you are good at running the Refectory, then we will consider giving you the two things that you are wanting'. And what we were wanting is, the constitutional right to own property, and the constitutional right to borrow money. So they said that they might let us borrow money either on our own, or against the University. We might let you own some properties. We might consider giving you the Union building, or selling it to you, and then once we have done that we will be able to invest in a building on our own. So we have to jump through some hoops in order to get the end result, and the end result is something that we will have to do a lot of work for ourselves. So I am disgusted that the University can't see this as being in the interests of students, and as recruitment, and of selling this University as an excellent looker-after of students. It is so obsessed with research, and so obsessed with budgets and deficits and balancing the books, that it doesn't actually care about providing the best opportunities for students. You know, we are the third oldest university in the country, and one of the leading universities in the world. Why can't we provide for our students? The University does not think in a joined up way about this, which is atrocious!
C So what opportunities have you had to bring these very cogent arguments to bear? I mean apart from the Pathfinder group, you presumably have a place on the University Court, have you?
V Yes. I am also on a committee called the Joint Planning Finance and Estates Committee to whom Pathfinder reports, and that contains a wider audience, and I able to pick up on the reports. Often the complete incompetence and indecision shines through in Pathfinder's reports, so when it comes to JPFE I am able to say 'look, hang on, this is the score'. Then that in turn reports the Court, and I am able to have another go there. Then I have meetings ever six weeks with the University Secretary..
C Not with the Principal at all?
V Yes. I have occasional meetings with the Principal, but to be honest the University Secretary is a lot more hands-on than you would expect. He is able a lot better to tell me about what the University can and can't do. The Principal, I am beginning to wonder if he is just a bit of a figure-head really. He is there to be nice to people, but because there are so many people he has to be nice to that takes up his time - that's my theory - so the University Secretary, being in charge of the Administration, is a lot more… has his ear to the ground a lot more. That is no offence to the Principal. I know what it's like being a President, you know I am out of touch with the students, so my dialogue with the University Secretary is supposed to be about updating him on student issues. Keeping him abreast of what we are doing.
C It is the Secretary, I note, rather than the Senior Vice-Principal, i.e. not Iain Macdonald.
V Yes, that's right.
C Will that change do you think when it's Sewel as Senior Vice-Principal?
V Sewel doesn't care about students. It is wonderful about the University Secretary, he really does care and he is interested and accepts our point of view. He agrees with what we are fighting for. It is just because of the University, the state the University's finances are in at the moment.
C What about the Rector's role? Has she been supportive to your point of view or not?
V The Rector's supportive, but she is complete rubbish.
C Is that so? I mean I don't know.
V This year, she has been awful. She has been great in past years. Last year she was great, especially on Cubie. She did a wonderful thing, which I can't think of any other rector that has done, and that is combined the clout and sort of effectiveness of a media heavyweight, a big celebrity, with an actual knowledge of the University and a willingness to fight for students. You know, she was a former barrister, so Court meetings don't intimidate her. She knows how to cope with huge bundles of paper, and she knows how to cope with really awkward, stuck-up people in seats. She has done very well, but largely because of her broadcasting commitments this year…
C She has just been too busy? Yes I see. Will she run again then?
V Yes.
C You think so?
V I had thought she had really lost interest, but - and I think she has perhaps to some extent - but to be fair, and to be honest, her being Rector does more for her than it does for the University. She gets more out of us, than we do out of her. It is an extra thing to her to talk about. It's an extra feather in her cap.
C Of course, potentially the sort of issues you have been discussing, should be meat and drink to her and she should be very effective on them?
V Yes, absolutely. She's a very stubborn and hard fighter, and she takes on, if she wants to, she can take on the University fantastically, but you know… I can't really say off the record, but I say with some trepidation that she has completely lost interest.
C This year?
V Yes.
C That's a pity, because it's such a bad time for you.
V Also, it doesn't help in terms of the position of Rectors. We always have journalists on our backs saying: 'Surely rectors are outdated now.' And the likes of Tony Slattery at Dundee and Ross Kemp at Glasgow give the Rector a very, very bad name, because they have been absolutely atrocious. So there are very, very few decent Rectors out there. Clarissa has been a decent Rector, Donald Findlay, surprisingly enough, was an excellent Rector of St Andrews, by all accounts, despite his controversial views and his controversial downfall. He was apparently very interested in students, he was regularly there. He was great on a one to one level. He would give students his mobile phone number and tell them to get in touch whenever they liked. Of course being a QC the University Court was no intimidation to him either. So he and Clarissa in recent memory have been good, active Rectors. The have been what Rectors should be. A media heavyweight, who was able to capture the public imagination, but who have the understanding of what the job does, and who have the interests of students at heart, and there are very, very few of those around.
C It is a great pity then. I wonder if I could push things in just a slightly different direction from what we have been immediately talking about…?
V I do tend to talk about that rather too much…
C No! It is very good to have it on the record, but there are two issues I would like to put to you, and the first ties back very much with this notion of student villages and the student experience. I have lived a long time now in Old Aberdeen and I sense, I don't know if you are aware of this, that there is a good deal of resentment of students among the local, you know, non-student community. I don't know how serious or widespread this is. Is it something that you are aware of and have any views about?
V Well yes I mean the myths and the cliques have existed for a very long time and its something we have worked very, very hard on to recover. We have good relations with Old Aberdeen Community Council, and the City Council, and one of the recent achievements that we have had through opening a dialogue with the Community Council, is to scotch the myth that students are always the perpetrators of crime, and they are not. Students are more the victims of crime. Quite often through their own ignorance.
C But the sort of issues of vandalism and the noise late at night and this sort of stuff?
V Yes, there are lot of complaints about that. We and the University worked very hard, it sounds like a cop-out, to stress to the community, that there is nothing we can do students behaviour. The University isn't in loco parentis, the University Secretary will always tell them, and a student who throws-up in someone's garden one Saturday night is just someone in Aberdeen throwing-up in someone's garden!
C It might equally be a football supporter, or…?
V Exactly, exactly. It could be a local throwing-up in a student's garden. It works both ways. So that said we still have, we have no paternalistic responsibilities or capabilities vis-à-vis the students, neither us, nor the University, but there is a lot we can do. You know one of the best ways in which we have done this is through something called The Town and Gown Forum. It was an initiative of Grampian Police and to bring together students, the University, the local community, along with themselves just to keep dialogue open, and to talk about the mutual issues, and lots of things. We now inform the police of any big events that we know that are going on, that might lead to noise pollution problems. While the University informs the Community Council if there is something really big on at King's, on the pitches, that might have a massive audience. We have brought each together, we have scotched the myth, we have got over that and we are really now having to work together. You know students aren't just students, they are citizens of Aberdeen, they are residents of Old Aberdeen more often than any other part of the city. They are victims of vandalism and of crime and of noise pollution. It is very difficult for them, particularly for those who come from outwith the United Kingdom. So we face a lot of problems, so we have decided to open a dialogue, and as long as we talk to community representatives, you know, as long as we get on with each other, and as long as we know where each other stands, there is some great scope for co-operation, and the Town and Gown Forum has lead to a number of wonderful things. There is going to be a leaflet going round just outlining the issues of civic responsibility and community contacts that will get delivered to students and local people.
C Good, that's rather a good initiative.
V The local community is going to have a very strong presence in our Fresher's Week. Their message will be spoken at the Fresher's opening ceremony, they will hopefully have a stall at the Fresher's Fair, as will Grampian Police. Another great initiative we were able to co-operate with was Operation Sentinel. One of Grampian Police's initiatives, which was basically a crack down on petty crime, and an awareness campaign, which was essentially two sorts. Behind the scenes they were targeting people who they knew were always on campus and publicly they were making students aware of their obligations to keep themselves safe and secure. So yes, I mean, the whole idea of having a student village on campus can create an awful lot of problems, but if that noise is isolated in one place it would be very easy to control, and also you know the noise is already there. Students already live on campus, we already have the Students Association facilities, and if we can have it on campus together, it can simply be in one place rather than more of it. So I am very confident that as long as we keep good dialogue with the locals up, things will be great. Next year's Sabbaticals are already getting on wonderfully with the Community Council Representatives.
C That's very interesting to hear, and very cheering. I didn't know about the Town and Gown Forum. That is very interesting.
V Well it has been a wonderful initiative and was a great way to bring everyone together, and bash heads together.
C The other question I was going to ask you, and it is a very general one, you may think it's impossible to answer because it is so general, but you have been with us five years now. Can you say anything about what you see as having changed in that time among students in general? I don't mean just for you personally, but you must an awful lot of students and what goes on. I mean have there been any big changes in, oh I don't know, social attitudes? We know about economic circumstances, of course, but more particularly social and political attitudes, or stuff like that? Is there any sort of real thing you can say, in the time I was at Aberdeen, you know, student apathy ended or more students became SNP, or anything? I don't know. I just ask. Perhaps it is not a possible question to answer?
V Perhaps not. I can only give you speculation and my own opinions. In five years, I suppose, the biggest thing is the change to a Labour government, we have got the Scottish Parliament, and something will be, if not enough, is being done about student finance. Frankly, that is something that not a lot of students care about, but it does effect them in terms of the money they are able to get their hands on.
C Is finance a really big issue among many of your constituents do you think, or are people now so inured to debt, that they don't really mind?
V I would love to say it is a big issue, but I think they are just used to it and they accept it. I think, to sum it up, one thing I realised - and this is where the idealism, I thought I'd never loose, wears off - one thing I realised is that students are conservative, with a small 'c'. They are very reactionary, they are very concerned about themselves. They just want to get through University with as little debt as possible, and just survive. You know, it is not about some greater social experience, it is not about getting involved in things, and they don't think that politicians can do anything for them.
C And that may of course have wider reflections for our society as a whole, when you think of these very low turnouts for British elections and so on.
V Students don't vote at all. It is an appalling turnout. We ran buses on the, just on June the seventh, the election - or was it the ninth?
C June the seventh was the General Election I think.
V We ran buses from Hillhead to Balgownie where their polling station was, and we had about a dozen on each bus, every two hours.
C Whereas they could see themselves as a powerful electoral influence, couldn't they?
V Yes. Especially in Aberdeen North and Central constituencies where Aberdeen Uni. has most of its students. In '99 at the Scottish Parliament elections, Aberdeen Central majority was reduced to about 2000, and the majority in North was reduced to 400.
C So the students could have made a huge difference if more of them had voted?
V The students of Hector Boece House at Hillhead could have swung Aberdeen North single-handedly. It is very difficult to persuade folk that they can change their... We have proven with Cubie that we could. We took four hundred, five hundred students down to Edinburgh to demonstrate against the introduction of fees and the abolition of grants, and if you tap into something and if you plug it enough, it can be done, but sadly it is not just that they are politically apathetic. You know that membership of clubs and societies is declining and just student activity and involvement in general is declining. Largely because people just want to get on with their degree and survive, and largely because people have so many part-time jobs to hold down that they don't have time for these things. So it is very, very sad, and I wish I could say something better, but you know, students are inherently conservative, I think. The fact that the Labour government has not done what it could have done has given people the impression that it doesn't matter who is in power it will always be the same. The fact that labour have failed to do something imaginative and important has dented people's hope and aspirations even more so. So it is very sad. I mean there are glimmers of hope and as long as there is a band of a few motivated elected representatives to keep up the fights, there will always be a student voice, but how loudly that voice is spoken depends on the ordinary student.
C Well that's a wonderful note to end on. After all the depressing things you have said, to end on a little vote of confidence.
V Well I hope whoever listens to this in the future is living in era where students are listened to. You know, it's not that students get listened to, its that students talk. We have an obligation to make their voice heard and if politicians ignore them then that is probably their own faults for not shouting loudly enough. I am a big believer that democracy is about responsibilities as much as it is about rights. If you want something to happen you have to make sure you get the politicians by the scruff of the neck and you tell them loud and clear what you want. It is amazing how when people mobilise themselves they can catch the attention. You know just like we managed to do by getting five hundred students to get down to Edinburgh. Just like the lorry drivers managed to do with the fuel protests, that were just earlier this year. You know it can be done, not necessarily for the right or the wrong reasons, but it really can be done.
C Well there is hope for democracy yet then!
V Yes there is!
C Thank you very much for all of that. Fascinating. I wish we had time to go on and on, because it has really been a most interesting talk.
V My great pleasure.
End of interview
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