K
BRITISH LI3RARY J
-9 MAR 1982 OF POLITICAL AND CONQMIC SCIENCE]
NEWSPAPER OF THE LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS STUDENTS' UNION
APATHY RULES BUT
No. 207
MARCH 9th, 5 982
15 000 COME OUT TO
FIGHT

* iJ $
? X
LAST week's N.U.S. "Week of Action" culminated in a 15,000 strong march and rally in Hyde Park, organised in protest against real reductions in student grants, a disproportionate increase in the level of parental contributions, cuts, closures, redundancies and declining numbers in Britain's educational institutions.
Described by organisers as the biggest student rally since the 1960s, the most immediate effect was to totally disrupt London's traffic for the afternoon. Led by groups exhibiting 'Keith Joseph' masks and dubbing the Education Minister the 'Knight of the Thousand Cuts', participants included cyclists from Manchester and Birmingham responding to current government advice to the enthusiastic job seeker.
Speakers, including Labour spokesman on education, commented on the general feeling that education had come in for particularly harsh treatment. Referring to a government which "holds the youth of Britain in contempt," Neil Kin-nock pointed out the paradox displayed in Ministers' vision: "As cuts kill hopes, block opportunities and deny liberties, so cuts waste talent, sabotage economic strength and cost money.
"If education cuts are the cure for economic ills, sewage is the cure for typhus".
Laying out the Labour alternative, he pledged recognition of the right of'every 16-19-year-old to constructive training or further education, and the allocation of £1.6 billion to finance this programme. Expansion of higher education opportunities remained essential, particularly in areas of retraining and refreshment, given the new strengths that training would provide. Instead, government was introducing student loan schemes via the back door of the overdraft. "The Government evades its obligations, the banks take their interest, the students are put into hock."
David Aaronvitch, N.U.S. President, observed that no Education Secretary had ever displayed so little concern as' to the preservation of open access to education as Sir Keith. Ian Rigglesworth, recent
*F-
wf
m
All smiles — but the future looks threatening
convert to the forces of Social Democracy, concluded with his party's support for students and its aim to introduce a students' cost of living index. Elements within the crowd, immediately identified as S.W.P. members, appeared to remain unconvinced, pelting the ex-N.U.S. Vice-President with eggs and protesting loudly throughout his speech.
Response to the N.U.S. call for action remained somewhat muted within L.S.E. itself. Several lecturers participated in Tuesday's boycott, and lec-
ture numbers witnessed some level of decline, but general reaction once again bordered on extreme apathy.
A lunch-time meeting with Nalgo, A.U.T, and N.U.S. representatives remained poorly attended given the serious .nature of the issue; difficulties arise in measuring the* level of participation, in the library 'Work-In'. As one student organiser later concluded: "You can only lead a horse to the water . . . you can't make it drink . .
SHEILA CURRAN
Fool's mate for a grandmaster
VIOLENCE flared on Wednesday when anti-Apartheid demonstrators disrupted a charity chess tournament in which grandmaster Dr. John Nunn was to have taken part. Scuffles brokes out and a window was broken in the Pass-more Edwards Room. An LSE porter, Mr Jerry Churchill, claimed he was punched.
The demonstration followed the publication of a United Nations blacklist, in which Dr Nunn is named as one of the personalities having sporting links with South Africa. Dr Nunn had played at an all-white tournament in South Africa.
The demonstrators claimed that the appearance of Dr Nunn directly contravened Students' Union policy which opposes Apartheid. It was also, they said, an insult to the
many black students at LSE. The demonstration was attended by a large number of overseas students.
The tournament had been organized by- the Rag Committeee as one of their rag-week charity events. But when it became known that Dr Nunn was on the UN blacklist, Union General Secretary Steve Pound stated emphatically that the tournament should not go ahead. Having consulted with Senior Treasurer Keir Hopley and leading members of the Rag Committee, Steve had left to attend a meeting of the General Purposes Committee in the belief that the tournament had been cancelled.
He found out otherwise when the GPC meeting was disturbed by demonstrators seeking access to the balcony in the Haldane Room. There they set up a barrage of
slow hand clapping. Ents stewards hastily moved the tables next door into the Passmore Edwards Room, but the demonstrators managed to climb in through the windows.
This was where the scuffles hap-' pened. The proceedings were held up until Steve Pound arrived and persuaded the grandmaster to leave. The tournament was held later at Imperial College.
A visibly shaken Dr Nunn told Beaver : "Look at all this energy being wasted. It could be used in raising money for charity." Asked whether he belived in Apartheid, Dr Nunn replied that he didn't. "But my playing chess in South Africa in no way implies support for the system of government there." One of the demonstrators pointed out to Dr Nunn that his and others' willingness to visit South Africa in the name of sport
meant a great deal to the Pretoria Government in its desire for international respectability.
The confrontation between , demonstrators and Ents stewards ' carried overtones of a more lingering antagonism. Much anger was generated by the antics of the Rag Week hit squad, whose activities could be justified, nonetheless, by the fact that they were raising money for MIND. Quite apart from those who see the hit squad as potential beneficiaries, many students on the Left see Rag Week as paying mere lip-service to social ills which they feel should properly be attacked through political action.
The clash between anti-Apartheid demonstrators and Ents personnel involved in charity fund-raising exemplifies this conflict.
CHRIS COLLETT.
CHAPMAN REPORT
Tidying
up tfie
fraying
edges
AFTER several months of research, the Chapman Committee on Teaching arrangements has finally reported its findings to the School.
...The Committee was set up in May 1981 under Professor R. Chapman "to consider the methods of teaching used in the School and report thereupon to the Academic Policy Committee", and is in general agreement with the School's current operation. Making few new recommendations, Its main thrust is a dig in the ribs for those academics and students who are not playing their full part in the system, it advocates greater use of personal tutors, re-assessment of first-year courses in refa-tion to 'A'-Levels, teaching to be carried on well into the Summer term and the appointment of a member of staff to coordinate each course offered.
(Continued on Page Two)
Page 2—MAILBAG Page 3—NEWS ROUNDUP Page 4—SPOTLIGHT ON -
GAMBIA Page 5—SPEAKERS'
CORNER Page 6—THE LEVY INTERVIEW : Malcolm Muggeridge
Page 7—POLES AND PANCAKES Pages 8 & 9—CAREERS
SPECIAL Pages 10 & 11—PACKS
OF HACKS Page 12—THE ROSENBLATT INTERVIEW
Page 13—CARTOON
CAPERS Pages 14 & 15—RAG ROUND-UP Page 16—KICKIN' THE BALLS
PAGE 2

LETTERS
PAWN FOR APARTHEID
THATCHERITE ARROGANCE
Dear Sir,
1 MUST admit to some admiration for Paul Gardner's courag® in signing his name to a letter published in the last edition of "Beaver ". To publicly admit to being a Tory at university in the eighties requires the same sort of brave lunacy that would have been needed by someone in London at the height of the Blitz admitting membership of the NAZI PARTY.
Unfortunately there is more to Paul Gardner s letter than bone-headed Thatcherite arrogance. Amidst the explosions of misdirected hatred and the scattering of very selective statistics are a couple ot sour gripes that I cannot so easily ignore! His comment on my attack on the Army will be answered at the next UGM when anyone who wishes to defend ageing adolescents will have he opportunity to justify trie posturing peacocks in 18th century clothing and matching attitudes who lord it over a lumpen proletariat driven desperate from the dole-queue to imitate the random brutality of their superiors by assaulting civilians and even maiming their own in warped, initiation ceremonies.
It is Mr Gardner's very personal interpretation of democracy that worries me the most. It does sound strange coming from a member of that party which used a group of unelected ermine clad octogenarians to crush the policy of the democratically elected GLC. EVen stranger coming from one of that Tory mob which rushes for the exits at the UGM like demented sheep if there is a chance of the meeting then becoming inquorate. Strangest of all is the suddenness of the Tory conversion to democracy. This certainly wasn't in evidence when they sneaked round to daddy's chums at the Treasury Solicitor's office to deny the democratically arrived at decision of the student body.
It strikes me that Mr Gardner and his friends have finally cracked under the strain of supporting a party which has the intelligence and attraction of a cornered rat spitting its terminal defiance at a nat.jn which has seen the true mean face, of Toryism and wants no more of it. Mr Gardner's delusions about the nature of democracy deserve study, in sterile conditions, as an example of deviant thinking. His, and his colleagues' breathtaking cynicism in claiming the clothing of democracy when it suits them proves that a Tory wouldn't recognise real democracy if it jumped up and bit them in the leg.
Yours etc,
STEVE POONO
THE John Nunn affair was most unfortunate. The event had been organised in all good faith, the issue of the UN Blacklist developing little more than twenty four hours before the start, fuelled no doubt by the English cricketers tout of South Africa. At this late stage it was very difficult for the organisers to call it off, and I must express my sympathy for them.
The involvement of John Nunn was equally unfortunate. When I spoke to him afterwards he appeared to be a sincere and nice enough person, a person with little sympathy for apartheid. He is a man totally dedicated to his sport. I admire him for that. South Africa exploited his apolitical views.
Sport is an important political weapon in South Africa. The boycotts and protests of the Springbok rugby and cricket tours did lead to some changes in Apartheid, even though these were superficial. Thus sport cannot be isolated fro m politics under Apartheid, and we who oppose it, should like the regime, use sport as a weapon.
Apartheid is no respecter of human rights, honour or decency. It would gladly sacrifice these men in their altar to the god of white supremacy, just as it sacrifices millions of blacks in their own country. The hardest hit are always the defenceless and the innocent. We should oppose this violence and betrayal of trust.
Yet how is this to be done? By enforcing no sporting links we would be assisting the blacks, and protect sportsmen from being used as mere pawns. This could, given the enormous financial bribery by the authorities, only be achieved by having some strong dis-incentive like the UN Blacklist. Support for the Blacklist would ultimately be in everyone's favour. It would however lead to the hurting of some
individuals like John Nunn, which is unfortunate and deplorable, but we cannot let one man's dilemma blind us to the suffering of millions.
We asked Dr Nunn to declare that he would not play in Apartheid South Africa again, which would have meant him being removed from the Blacklist. Wanting to keep politics out of sport he refused. I do not condemn him for this. I can well understand, but it left us with little option, but to picket the meeting. When I spoke to him he said that he understood and respected our position. We should not accuse each other, vainly heaping abuse on the "other side". Dr Nunn wanted to keep out of politics, yet the 'South Africans turned him into a tool for Apartheid. The real culprit is that which degrades blacks, that which exploits innocent people for its own vile ends, ie, the Apartheid regime.
Let us avoid a witch-hunt, a quasi-McCarthyism. People have differing opinions on sports boycotts, yet we all oppose Apartheid. Instead of polarising, we should strive to see each other's point of view, for closer co-operation and understanding, so that we can avoid events and misunderstandings such as those that occurred in the John. Nunn case.
My support for the UN Blacklist and the boycott of South Africa is almost unconditional, yet I was deeply grieved to have to picket a man like John Nunn, a man taken for a ride by Apartheid. John Nunn has made me detest Apartheid even more deeply.
N1CO DE BEER African Liberation Support Committee
POSTSCRIPT
Since writing the above letter, allegations of "thuggery" have been made, and Keir Hop-
ley has run to the School authorities with his "factual" report—this report is vindictuve and a serious misrepresentation of the events.
In lieu of this I would like to express my full support for, and thanks to, all the students who. took part in the protest (about a hundred in all). The scuffles were unfavourable, but understandable given the situation. They started when "ex-hit squad" chess stewards had to physically prevent protestors entering the hall. When I spoke to John Nunn, Steve Virgin (organiser) and Dave Bearman (Rag chairman), we accepted that both sides were in a difficult situation, and that the so-called "thuggery" was understandable. Rather than, throw silly accusations about, we agreed that we should try to co-operate to prevent any future misunderstandings.
The actions of Keir Hopley are therefore irresponsible andi extremly vindictive, especially, since he named protestors as the only "culprits", presumably hoping that disciplinary action? will be taken. If there is to be discipline, then it should be discipline for all, including the stewards.
The whole affair has been, blown out of all proportion. I hope Hopley will be courageous and decent enough to retract his libellous report, and let us (protestors and organizers) get on with more constructive work.
THE CHESS SIMULTANEOUS
Reaction to resits
Dear Editors,
I FEEL that I must write to you as a member of the General Purposes Committee who submitted a paper on September resits, of my disgust and disbelief that yet again they have been rejected by the academic board.
The reasons they gave us are basically as follows:—
(1)	Students would not word hard enough during July and August to pass in September.
(2)	The additional work for Academics is substantial.
(3)	Institutions with high standards tended not to offer resits, institutions with lower standards tended to do so.
(1) Restriction of resits to fail students only, would not be possible.
These are the archaic, arrogant and clearly untrue reasons that we have received time and time again.
Firstly, in reply, why is it that the majority of other universities have September resits including Oxford and Cambridge and how is it that these academics manage to
do this additional work while those at LSE cannot?
, The Law Department at LSE has September resits. They have found that the majority of students who took resits passed. Also in the submission we made it clear that we do not want resits restricted to fail students only, but also available to all students who are referred on one paper thus receiving burden during Part II exams.
I would suggest that this decision is synonymous with the arrogance and lack of foresight of some Departments and Academics at
LSE. I feel that the student body should voice in anger by taking action which will force the School to introduce September resits.
We have wasted our time being reasonable and using the School Committees, we have won the a'.",. -ments in there, only to be blocked by the Academic Board which has no student representation.
It is now time to be forceful and use any means available to us to achieve our aims as has been the case in the past.
ADAM HOLMES
BECAUSE of a South African connection of Dr John Nunn, a small minority of students and some outsiders proceeded to break up a simultaneous chess exhibition match which was to raise money for charity.
We leave out the question of whether or not Dr John Nunn should have played at LSE. That will no doubt be covered elsewhere. What really sickens us and other students involved in the organisa-' tion of Rag Week and the chess match is the mindless violence and depravity which some students and outsiders used to try to break up ; this event.
In the process , of allegedly trying to show their feelings against apartheid, these thugs — there is no other word — broke down doors, smashed windows to force themselves into the tournament and attacked other students and School employees.
These hooligans do the cause they purport to support no good whatsoever — anyone committed to opposing apartheid would never use the tactics of violence, fear and oppression that are the tools of the South African state.
We condemn their actions and hope that other students will do the same to try and change the
—Official Statement
mentality of destruction which-causes such disgusting incidents to occur.
? AVID BEARMAN,
I	Rag Chairman
KEIR HOPLEY,
Senior Treasurer NIC NEWMAN,
Social Secretary STEVE POUND,
General Secretary STEVE VIRGIN,
Chess Match Organiser
Tidying up the frayinging edges
^Continued from Page One)
Its main innovation is the creation of "Study Guides" for each subject. These will give a brief syllabus, outline the methods of teaching—what is expected of staff and students — pre-requisites and examination arrangements, and will be of particular use to over-British University teaching practices.
One drastic flaw in the present system exposed by the committee is the allocation of students to tutors. White some staff are responsible for only one or two students, others have more than forty. The average varies between departments but works out
around 28 to 3& The report recommends -that ALL staff should be prepared to take on tuitional duties.
With regard to the library, it recommends that the short-loan collection shouid be expanded to corrtain all reading materials which teachers regard as essential for thier courses ami asks for serious consideration to be given closing times.
Overall, the report presents a favourable picture of the LSE but does identify the more obvious faults; the general tone is that of a maintenance man giving the vehicle its regular service.
BEAVER CREW
Navigators:
Chris Collett Penny Marshall Matthew Price
Deck-Hands:
Colin Bates, David Bull, Joel Levy,-¦ Margaret Cameron-Waller, Dina Rabinovitch, Tim Judah. Pam Wharfe, Sheila Curran, Jan Samols, Nick JoneSj Nigel Racine-Jaques, John Carroll Jeremy Rosenblatt and Richard Niceperson
Gabin-Boy:
Dave Bearman
Stowaways :
Matthew Brettler, Tony Donaldson
Next Issue:
Prod. Meeting—May 3rd Copy Date—May 5th Layout—May 6th
PAGE 3
LUNCHTIME OF ACTION-L.S.E./KINGS UNITE!
THE march started with speeches from Joan Maynard MP, Prank Dobson MP, the Vice-Chancellor of King's College, Martin Young the President of ULU and the General Secretaries of Kings and LSE Student Unions. They stressed the importance of unity in the face of the Government offensive against education—hence the alliance of King's ar.d LSE—and the need to get the message over to the general public.
The march then moved off, ambling around the Aldwych and stopping the traffic. When the "street theatre" failed to arrive at King's the assembled throng headed oil down to the so-called "street of shame" uiider the benign but watchful eye of some of the boys in blue. The reception of the public was one of curiosity cum,amusement and not a few may have read some of the three thousand leaflets handed out. On arrival at the Daily Telegraph building taunts of "Tory lies" were met with a hail of about two or three paper pellets- thrown from an uoper storey. The march retreated in good order back up Fleet Street pausing outside the Law Courts to vent a few topical sentiments about Lord Denning.
About three hundred turned up for the march. A few organised by Phil Hague were attired in Victorian garb, ( Education—back to Victorian times—Geddit?)
• -Interviewed afterwards General Secretary Steve Pound confirmed his satisfaction with the day's events: "It's all part of a cumulative programme to fight the cuts. ..."
A disparaging note was cast on the proceedings by Ed Lucas though. He said that he felt that it had been: "the most counter productive thing the Student Union had ever done." Elaborating further he made certain allegations about: "Long haired lefties holding up the traffic". MS- Lucas is a short-haired Liberal.
TIMOTHY JUDAH
Beware of Ba'athists
¦
Pounding the beat ? — Steve explains the student cause to the local Peelers.
ONCE again the spectre of Ba'ath-1st terror appears in Britain. As the last issue of Beaver was going to press, a statement from CARDRI (Committee Against Repression and for Democratic Rights in Iraq) arrived in the office.
In the early hours of Sunday, February 7th, an attempt was made to kidnap Mr Saad Hadith, a postgraduate student at Aston University. Three men believed to be Iraqi Government Security agents chased and punched Mr Hadith but failed to capture him.
Mr Hadith is a member of the Iraqi Students' Society which opposes the Ba'athist regime and membership of which carries a life prison sentence under Iraqi law. Shortly before the kidnap attempt, he had attended the AGM of OARDRI.
Said George Morton MP, who
had addressed the meeting, "Iraqis and Britons have been assaulted while publicly condemning the violation of human rights by the regime in Iraq, but this is the first time a kidnapping has been attempted."
A statement by the' ISS suggests that the current campaign of harassment and terror against non-Ba'athist students is being directed from the Iraqi Embassy in London. They state that many of their members are being kept under close surveillance. The Iraqi Embassy is said to have used intimidation and interrogation on its student opponents, sometimes even withdrawing passports and terminating scholarships.
Student Unions of many colleges, including LSE, have passed motions condemning the terrorist activities of the Iraqi regime. Any non-Ba'athist Iraqi students at LSE are advised to be on their guard, especially at night. Moving about in pairs or groups is recommended.
Down and out in a
Maple Street penthouse
Return gig from Hertz
DAVE BULL — close friend of Hertz Van Rental — who was involved in the picket of the Chess tournament, has contacted Hertz about the possibility of a benefit gig in the Tuns with a 50-50 split of the proceeds between the ANC school, M.I.N.D. and Amnesty (all three get half each? Ed). This should allow those of all persuasions to come and demonstrate their generosity, particularly Danny Finkelstein whose presence would be appreciated should he come along, to get the ball rolling with the pound he waved in the union meeting during the A.N.C. ultra-vires polemic.
Hertz is believed to have undertaken to attempt a return here from the U.S.A. before the end of term.
D.B.
Shh____
Mumford's the word!
GUESS who came knocking on the door of the General Secretary looking for WORK not so long ago? Surprise, surprise, none other than Mr John Munford. . . .
Magnanimously Steve Pound employed Mr Munford as a "student casual" (you can say that again) for the afternoon. This involved distributing press releases in Fleet Street for the forthcoming lunch-time of action".
Evidently John Munford, who has now left the LSE, has been taking a leaf out of his own book: " . . . remember the Union's 'sic) here for you—feel welcome to come and see us whenever you want. . ."
For the future we counsel a fleeting glance at Page 165 of this year's Student Union Handbook (Employment and Tax).
NEXT year, students ail over the country will feel the pinch as the education cuts begin to bite. Students at LSE, already shellshocked by horrendous cuts in the number of porters, must now prepare for gigantic reductions in their grants. Fcr one student at least the position is particularly serious. I found unshaven Nick Fromings huddled over a pint of beer in the Beaver's Retreat. He told me this hard up Story:—
"Last year I was doing so well, I saved up £500 of my grant and had a month's holiday in Spain in the bargain; but now it looks as if I'm going to starve. I will also have to cut back on my cannabis. Thanks to Keith Joseph, I may well never be able to bio' a joint again . . . and as for my ten pints a night with the lads I might well have to cut it down by a pint or two.
I came to University for the benefit of the nation, so I feel that the least the nation can do in return is to give me all the money I want. My girlfriend reckons that a 50% grant increase would be quite nice, whereas I would prefer about 100% extra. What the government does not seem to realise is that the money they have is rightfully ours.
It is shocking that the students only get about £35 a week for the four hours of slog they do every week in classes. But were're not going to take this lying down. As part of the Grants Week of Action,
I sat in the library for a "work in" and read the "New Statesman" for a couple of hours. Of course, the government pretended not to notice what we were doing, so I gave Mrs Thatcher a ring and told her what the work-in was all about, but she didn't seem very impressed with what I had to say. I am now going to carry on "working in" every Tuesday until Mrs Thatcher is forced to give in and hand over all the "slag."
Nick's girlfriend, • Prunella Whit-combe-Taylor, had this to say to me as she posed weeping over a tin of baked beans:
"I've run out of money. This means I cannot afford to buy any more books, and I know the situation is the same for other students. What I would suggest is for students to remove pages of library books with razor blades and to smuggle them out in their folders.
"The money situation is becoming so desperate that I have been forced to get a Saturday job, which, with going to the theatre in the evenings and listening to silly speakers during the daytime, gives me no time to do any academic work. I'm continually rushing backwards and forwards to places and straining my brain with overwork. Oh, I'm so exhausted ... I don't know how I'm going to cope. I have been asked why, if it's so bad, I don't give up university and get a job. But why should I, when I am enjoying myself?
"I've asked daddy for some more money, as he's very rich and I only get the minimum grant; .but how
can he afford to pay me any money? People do not seem to realise the exorbitant prices of Mercedes or of holidays in the Bahamas these days. What with my sister's public school fees and the high mortgage payments on our £100,000 country house, poor daddy has no money left to give me."
It was then that Nick's friend, foreign student Mbango Zuguaite, entered the bar, clad only in a scruffy sweatshirt and faded jeans. It was a sight that brought tears to my eyes.
"The whole British nation recognises the pressing need of the poverty-stricken peoples of the Third World," he said—but yet. refuses to subsidise the education of the third world's stinking rich like me.
"However, I also see the British people's point ol view. There are three million unemployed people in this country, all of whom, I am sure, are longing for an education at your universities. We in Ethiopia also have quite a few unemployed of our own who wouldn't mind a free education over here. And lets not forget the poor school children, who, let's face it, work twice as hard as university students and deserve to get paid a £35 a week grant themselves. There are really no problems here — the solutions are simple. The British Government will just have to spend more and more money."
The world has many problems: dying people in need of medical care, people tortured under oppressive regimes, the starving people of. the Third World, but all of these pale into insignificance compared with British students, who will only get a measly £2,000 grant next year. .
PAGE 4

SPOTLIGHT GAMBIA — the people revolt
AT the end of July, 1981 a popular insurrection in Gambia overthrew the corrupt regime of Jawara and the Supreme Council of the Resolution was formed.
Gambia at the dawn of the July uprising was an economy in near-bankrupt disarray, a society in feverish turmoil and a state in miserable desolation under the yoke of an administration that had been chronically disordered by bribery, corruption and nepotism.
To add insult to injury, the Jawara regime had agreed to submit the country to the disgusting anti-people's conditions of the World Bank and the IMF.
The masses meanwhile had to bear the brunt of the economic
llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll 'There is a big difference between the free union of free peoples and the enforced union of oppressed peoples/'
iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniii
hardships. Jobs became harder to come by. Shortages both real and artificial were almost permanent.
The whole government machinery became an organisation for aid-seeking. Statistical data and records of weather reports were systematically "cooked" to paint a more aid-deserving and aid-worthy picture.
In fact in per capita values Gambia got more aid than almost any African country last year. National indebtedness soared without helping to stop the worsening ma-lais of the country's economy.
Thus, when Jawara was overthrown, the insurrectionists were warmly welcomed by the popular masses and hailed as "saviours."
Jawara's Western - style democracy and his sham adherence to "human rights" was not only exposed, but its twin characteristics of evil deception and falsehood undeterred by gross socio-economic injustices were unveiled.
THE SENEGALESE INVASION
Following the uprising Gambia
bogus and unconstitutional military "accord" between Senegal and Gambia. The accord called on Senegal to offer assistance in the event of external aggression. The uprising was purely an internal matter and consequently, the invasion was a gross interference in the internal affairs of Gambia and a violation of the right of people to choose their own social system.
CONFEDERATION
In fact, the immediate consequence of this invasion was to fulfil Senegal's long-term ambition of integrating the Gambians into Senegal for obvious economic and strategic reasons. A glance at the map testifies this.
Gambia (the most absurd legacy of British colonialism) has always been seen by the Senegalese ad-
GAMBIA
miles
k
¦AFRICA
was invaded by the Senegalese army, aided by French soldiers stationed in Dakar and British SAS troops.
The Gambian president, in London attending the Royal Wedding at the time, was flown to Dakar in a plane laid on by the Senegal regime.
The Senegalese occupation army has remained in Gambia since July.
The invasion was justified by a
ministration as a source of inspiration for the Casamance people, who have never accepted the legitimacy of the Senegal central government.
Gambia's territorial sovereignty has been violated in the past as the Senegalese crossed through Gambia into the Casamance region of Southern Senegal to crush any rebellions.
The' River Gambia has enormous economic potentials and the Sene-
galese government with the backing of French administrators would like to harness the river for economic gains principally without considering the negative environmental consequences on the Gambia.
Under the circumstances the post-July discussions on a confederation and its secret ratification by the two neocolonialist regimes didn't come as a surprise to many people.
The uniting of the two countries under the present conditions would certainly not be in the interests of the Gambians since this would only consolidate the security of their discredited and corrupt ruling bourgeoise and would be used by the Senegalese bourgeoisie to exploit Gambia and subsequently export their economic problems on to
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIllllllllllimillllHIIIWIHI
Senega! has in the past been used by France to intervene in other
countries.
iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
the backs of the Gambian people.
It is important to add that despite the fact that Gambia and Senegal had different colonial administrations, the former British and the latter French, the peoples of the two states are ethnically the same, speaking the same languages and with the same traditions, cultures, religions, etc.
In fact, there are no two countries in Africa as intimate and similar as Gambia and Senegal.
However, a confederation that has been initiated without consulting the populations of the two states is anti-popular, anti-national and undemocratic. Again it exposes the hypocrisy of the two regimes with their so-called "human rights" policies.
The Senegalese intervention is an annexation. Gambians have never opposed genuine unity with their cousins, uncles, brothers and sisters in Senegal, but there is a big difference between the free union of free peoples and the enforced "union" of oppressed peoples.
The Senegalese invasion has very serious consequences for the whole of the region and, by implication, for the rest of Africa. With the government playing the role of a regional policeman of imperialism, nobody can discount the possibility that the Senegalese government would intervene against those countries in the region wanting to pursue socially progressive policies.
Senegal has in the past been used by France to intervene in other countries in the region to prop up discredited neocolonialist regimes, for example in the Shaba Province of Zaire.
The pitiful plight of the people of the Casamance is too well known for the Gambians to harbour any illusions about the prospects of any "unions" between the two states.
It is in this regard that the people of Africa and the rest of the world should condemn this, invasion, call for the withdrawal of Senegalese troops and intensify the concept of self-determination and sovereignty, the right of each people to choose their own way of development.
It is important that the ground for the founding of a front with all Gambian patriots must be quickly prepared to face the task of fighting the Senegalese aggressors on all fronts.
The Senegalese occupationists and their Gambian running-dogs must be vehemently opposed.
KERRY MURPHY
GOOD OLD SUSSEX IN THE SEA
AT the Union meeting a few weeks ago we heard an appeal for financial support by students from Sussex University. This was to aid Sussex Students Union's financial position which had been seriously threatened by the University authorities who as a result of an occupation were deducting costs from the Union budget. Since then nothing has been heard about the Sussex occupation so I decided to take a trip down to Brighton.
Arriving at a bleak looking campus which made LSE look almost homely I asked a student where the occupation was. "You've missed it," he replied. It finished 24 hours ago, come back next year." Slightly taken aback I decided to go to the Union offices to find out more. The layout of Sussex is as if someone had picked up LSE, dropped it on the South Downs, and scattered the pieces around.
I found the Students' Union block, the President's office, the President, Dave Hellens. The occupation had finished on Thursday the 25th after a vote at that day's
UGM. The expulsion orders had been withdrawn and the use of the University of Sussex disciplinary
"The S.U. wos on the edge of insolvency, the creditors were about to be called in/
n
ordinances had been suspended. The protest that had sparked off the chain of events leading to the occupation was not over the cuts but against the use of the disciplinary ordinances which the students see as authoritarian and completely unacceptable retracted.
Although strict they are vague enough to be applied as the Univer-
sity pleases. The picket of the University administrative building, Sussex House, was supposed to be peaceful but some elements in the group acted in a violent manner allowing the University to step in with disciplinary action. The University authorities though made no attempt to discern those on peaceful and non-peaceful pickets and used the student refusal to participate in disciplinary proceedings to "get away with murder", as said by Dave Hellens. He himself was fined £50 and two students were expelled.
The Students' Union then voted to go into occupation on the 11th of February. Problems began when the University started to deduct costs for lost salaries, damages, rates and heating. The money that LSE gave was supposed to help the Student Union pay these costs. When I asked Dave Hellens about the LSE contribution he said that he had heard that some students were going around other universities collecting money but that it was on their own initiative.
The main problem is that the Students' Union is £20,000 in the red with bills accumulating to the
value of £40,000. The SU was on the edge of insolvency and the creditors were about to be called in, which would mean probably job transfers. The LSE contribution was obviously a mere drop in the ocean when the Sussex SU financial position is considered and will probably be lost somewhere in paying the £40,000 worth of bills. In fact now the occupation is over the
"To say the union is in a mess is the understatement of the year/
a
University has offered to assist the SU in its financial plight. "To say the Union is in a mess is the
understatement of the year," said President Dave Hellens.
Controversy continues over the way the occupation ended. Dave Hellens like the five other sabbatical officers is a Labour Club member. At Tuesday's meeting Dave said that he felt that the occupation should end. He was worried about the financial position and jobs of full-time staff. The Labour Club refused to support him and so on Thursday he put a motion to the UGM to end the occupation which he said would be a vote of confidence. About two-thirds of the UGM voted for his motion but problems continue as he did not gain the agreement of the Labour Club or the Executive and three sabbaticals have said that they will no longer co-operate with him. Dave Hellens has therefore left the Labour Club and is now an Independent.
Therefore, although the occupation has been successful in getting the expulsion orders suspended along with the disciplinary ordinances (pending NUS negotiations) the financial situation for Sussex still looks as grim as the red brick buildings I left on Friday evening.
PAGE 5
FLYING CREPES
BEAUTY queens, chefs and housewives tossed pancakes in Lincoln's Inn Fields for Shrove Tuesday. The beauty queens were predictable, talking to reporters about how their interests include squash and tennis and then proving incapable of running 100 yards — ''we thought this was the finish," they were heard to say when people wondered why they stopped halfway.
PARDOE INSIDE CENTRE
JUST to show that LSE audiences do not discriminate between leading Liberals and leading Socialists the New Theatre was thinly populated for the visit of John Pardoe accompanied in by Ed Lucas whose orange badges were shining so brightly that most of the audience was forced to cover their eyes.
Mr Pardoe then proceeded to indulge in a favourite Liberal pastime of slagging off the Government and dismissing the Opposition alternatives as useless. He started by giving an impressive rundown of a mass of figures just to prove what a mess the economy is really in and how good he was at learning figures.
He claimed that the Government would never have embarked upon this course of policy if they had known it was to have such a small effect upon the level of wage demands.
He therefore claimed that as far as he was concerned monetarism was unadulterated crap and that MV = FT = B.A.L.L.S. (Audience bursts into laughter a few minutes later after having worked out the joke).
Mr Pardoe claimed that to a large extent we were in a Keynsian position and there was no hope of the Government's monetary policy.
Many people, he said, had complained that the Cabinet used A level economics but he said this was not the problem, it was that they were using O-level algebra.
After this unrestrained attack upon monetarist policy Mr Pardoe did not completely endorse the idea of a straight "spendout" of the recession. He rather saw certain structural defects within the Labour market, and of course to balance the proverbial Liberal scales this meant a quick session of union bashing.
Mr Pardoe, though, even if he did condemn the craft unions with their long apprenticeships he did not reach a stance of "Tebbitology" in that he believed that industries should move to depressed areas and that there should be a greater understanding of local communities.
Mr Pardoe dismissed any idea of withdrawal from the EEC or import controls as isolationist and doing nothing for Britain's economic future.
The audience then left fairly contented after having heard nothing really new but at least having had it put to them in an entertaining manner.
MATTHEW PRICE
The chefs were mostly young and struck dumb by the beauty queens, except for the chef from the Lancaster who had made the pancakes being used: "This is a special recipe just the race—25 eggs and 8 lbs of flour," he kept repeating anxiously, in case anybody thought the cold slabs of rubber he'd produced for the occasion were usual fare at the Lancaster. The housewives were there to win a weekend in Paris ; everyone else was being paid, but the Capital Radio team were quick to say that their money was going to Help-a-London-Child.
And so, in the bert sports day tradition, a good time was had by all, and five beauty queens sporting lips ranging from bright orange through to darkest mauve made fifteen chefs very happy.
DINA RABINOV1TCH
- -v'
TWILIGHT OF THE SODS
MEMBERS of the Fabian Society and friends were doubly disappointed last Wednesday when tljey gathered to hear Austin Mitchell (Labour, Grimsby) who was going to talk on "politics and the media." Mr Mitchell however declared himself more at ease talking about the SDP and for the next forty minutes set about lamenting the fate of the Labour Party in what must have been the thousandth post - mortem since Bishops Stortford.
No, the Labour Party was not likely to win the general election (come what may), neither was it very likely that it would benefit from a few years of SDP mismanagement if the latter win that election. Indeed the SDP was the most likely candidate to win, though without an overall majority.
The most obvious option for them then, according to Mr Mitchell, would be to offer an olive branch to whichever of the other two parties is pragmatic enough to accept a compromise over proportional representation and Common
Market membership. The Tories, having at this point purged themselves of Margaret — "Gladstone in drag" — Thatcher, would perhaps be eager enough to wreak more havoc in a a partnership which Mitchell aptly envisages as "the twilight of the sods".
The Labour Party's problems vis a vis the SDP are of course more complicated and above all different in nature than the left of the party often make out. As a "party of change" the Labour Party (and the two party system itself) has become too fragile to comprehend and encompass the social and economic rifts that are actually developing in Britain and in the world. As the recession manifests itself more permanently voters are not becoming sensitised to the policies of the left, not positively at^any rate. In an economic climate in which there are "no crumbs to hand out" a party which has in any event become alienated from the electorate will find it hard to persuade voters they can offer an increased standard of living, and the left's belief that
they can persuade people with radical alternatives does not correspond to present political reality.
So where does all this leave Labour ? In Mitchell's view Labour will have to beat the Tories to a compromise coalition with the SDP if and when the situation arises.
Apart from one or two the audience remained surprisingly calm as it became apparent in the brief discussion after the talk that even a strong offensive by the "left" would only serve to undermine the interests of 'an increasingly impoverished nation. What then would Labour's role be in a middle of the road partnership with the SDP ? The Labour Party, Mr Mitchell confidently asserted was after all in the business of holding power, and ideological' considerations will just have to take the back seat for the moment. Better to have a diluted Party in power than no sodding power at all! At the end of the day all sods are equal it seems, but some sods are more equal than others.
BEN POSNER
Celebration
of
women
YOU may have noticed that Monday, March 8th was International Woman's day — you probably didn't.
IWD originated in the US in February 1908 when a strike was called to protest about the lack of politica? rights for working women in Chicago, and it was decided that the day should be celebrated annually, as a political holiday to mark the intertwined struggles of social-ist_, working, and suffrage movement women.
In 1910, the second International Conference of Socialist Women in Copenhagen called for an international Woman's Day to be celebrated annually. By 1911, demonstrations were held in Germany, Scandinavia and Switzerland. The first IWD in Russia was in 1913 and then in 1917. it exploded into food riots, economic and political strikes and mass demonstrations of women. After the revolution IWD was declared an official holiday in the Soviet Union. March 8th was first observed in China in 1924 and in Britain in 1926, the Communist Party and "Women's Guild organised meetings and demonstrations' to mark the occasion and also to organise the antifascist and anti-war campaigns.
During the "'50s. the decline in IWD celebrations reflected society's view that women should . glory in their role as mothers and housewives. By the late '60s the new wave of feminism sweeping the USA, and Europe, reclaimed IWD which was marked by massive demonstrations, in Glasgow', Liverpool ar.d London: in 1971,. , ,
I would like people to see IWD as a day in which women actively join together in the struggle against our oppression by men and by capitalism, to fight against all forms of violence against women (this includes for example sexist advertising) against racism and imperialism whenever they, occur. But IWD is also for woman to appreciate their solid-darity with woman.
Women together are strong. We must fight for our liberation.
LATE NEWS
THERE IS NONE
STERLING STUFF
SIR DEREK EZRA addressed the Sterling Club on the topic of the "New Coal Industry" on the 18th of February. The main area of his lecture was the four-point plan agreed for the industry in 1974 covering the period up to the year 2000. The first point concerned exploration under the North Sea, North Yorkshire and the Warwickshire area, and Sir Derek assured us that there was at least enough coal for the next 300
years. Investment into research and technology amounting to £60m a year was considered and finally he tackled th^. problems of running effective incentive schemes so as to motivate people.
Sir Derek answered many questions ranging from pit closures, alternative sources of energy and future technology to the possibility of privatisation. It seems that the coal industry will be with us for a very long
time to come.
The Sterling Club's next speaker will be Sir Monty Finiston, ex-chairman of British Steel Corporation, talking on "The UK Economy in a Techno-' logical Age" in the new theatre at 1 pm on Thursday, March 11th. The following week we will be presenting Sir John Cuckney. Any enquiries on the Sterling Club to Graeme Griffiths through the Accounting Department.
TALKING TO
MALCOLM MUGGERIDGE
Graphic: DAVE BULL
INTERVIEW BY JOEL LEVY
AT the age of 79 Malcolm Mug-gerdidge has seen more in his lifetime than most could in two. Now a veteran journalist of over 50 years Muggeridge's work has taken him around the (world and enabled him to experience first hand many of this century's major events and meet many of its leaders and personalities — both eminent and infamous. Here he *nci his wife, Kitty, speak on subjects which have figured highly in their lives and have been of concern to many of us.
LONDON—Feb 25th, 1982
QUESTIONER: You were attracted to th» idea of socialism to the extent that you uprooted yourself and your young family and went to live in the Soviet Union. What was it that attracted you in the first place to socialism and what was it that brought about your disillusionment with it?
Muggeridge: I was attracted to socialism because my father was an early socialist and member of the Fabian society and later a Labour member of parliament. I was brought up in the idea that socialism was the salvation of mankind, and like all dutiful children I believed it. It was a very political household. My father was the first •Labour member of the local town council in Croydon where we lived. So we were mixed-up tremendously in the Labour movement and all those sort of gurus of the Labour movement, people like Shaw, Wells and Sidney Webb. These people would come and give lectures and my father would nearly always be in the chair, so that as children we saw these people who were presented to us as sort of demagogues. It was only when 1 went to Moscow that I realised they were a collection of half-wits.
My first job as a journalist was op the old Manchester Guardian, a liberal paper in Manchester, in 1929-30. This was at the height of the depression and it was obvious that the capitalist system had broken down; and 1 see no occasion to alter my opinion in that—1 don't think it works and what is going on now is a very good illustration of that. I went to the USSR because it seemed at that time this was the alternative arrangement. I felt that if the system was all the things it purported to be—a brotherly, just and peaceable society—I would make my life there. So, I wangled my way to Moscow as a correspondent for the Manchester Guardian and, of course, I found that this was not so. It didn't produce a brotherly, free, prosperous peaceable society. It was the most appalling dictatorship that only could compare with what I had seen in the India of the British Raj—even compared with that it was brutal.
I realised one simple thing while in the USSR: you cannot make people good through the exercise of power.
Ques: In part your Russian experience made you turn your back on. socialism*— Do you not think that the excesses of the Soviet Union could be avoided within a socialist framework?
MM: Of course, that is the question. Now three-fifths or more of the world is under some form or other of socialism and I do not detect in any part of that the
slightest promise of the Marxist fulfilment of the state whithering away. It seems to me that in each of these cases, whether it is South East Asia, Cuba, former African colonial territories, or the satellite countries of tlie USSR, they have one thing in common, they have dictatorial governments, ruthless censorship and they need to guard their. frontiers not . to prevent people coming in but to prevent people from getting out. It would seem to me somewhat farfetched to suppose that one more shot and we would be there and that we would have a socialist system which maintained freedom and didn't need censorship and secret police and other forms of terrorism.
"Agnosticism leaves the assumption that there is something : that there is a mystery."
Ques! Do you therefore think the excesses of th® Soviet Union are inevitable?
MM: I do. It seems to me that the whole idea of a coliectivist society leads you in that. direction, infallibly. So it is proved. After-all nothing could be more different than a Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Angola, but each of them arrives at the same solution: a ruthless dictatorship, a ruthless censorship.
Ques; What about countries of
Western Europe where communism is*>f a different nature?
MM: I do not detect, myself, in the so-called socialist set-up • of these countries any promise that it would work in the sense that we, 50 or 60 years ago, believed it would work. I remember when I used to speak for my father, the big questions were about things like "How are you going to prevent people from striking?" I would say that if you nationalised industries people are not going to strike because they own the industries and would be striking against themselves. That isn't a prophesy which has come to pass. Following in some degree what has gone on in the USSR, if you allow people to be open to other persuasions then the socialist ideology will fall away. Therefore you must control what people read, hear and see. It seems to me absolutely inevitable. In a way there is a kind of logic in it because if people we*e able to know of other ways of living they would almost certainly prefer them. There is no case that I know, of all the different experiments that have been made, where a truly socialist society has been able to let people be free.
MM: A dissident Russian historian pointed out that socialism is not a new thing. (It existed since the Incas in one form or another) and that every socialist society has had three things in common: the abolition of private property, the destruction of the family, and atheism. That has certainly happened in Russia.
Ques: Mrs Muggeridge, your aunt —Beatrice Webb—helped establish the LSC. What do you think her attitude would have been to the present government's cuts in spending on education?
KM: She would have been horrified. She would also think that the money spent on education was being spent in entirely the wrong way. She was very puritanical and a strict disciplinarian.
Ques: Beatice Webb and those others who helped to establish the LSE intended it to produce the elite who would help lead us to the new Jerusalem. Would they be happy with it being most widely known among its contemporary students for producing a rock and roll singer and a student revolutionary?
KM: I think she would be absolutely shocked, though not by Tariq Ali. Beatrice had no feeling for music, whatsoever and she was a tremendous puritan.
MM: The rather sordid side of the Rolling Stones would not have appealed to her at all!
Ques: Your aversion, Mr Muggeridge, to the "permissive society" is well known. Assuming that Britain is a sexually permissive society what long term consequences do you think tfyis will have on today's younger generation?
MM: Well, I think that it will produce a complete break-down. It is already, of course, moving in that direction. The excuse for the permissive society at the beginning was that by releasing people from frustration in their sexual appetites people would be more serene, happy and well-behaved. Rape, child pregnancies, venereal disease, and so on are on the increase. I believe that it is not possible to have a civilised society given those conditions. Indeed, any study that has been made of the last phases of the Roman Empire support that very strongly. I don't thin*k it's possible for people to surrender totally to their carnal desires and hope to continue to have a civilised society.
Ques: To what extent do you identify with the opinions of Mary Whitehouse and what is your reaction to the comment made by her at a recent meeting at the !-SE to the effect that pornography In Britain was a communist plot?
MM. I know Mary very well and admire enormously her courage which is very great. I think she has been a useful element in our society because she has very bravely put the other case. I don't always agree with her. My opinion is that our society is becoming what is called "decadent" to the point that it will probably destroy itself. As a journalist I'm always looking for symbolic things. A recent cutting in the Globe and Mail (Canadian National newspaper) carried the heading that the Montreal Hospital's maternity ward had been shut down to economise, but that the abortion clinic was to be kept going. I think that if ycu were looking for a comment on what's happening that wouldn't be a bad one to fasten on. I think that our society is completely going to pieces very much in the same way the Roman society went to pieces. There is a very strong similarity between television and the games where there is an absolute obsession with violence and eroticism — a similar phenomenon which I think will have the same result. Indeed you can begin to see it with the total break-down of all forms of discipline, the break-up of the family, more divorces than marriages, more abortions than births. Surely these are the statistics of death rather than life.
Ques:. Do you see a connection • between the vice of the "permissive
society" and communism?
MM: I think Mary was exaggerating. It is a fact that the ultra-leftist people are always on the side of opposing any form of cen-
sorship or control. I have never, myself, advocated censorship except where children are concerned.
The people of the left always support libertinism in the name of liberty — but, once a communist regime is established we find the opposite. Not only in Russia, but in every country they have taken-over there is an extreme puritanical attitude which is expressed in the legal code.
Ques: You have written that you were always enormously attracted to Christ and Christianity. What was it that delivered you from agnosticism to God?
MM: Agnosticism leaves the assumption that there is something; that there is a mystery. Brooding on that you become evermore disillusioned with the efforts of human beings to justify their existence in purely earthly terms and to amuse themselves with carnal activities and to delight themselves with purely materialistic things like becoming rich. All that is absolute nonsense. You are. inevitably pushed into exploring this mystery and all the efforts we may make — the most enlightened and saintly — will seem, I'm sure, utterly inadequate if and when we ever understand what it is all really about. But still, you get glimpses of it. And to me those glimpses are infinitely more satisfying than either political theories of happiness or the pursuit of happiness in the American sense; both of which seem to me an absolute wash-out.
Ques: The two of you seem to have found marital bliss. What would you say to the cynical student who regards marriage as an obsolete institution?
MM: I would say to him that I also had that view when I started off on this venture. But I was fortunate enough . . .
KM: You never told me!
MM: Sorry! The fact is that through this love between two people comes new life into the world and that is the great sacrament of our existence. If you reduce that to mere forms of erotic excitement you will take away from life and from this particular relationship everything in it which has made it such a tremendous factor in our human existence. I don't
. . through th is love between two people comes new life into the world . .. that is the great sacrament of our existence."
- . " :" i
think there is any possible doubt about that. All that is happening in the world bears that out. No two people can live together without quarrelling or even proving unfaithful; but if there is a basis of this true relationship whose purpose is procreation and whose glory is to have around you first your children and then your grandchildren then it will keep going.
V
PAGE 7
POLISH WEEK OF ACTION
A lesson in Polonaise
IT had to happen! With Steve Pound's debut as Lech Walesa long overdue, he and Ed Lucas put their heads together, and the result — "Polish Week" (I5th-19th Feb) swept across the Anglo-Saxon corridors of LSE, bringing a taste of Slavonic culture and politics.
Its aim, other than to promote Steve's many talents, was to familiarise students with the landscape of Polish life, both within find outside the context, of "Solid-arnosc", and to appeal to student consciousness and consciences through public meetings and debate. Needless to say, we were not averse to making a penny or two either.
The programme began with Monday's "Cultural Evening", and if that title managed to put you off, you were missing a rare treat. The presence of the best item was testified by the effects of its 45% alcohol concentration. A glass of "Wyborowa" (included with food in the 50p ticket) does indeed add clarity to one's speech format.
The programme also included an
excellent classical concert, folk dancing, poetry reading and singing. But the show was stolen by five members of a young folk group from Ealing. Born and brought up •in England, they probably captured the atmosphere and soul of Polish dancing and singing better than any of the "official", state-sponsored groups would do. By the end of the evening, they had the audience participating in supposedly the most difficult language in the world —a proof of their talent, and perhaps the proof of the "Wyborowa".
The rest of the week was devoted to politics (just in case some of you out there hadn't heard of "Solidarnosc"). A lunchtime talk on Tuesday by members of NZS. the independent students' union, while extremely interesting, sadly reflected student apathy in its poor turnout.
Issues such as freedom of expression, association, protest and academic autonomy should .concern everyone, but it seems it's only when your own head's on the chopping board that you're pre-
pared to shout about it. No wonder Keith Joseph's having a field day. Wednesday's public meeting, chaired by Victor Moszczynski (PSC) and featuring Andrzej Lodynski of the Solidarity Working Group, attracted a larger audience, although the Old Theatre wasn't exactly bursting at the seams. Moszczynski's introduction described the work of PCS, its past achievements and its plans for the future.
Lodynski, personally involved in the creation and development of Solidarity, emphasised that the movement was not a thing- of the past. The Gdansk Agreements, never a "marriage of love", might be dead, but he believed the fight would continue in a non-violent way. The usual "did Solidarity go too far", "was Solidarity trying to destroy socialism" questions followed — unfortunately, the Sparta-cist Entertainments Committee was otherwise engaged and couldn't make it.
Thursday evening saw the screening of "Man of Iron" in the Old Theatre, made possible through the
co-operation of the Film Soc (thanks, folks). Despite most Poles in the audience having seen it four times already, and despite the shamelessly corny station scene, when the lovers sprint the length of the platform into each other's arms, in general the film was well received. Following this, a half-hour discussion of Wajda's work by the director Boleslaw Sulik (whose own work includes the documentary "Sti-ajk").
The week ended with a lunch-time political debate in the Old Theatre, ^-with guest speakers Monty Johnson ('Marxism Today), Tadek Jarski (Solidarity with Solidarity) and Dr Gomulka (LSE lecturer in economics).
The focus of attention throughout the week, probably due to its strategic position outside Florries, was the PSC/Medical Aid Stall and photographic exhibition. With Steve Pound leading the field in the Lech-lookalike contest, the project just couldn't fail. Entertainment and encouragement provided c/o the Spartacists, who boosted
sales no end. All in all, the amount raised exceeded £500, which will be channelled accordingly to PSC, Medical Aid and the Solidarity Working Group.
Our thanks and shifting of responsibility for any mistakes to the Union Sabbaticals, particularly Steve Pound for his zeal and dedication (not to mention the ability to make the grade in "crash course" Polish) and to Martine Mann, for her enthusiasm and for supplying the invaluable "feminine" touch' to all engagements. Also thanks to Ed Lucas for never being there when wanted (joke, Ed, honest).
Using the opportunity, we also wish to self-advertise the existence of the Polish Society. After its hasty constitution in mid-January, it has been the driving force behind much of the week's activity, contributing both to its artistic features as well as to the less rewarding functions, ie: sitting for hours in the sub-Arctic climate of Florries entrance. New masochists always welcome.
TUC LETDOWN
THE Polish week of action that raised £532 was rounded off by a largely uneventful debate in the Old Theatre. The star-studded cast never materialised. Neil As-cherson of the Observer was unable to make it. Len Murray of the TUC billed to turn up wasn't there, and neither was his replacement Ken Graham,
The absence of a representative from the TUC and their general silence about the coup in Poland ¦was picked up by the first speaker Tadek Jarlski, Secretary of Solidarity with Solidarity. He stated that it was "amazing that no-one from the TUC could attend this, in spite of their past declarations of support for Solidarity" continuing "there are several questions which need to be put to the TUC in public and I would like these questions put to them, preferably here at the LSE. or at any time they will find convenient."
Monty Johnstone, a member of the Communist Party and a writer for "Marxism Today" made the
best-received contribution. He attacked what he called the military coup of December 13th which had usurped the Communist Party's role in Poland and put an end to Socialist renewal which could have seen the combining of Socialism and Democracy.
He stated that the subordination of the State to the military made a mockery of talk about asserting the leading role of the party. He also attacked the hypocrisy of Thatcher in trying to block "political" strikes in Britain while at the same time backing "political" strikes in Poland.
Dr Gomulka from LSE claimed there were two competing ideologies in the Soviet Bloc between what he called "communist dictatorship'' and "parliamentary democracy". The ideology of dictatorship was the strongest — it claimed to rule not just for the present generation, but for future generations which an electoral system would be unable to do. He felt that the dictatorship's days were numbered because the industrialisation which had been carried out in Poland had created a working class from what was previously a largely peasant population.
Anti-semitism in USSR
WITH simplicity and dignity twenty-six-year-old Marina Kanev-skaya tells a familiarly depressing tale. It is one of anti-semitism pervading Russian society and officially condoned and applied Soviet discrimination — against Jews, Ukranians, Pentecostalists. . . .
Marina was lucky. The process of asking for emigration papers to actually leaving was a, mere two years, but there are many left behind.
Particularly Marina was talking about the problems faced by Russian-Jewish students. For example racist quotas on entrance to universities, being banned from some altogether and not being free to organise even private seminars and talks on such subjects as Jewish history, free from fear of the ubiquitous KGB.
For young men who wish to leave altogether Marina spotlighted the classic "Catch-22" situation. If they apply to emigrate they may well lose their university place and then have difficulty finding a job. A young man not in some form of higher education is eligible for conscription — but if this "refusnik" goes to the army he then faces the possibility of losing any chance of emigration for a legal minimum of up to seven years because of
"access to military information". Thus if he refuses the call-up he faces up to five years in a labour camp for draft evasion. This is the situation of twenty-two-year-old Grigory Geishis presently in a labour camp and many others.
Marina's talk came as a plea for help. Every little thing helps she argues, obviously relishing the freedom to say so. "Did you know that the longest demonstration in Moscow was . . . five minutes . . . and the handful of protester were sentenced for a year in a labour camp for each minute of their action. ..."
Marina now lives in Jerusalem and is continuing her studies at the Hebrew University.
Her tour around the universities is sponsored by the "Student and Academic Campaign for Soviet Jewry." Anyone who would like to help could contact them at:
PO Box 217 London WC2A 3SS. Tel: 01 203 3511, or should get in touch with the Jewish Society
here at LSE.
? ? ?
Anyone more specifically interested in Israel, the L.S.E. Israel Society are holding a cultural evening on Thursday, March 11th. Free food, wine and lots more. . . .
DO YOU KNOW THIS MAN?
This is a photo-lit picture of a man wanted for questioning by Police in connection with recent thefts in the London School of Economics. The last occasion—26th January 1982—a female student was assaulted and property stolen from her. His modus operandi is to enter various locations on the pretext of cleaning the rooms, and he has been seen to empty waste bins whilst choosing his victim.
If you know or see this man, please contact Women Detective Constable Donnelly at Bow Street Police Station (tel. 434 5055).
Description : Male, black, 5ft.9in, to 5ft.llin., slim, moustache, dressed in a brown/burgundy bomber jacket and jeans. Smart in appearance.
LSE
ISRAEL
SOCIETY
PRESENT
AN
ISRAELI
CULTURAL
EVENING
FREE
FOOD
WINE
ENTERTAIN-
MENT
AND
A LOT
MORE ?
THURSDAY MARCH
11
7.30 p.m. IN A45 SEE YOU THERE f
PAGE 8
SPECIAL.... CAREERS SPECIAL.... CAREERS SPECIAL.... CAREERS SPECIAL.... CAREER.
Making a start
NOTES FROM THE CAREERS OFFICE
JOB APPLICATIONS
IT is true to say that our students are finding it' harder to get jobs than they have done for many years. To a great extent this is due to circumstances beyond their control. For some it means planning to take further training, or postponing decisions for a year after graduation. but for many it means making a realistic appraisal of what they want to do, what they have to offer, and then considerable research into opportunities available.
In response to a question frequently asked in the careers office we have given below some hints on job applications.
What determines whether students applying for jobs get interviews or not ?
Whether the job-seeking student is applying to join the GLC or an advertising agency, an industrial manufacturer or the probation service or indeed some much smaller organisation — the chances are the employer will want to know a lot about you before they see you. (It is the very unusual organisation today that will interview every applicant). This means they are interested in more than just your academic background. Don't forget there are probably others with similar qualifications applying at about the same time.
So what else is going to help you ? A description of paid or voluntary work you have done, and what you think you gained

from it; an indication that you have good reason for believing you might be the right candidate for their job ; an account of how you spend your leisure-time and especially vacations, all these help a stranger to learn more about you. This is the essential point: that employers whoever they are, should have enough information about you to recognise an individual with a unique combination of interests, skills and abilities. Only then can they assess whether you might be the sort of person they are looking for.
"Will this person fit in with other people working here" is a question all recruiters ask themselves. If it is difficult to guess the answer from information available then you have failed to make the most of your opportunity to show why you think you should be considered.
It goes 'without saying that applications should be legible and correctly spelled. Submitting an application is like saying "Here I am. this is me, and I want a job with you.'' To write an uninteresting, or untidy application is a waste of time, at an important stage in your degree studies when you can least afford it.
Of course it takes more than a well-written application to
1
get the job you want, but that vital first step is essential in securing a chance of being successful.
There are implications here for second year students — if you have never worked before, now is the time to find a summer job; if you have ideas about what you might do when you graduate, try them out, talk to people about them, be nosey ! At LSE we hope our students are gaining the benefits of a good education in the social sciences, and we expect that you are better equipped than most to understand what is going on in the world outside your academic institution. There are many around to help whether they are tutors, careers advisers or welfare officer, but a job-seeker is alone in the search, and you need to develop your skills of self-analysis and self-promotion to succeed in the present employment market.
We have emphasised one aspect of the application procedure which applies across the whole range of employment, and we have done so because we have found students in difficulties because they have not given it enough thought.
Best wishes and good job-hunting.
(February 1982)
Do you want a job yet?
JOB-HUNTING is, frankly, a bit of a bore. Here you are, years into editing Beaver (fun and frolics on a shoestring), and suddenly the realisation conies that fairly soon It'll all be over. L.S.E. that Is.
At this point you have a number of alternatives. One is to postpone the day of reckoning—but to do this you have to score at least a 2:1. As I knew I could only get a 2:2 (and actually got landed with a 3rd—another victory for the "you have to work to do well" brigade, whose preposterous theory I had long denounced), I realised that an MSc or whatever was a non-starter (although I realise for many it can be a non-finisher).
So, prospective postgraduates, read no further. Keep this article, though, so you can refer to it when your own day of leaving approaches.
Now. the rest of you, you have two alternatives at present. To start job-hunting now, or to put it
off?
'I dont want a carter'
There is absolutely no purpose in making yourself unnecessarily miserable.
I wasted my last six months at L.S.E. engaged in this charade, poncing about trying to suck up to employers. Result: 50 wasted postage stamps and unnecessary depression.
The trouble about job-hunting Is that, in nine cases out of 10, it all comes down to humiliating yourself and suppressing your true personality. Of course, I'm not saying this is invariably the case, since from what I've been hearing about you lot, many of you have even less personality than me|ets the ear.
-v
No, the whole essence of job-
hunting is that you have to appear ultra-enthusiastic to do a job which, when all is said and done, really isn't very Interesting or important. Prime qualities In job-seekers are always things like "ability to get on with other people", "enthusiasm for the work", "dedication" and "loyalty to the Company". (Of course, the Company's "loyalty" is a different matter if it's looking for redundancies).
Of course, we've all had drummed into us from an early age that although "money Isn't all that matters", it counts for a hell of a lot. As a result most of us squander the rest of our lives in a futile endeavour to acciynulate more capital. My advice here is: before embarking on this dreary path, reflect for a moment.
Why bother to make yourself depressed, bored and neurotic trying to get rich, when you can feel exactly the same way on the dole? (But,, then again, I've my mortgage to think about- . . . )
JAMES GAUSSEN
A WORD WITH
BEAVER REPORTERS ASK CAREERS OFFICER ANNE AVANT A
Q.1 Is the Careers Advisory Service no more than a cosmetic, a	rr P.R. exercise ? After all, with three million unemployed,	k the hard facts of life surely can't be influenced by mere technique in job application ?	A. A
A. The C.A.S, helps different students in different ways. You are right, there are less jobs around for graduates to apply for and many people unemployed, but there is no reason why you should be joining them. The graduate job-seeker is probably the most fortunate of the lot—usually with no-one else to support or worry ^Jsout, usually able to move to another location if necessary, and usually witfi the ability to be flexible about the kinds of work sought, and the maturity to think independently. What other group of job-seekers has all these advantages ?
Job applications technique is only one small way we are helping students. That is a P.R. exercise : you may be the best candidate in the world but you won't get very far if you don't present yourself as such.
Q.2 Which is more important, my specialist option or the level of honours I get ?
A. Difficult to say, because this might depend on the type of work you are seeking. In general we would say that class of degree is more important, as most degree subjects taught at the L.S.E. are not vocationally orientated. It is particular abilities which can make a significant difference—for example, the historian who can do maths, or the mathematical economist who can write good English, will have more to offer and will be in a better position to take advantage of whatever jobs are around.
Q.3 In most cases does employment with one company or institution mean that my prospects for advancement are limited to that company ? In other words would it be possible for me to "move around" without inhibiting my prospects of advancement ?
A. No, to the first part, yes to the second ! We have found that for most types of work employers expect people to stay with them for a few years—let us say four or five. This is a big generalisation, but we can think of lots of exceptions, but for a graduate starting full-time work for the first time it is a realistic target. Think how much you have changed in the last four years ; think how much you will probably change in. the next four. How do you know for sure that you will want to stay for longer ? In many fields one might expect to do two or three different jobs with an organisation in the first few years, so there is change and development there and one need look no further.
A move can be positive. Many graduates of 1980 and 1981 are in jobs they would not have chosen in an ideal world. They were practical enough to realise that in times of less opportunity one job can be a stepping stone to another, and these people will be hoping to move as soon as they can into work of more interest to them.
Q.4 Suppose I can't find an opening in the career of my choice. Would I be better off trying a different career or to keep plugging away until I do get what I want?
A. . An essential part of the process in deciding what to do next is to be honest with yourself. If you are fascinated by an idea and have the conviction that you are the right person with the right abilities, then wait for the opening and do something else in the meantime which will pay the rent but does not inhibit your job search too much. In our experience if new graduates are not ideal candidates they benefit from a spell of semi-relevant working experience elsewhere, which is not the same as choosing a different career. We are not discussing a career here, but rather a route to that "ideal" job. There is always more than one way ; there are usually several. The "be-honest-with-yourself" bit comes in again here. Some areas of employment are very small and therefore however long you wait, and however relevant your degree and work experience, you may not succeed. In recognising this, you do need to have alternative careers in mind, (e.g. there are sure to be more than 20 graduates in the U.K. in any year who would make excellent diplomats, but that is the number of vacancies available and while the Foreign Office continues to attract large numbers of applicants the odds are stacked against your succeeding).
Q.5 It has been said that too many graduates aim for the limited number of openings with "big-name" firms ? What are the
Q.6
Q7
A.
Q.8
A.
Q.9
0
PAGE 9
CAREERS SPECIAL.... CAREERS SPECIAL.... CAREERS SPECIAL.... CAREERS SPECIAL...
ITH ANNE
• • •
INE AVANT A FEW QUESTIONS
A,
Q.6
Are •
How can I get in touch with ail these possible firms?
there other agencies besides the C.A.S.?
The Professional and Executive Register (PER) of the Department of Employment will attempt to help the new graduate seeking work. Any Job Centre will put you in touch with a PER adviser. Recently we have heard from some of our 1981 graduates that they have found interesting jobs through PER. Dealing in current vacancies, they cannot really help until you are available for employment. The same is true of course for all the commercial employment agencies, some of which specialise in different areas of employment and their addresses can be found in Yellow Pages. For information in advance about work available after graduation the C.A.S. is the best place. Forward vacancy news, and information on how and when to apply, is available from the previous October onwards.
Q.7
A.
I understand you do not provide a placement service as some universities do. What are your methods for helping students get jobs?
No university or polytechnic C.A.S. offers a placement service exactly, although in some institutions it is true that careers advisers and/or academic tutors do make contacts on behalf of students and are more directive than we are in London University. Here at the L.S.E. our philosophy is as follows: • to help students decide what to do next means helping them to recognise their own strengths and interests as they apply to the job market, to provide as comprehensive an information back-up as possible and then to help them learn how to identify what might be right for them. We believe only the student can make the decisions; we will correct misapprehensions, we will challenge convictions, we "will add to information and we will encourage or discourage where we feel it is necessary, but we will not be getting you the jobs. Students may be seeking help in their applications for teacher training courses, ' looking for someone to join them in a bicycle hire business, or wanting to identify where the jobs are in Yorkshire—we hope we can offer positive practical help.
Q.8 How many (what proportion) of students have a good idea about what they really want to do ? Is it such a bad thing for a student to be uncertain ?
A. About 50% of students who talk with careers advisers have a fairly good idea of what they want to do. If they have .so far spent their lives in full-time education they may never have had to make decisions for themselves before, and it all comes as a bit of a shock to some ! Many are undecided; it is not "such a bad thing" to be uncertain but it is a mistake to apply for jobs in a half-hearted fashion. If you are uncertain it is a waste of time and effort filling in forms.
Q.9 Given the realities of the job market, has it been your experience that students expect too much ?
A. NO.
To end on a positive note : I have observed that students at the L.S.E. usually have a lot more to offer than they realise, and if anything undersell themselves. YOU CAN DO IT— we believe that, and we want you to believe it too.
N.B. Other questions covered choice of higher degrees and further professional training, and working overseas. We agreed it might be better to cover these areas in a little more detail by writing separate articles in later editions of Beaver. Watch this space !
main differences between these and smaller or less well-known firms ?
Another big question—my answer can only outline some of the main points at issue here.
(a)	It does not follow that "big-name" organisations have lots of vacancies, in fact, they usually don't.
(b)	These same organisations get more applications because more people have heard of them. Therefore there is more competition.
(c)	Most students are ignorant of where jobs for graduates are—of course., why should they know ? But for any kind of job they may be seeking there will be employers they have never (or hardly ever) heard of who are advertising vacancies. This is where your careful research comes in.
(d)	Differences are too numerous to mention, but quality of training, and opportunities for development with interesting and rewarding work are not exclusively found in the "big-name" organisations (indeed they are often not found there).
A cynic's view...
RECENT statistics show that 20% of those of you who graduate this year are likely still to be unemployed in December. As a worker and an ex-LSE student, I think you're lucky. -
For a start, work's the next forty odd years of your life (if Reagan lets us get past the next couple). So what's the hurry? It's still going to be there, even if you wait a few months. Looking back, it seems to me we all scrabbled for jobs because that's what was expected of us. We didn't really think about what we were committing ourselves to. We mouthed about "fulfilment", "job satisfaction", "skills". Like all well-brought up middle class kids we couldn't envisage living without a career. We had to "be" something ("an accountant", "a stockbroker", "a teacher"). Disillusionment came later.
Very few people get all they need from work. But lots of people, particularly graduates (and nearly everyone I work with is a graduate), think they ought to get all their stimulation from work. This is why you meet so many depressed, neurotic workaholics. Other people react with apathy, continuously telling themselves they're in the "wrong" Company, or doing the "wrong" kind of work. (For the Marxists among you, I'd describe this as the 20th century version of alienation of labour).
If you're lucky, and for a while I was, you'll earn your living doing something you don't mind doing. You'll be treated as if you're reasonably intelligent and you'll be left to get on with things as best you can. You'll enjoy your time at work, but you'll go home on time every night to get on with your other interests. (You may not believe it now, but it's very easy to end up working every hour God made. Overtime is a bad habit—the sanest workers I've met simply refuse to do it).
But even if you like your job, don't expect to "believe" in what you're doing. You're unlikely to. Even as a social worker, teacher, or charity worker (yes, I remember how liberal progressive LSE students are!), you're going to meet petty bureaucracy and difficult bosses. As a journalist you'll be horrified to find you're just providing the pages between adverts. As an accountant . . . now, come on, you can't expect to believe in accountancy !
At the very worst, your job will be petty, pay badly (which reflects how little you're valued) and you will be treated like a moron. Far too often you will be managed by people who are either insecure, incompetent, alcoholic, or all three (I wish I' was joking). If you're really turned on by work, you'll end up as one of these people. Personally, I've found that the most depressing aspect of having a career.
I graduated in 1979 and took

* I don't want to stay in one job all my lift'
four months to find a job (about average) — so, I'm speaking from 2\ years' experience of work. I still work full-time in a "graduate" job, but I don't intend to for much longer. 1
I might work part-time for a while, run a market stall or freelance. I want more time for the things I do well and believe
in. Either way I'm not talking about "wasting" my talents or scrounging, (sod that!).
If you've read this through to the end, I hope you'll realise that I'm not just a cynic. This is really an optimist's view of the rest of your life. . . .
CAROL SAUNDERS
Non-graduate work
WHEN I was growing up, I wanted to be a zoo keeper. Then I thought I wanted to be a chef. Next I went to LSE, and now I'm a chef again. Sometimes when I'm feeling depressed I count up how much those three years cost the taxpayer and everything's so much rosier.
Recently I drifted into this academic cocktail party and mentioned that I was a chef. "Oh, couldn't you get a real job ?" came the reply, You can't even say you're in Government statistics (unemployed).
After graduating I went "on" to technical college for my chef's training. (Well, what else can you do with a degree in Government?). Luckily, the iron academic discipline stood me in good stead. I can still remember my feeling of incredul-
ity when told to get my feet off the desk.
At least your degree gives you one thing: the certainty that your overling is a moron. Catering managers are usually failed 'A' level students who can't even spell like what I can. However, sensitive managers pan usually pick up the odd hint (first verbal warning; putting up a sign saying "Under Workers' Control", when the manager has flu).
When applying for jobs, I try to forget about my three-year holiday. So I put down "abroad", and they think "prison"—but, Jesus, it's got to be better than "LSE" I
Wo! I remember most about LSE is the sex and the politics. But since you've gone SDP, I suppose all you've got left is masturbation.
MARTIN PEACOCK
BEAVER EXPRESSES ITS THANKS TO ANNE AVANT AND THE CAREERS ADVISORY SERVICE FOR THEIR HELP IN COMPILING THIS FEATURE
Martin Peacock, Carol Saunders and James Gaussen are all former Editors of "Beaver".
PAGE 10
AND NOW FOR SOMETHING
COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!
GENERAL SECRETARY
Nick Fernyhough Chris Armero— Danny
—FCS
1 BELIEVE that you should vote for me NOT because I am a Union hack with a wide experience of points of order, Open Committees and all the other paraphernalia of a Socialist Union — but because I have the ability to achieve sound and just administration in the interests of all students.
This year new methods of SU financing come into effect. It is uncertain how much the LSE Union will get. The likelihood of a cut means we cannot afford to wljfcte money. If elected I will ensure that there is no repetition of the ultra-vires business. Union ¦money must be spent on students— -not terrorists. The AU must be ¦ made more accountable.
The £11,000 affiliation to NUS is also questionable. The Hardship Fund could be doubled with this money — a far more worthy cause. This year must rank as the worst in the history of the Trotsky-Appreciation Society — they have achieved nothing (unless you call the pathetic 3.9% grant increase an achievement).
If elected I will undertake to achieve constitutional provisions for a Cross-Campus ballot — so that you the ordinary student can let Aaronovich and his cronies know what to do with NUS.
SURREALIST SUBVERSION FOR A NEW UNION
THE persistent failure of all the traditional political stances and ideologies can only be explained by the failure of the theorists to reconcile the conscious with the unconscious. In this post Freudian world of Nagasaki, Seveso, Soweto, Har-risburg and the mass suicides of Jonestown; a new perception of the problems presented by the emerging technological era is needed; a new key is needed to decode the messages of the collective unconscious.
Surrealism, in constant change and development since the early 1920s, exploring all the fields of human experience, seems set to provide the answers to this terminal enigma on a personal and a mass level. The L.S.E. could be the breeding ground for the new Surrealist revolution. In practical terms Surrealism represents the struggle to escape the constraints imposed by this so-called "civilisa-1 lion", civilisation of false morality, to attain a true liberation of the mind. Surrealism is a force for the future.
The Students and their Union have enough problems without getting enmeshed in fine dialectics between outmoded political sects. In control, the Surrealists would strive to remove the hierarchies, involve the student body, free the student mind from its contradictions and create a new normality. When confronted with totalitarianists, careerists and unreasonable dogmatists, choose the Surrealist option.
The Surrealist Alternative
Tony Donaldson — Labour
I HAVE been at LSE for three years and in that time been involved in numerous campaigns — over education cuts, grants, overseas students fee increases, CND, and the dreaded Library; sat on the General Purposes, Library, As-commodation, and Overseas Students' Welfare Committees; been elected to NUS and London Student Organisation conferences; been involved in organising 1980's Freshers' Pair; and written several articles for Beaver — in short I am easily the best qualified candidate.
Next year the student union is under serious threat — the School Administration is talking about making massive cutbacks in the amount of money available to the
Student Union. This will affect all aspects of the SU — its welfare services (accommodation service, nursery subsidy, counselling etc.), publicity and information services, ents, societies, and even this paper! We can't afford to sit back and wait for this to happen— I believe we can mount opposition to the School's proposals and win provided that you are prepared to get involved yourself. Whoever you elect cannot do this for you—you have to do it yourself.
The only thing I promise is total commitment to doing the job as well as I am able. As for cheap election promises, forget it—I regard myself as a serious candidate.
Finklestein —Alliance
I AM am active member of the Liberal and Social Democratic Alliance Group and a second year student. I am a representative on the School's General Purpose Committee and President of the Debating Society.
I believe that the General Secretary should serve all students by seeking imaginative solutions to the problem faced by the Union in the provision of services and representing their views to the School and when necessary the government, rather than merely being a political advocate. Ideas for the coming year include the possible re-establishing of an LSE Daily newsletter, the provision of a Union Societies' room and the rationalisation of Union space in order to provide more and better facilities in the limited space available.
Katy Davies —Independent
I RECKON that I'm the obvious candidate for the post of Gen. Sec. because I'm not under the thumb of any' political party. Remember, it's not the Gen. Sec. who makes our policy; The Supreme Decision-Making Body of this Union is the UGM, I'm willing to apply my talents to implementing Union policy whichever political party initiates it.
The Gen. Sec. needs to be openminded, hardworking and extremely good at organising people. I reckon I fit this description pretty well. I've already worked on : The Freshers' Conference, Entertainments and Rag Week, Reading to blind students, the half term playgroup and even cooking for The Jobs Express marchers !
Now I'd like the opportunity to prove I'll be a brilliant Gen-Sec.
Goodbye to these...
OTHER ELECTIONS
STUDENTS UNION EXECUTIVE (10 posts)
Christopher BUYERS ALLIANCE/SOC. DEM. & LIBERAL
Andrew CANNING ALLIANCE (LIBERAL & SOC 'DEMOCRATIC)
Sheila CURRAN	LABOUR CLUB (standing for Welfare Office position)
John DONKERSLEY	LABOUR CLUB (standing for Academic Affairs)
Michael FELLOWS	ALLIANCE (LIBERAL & SOC. DEMOCRATIC)
Jonathan HALL	SOCIALIST WORKER STUDENT ORGANISATION
Debbi HINDSON	LABOUR CLUB (standing for Publicity position)
Lesley HOGGART	SOCIALIST WORKER STUDENT ORGANISATION
Gareth STOTEN	LABOUR CLUB (standing for External Affairs position)
Simon TAYLOR	CONSERVATIVE
Paul WALKER	SOCIALIST WORKER STUDENT ORGANISATION
NUS CONFERENCE (7 posts)
Chris BATES	LABOUR CLUB
J. M. BOWEN	DEMOCRATIC STUDENT FRONT
Andrew CANNING	ALLIANCE (LIBERAL & SOC. DEMOCRATIC)
N. J. FERNYHOUGH CONSERVATIVE
Adam HOLMES	LABOUR CLUB
David JACKSON	LABOUR CLUB
Edward LUCAS	ALLIANCE (LIBERAL & SOC DEMOCRATIC)
N. R. A. NEWMAN	INDEPENDENT
Katarina SARLVIK	LABOUR CLUB
Richard SPENCER	SOCIALIST WORKER STUDENT ORGANISATION
Paul WALKER	SOCIALIST WORKER STUDENT ORGANISATION
SOCIAL SECRETARY
Steve Virgin
STEVE is in the entertainments business as a leading member in the Ents organisation and has played an active part in Rag Week, co-ordinating activities such as darts tournaments, the Paris hitch-hike and the charity cricket tournament.
Steve has worked in Florries since coming to LSE and has had dealings with the other union services, subsequently building up a good understanding of how the services work.
He was a member of 'the LSE cricket team's unsuccessful attempt on the UAU title last year, and will hopefully be part of the successful team this year. He, unlike most of the other candidates has experience in the Ents business, and would be able to build on to the good work of his predecessors to create a far more efficient, better financed ents.
Dave Bearman
"A KEEN hardworking member of the Ents committee for the last two years who has his finger on the pulse, is how I'd describe Dave," says union spokesbear Bruce Beaver.
"I think that given all the candidates standing there's only one vote possible. He's the one with experience, ability and commitment." And being asked not to go on quite so OTT Bruce continued. "I know what sort of E'nts Dave stands for ; well-run cheap entertainment and lots of it. His association with services means he's well geared to run the Bar and Florries."
''With new ideas including joint promotions with other colleges to obtain better bands at cheaper prices for our students. All day beer, cheese and wine festivals; more help for societies putting on their own entertainment, the possibility of video shows in the bar — lots more free events in the Three Tuns and more lunchtime and daytime events to perk up those nasty classes and lectures."
PAGE 11
BEAVER ELECTION
SPECIAL
Chris McQueen - Conservative
Alan Charlton
I HAVE wide and varied experience in the entertainments industry and theatrical world I also have a great allllity to judge others and an amazing gift of communication (speech).
I have extensive knowledge of union procedure and constitutional data. When elected I shall strive for the aims of entertainment and pleasure for which I will make LSE world famous.
ALAN CHARLTON,
Gerald James
ADMIRER of Robespierre, and a eat lover . . . hopes that the first event of LSE Ents 1982-83 will be a public flogging of Dominic Freely. Will put on benefit gigs for the Oat's Protection League etc. Promises not to have any more Glam Rock at LSE. Wants a more ecologically conscious Ents and Union. Seeks a return to '68.
Gerald James — Parrots against the Bomb.
Everything you ever wanted to know
IT is time to find the successor to Steve Pound, General Secretary. It is not an enviable occupation: the pay's lousy and you can get sacked easier than passing a financial motion. Even so, one® again there is a host of candidates which this year includes a candidal® who proposes surrealist panaceas and an independent who wants to keep the politics out of politics. After all, the position does shine on future CVs and provides a well oiled springboard for that future climb up the greasy poJ« of national politics. Putting that aside let's look at the main candidates whose motives the student tody will judge for itself.
At the raucous harbinger of the election—the hustings on Thursday —all three main candidates (Lab, SOG/LIB, CON) received tumultuous receptions, either in the positive or negative.
Donaldson (LAB) looking re markably well turned-out, to wit: clean shaven, cut and blown tfry hair, and noticeably sober, promises 100 per cent commitment, re affirmed his dismay with the right and looks like he will keep ofi the grass long enough this year to ensure comprehensible syntax.
Finklestein (SDP LIB) has lots of ideas. I would suggest, though Danny, if you want to win, drop the S and P and leave the Democratic. I don't think there aTe many Republicans here, you wouldn't want to lose the American vote you've worked so hard to get.
Fernyhough (CON), very spit and polish, basking in Thatcher's rather harmful glare, promises financial strangulation — sorry stringency — an end to irrelevant political campaigns and promises to find some campaigns "if he would only open his crusty eyes" hear someone call.
SENIOR TREASURER
CHRIS McQUEEN is the best candidate for the position of Senior Treasurer.
For two years he headed an award winning company as Chairman and Managing Director—responsible for personnel, as well as finance and organisation. At LSE he has studied accountancy and monetary economics; he has a sound financial background.
With a keen interest in University affairs through the Conservative students at LSE and in London as a whole, Chris McQueen is one of the most highly qualified candidates ever fielded.
I would like to see a shift of
emphasis within LSE Union :
No donations to causes such as SWAPO maternity fund.
No coaches to Harrogate.
No more of our money thrown away on the idiot policies of the left.
Financial stringency must be a byword — for Florries D. Day has come.
The A.U. must lose some of its autonomy having abused its position. This is no witch-hunt— If more is saved there is more to spend.
Yes to expanding LSE housing programme—public and private.
Yes to direct union aid for library teaching collection.
Melanie Nazareth - Alliance
NEXT year due to government cuts and the School's decision to put our grant on a per capita basis there will be a financial crisis in the Union.
The introduction of per capita must be fought as two-thirds of costs are fixed. The School and the Union s hardship provisions, including scholarships should be increased, especially to combat increasing hardships faced by post graduate and overseas students. The Students' Union should provide services like Florries which I will undertake to keep in business.
If elected academic affairs will play an important part in next year's Union campaigns I will pres-
surise for reforms In the library, September re-sits and greater student input into teaching arrangements and course content.
Next year with its enormous problems an innovative Senior Treasurer is needed. The roles of societies need examiningwe must encourage events like Polish Week and the El Salvador night which have a wide appeal. With the School we need to take a firmer stance—but a constructive one not as it has been, a destructive one.
I have the guts to face up to our problems and to really deal with them i-ather than coming up with sloganizing and easy empty answers, What we need is a Senior
Jon O'Neil - Independent
I AM an informed ordinary student who has not been involved in student politics at LSE, with no grudges against any political party and no bias towards one. If elected. _ will still talk to ordinary students, not sit on some podium drinking in the Beavers Retreat. I am the only candidate able to help everyone because I am not bound to some political group and I won't waste time in political in-fighting.
Next year there is a projected cut of 19 per cent in money terms in the grant from the School to the
Student Union combined with an unavoidable rise in fixed costs, this in fact represents a real cut of approximately 50 per cent in the the money available for discretionary expenditure such as:—: Society budgets, services. Beaver. Ents. AU. Faced with this prospect, I believe that a Senior Treasurer who is determined to fight such drastic cuts, without becoming em-meshed in squabbles between political parties is absolutely essential for the financial survival oftheSU.
I have handled Ents finances tlrs
Rick Young - Labour
OVER the past year the job of Senior Treasurer has been used as a means of undermining democracy and participation in the activities of the Students' Union. I intend to pull the job away from this pui-ely managerial approach, so that the knowledge that the Senior Treasurer acquires can be used to the advantage of all students in a positive way—to further their interests rather than stifle them. In addition as a former member of the finance committee I feel competent and capable of taking on the job.
j
ill «¦
Yes to a rational approach to union financing.-
I must be honest—this will mean cuts in the political aims of the Union, but an expansion of what the Union is for—welfare, education and students.

It-
Treasurer who will encourage inter-party co-operation rather than slanging off the opposition—and I will.
year and therefore am acquainted with the permanent-financial staff of the Union.
At present the Students' Uni"h allocates £160.030 to the services and facilities it provides, such as the Athletic Union. ENTS, welfare and societies. In contrast, next year the school has stated that the Union's income will be cut, hence threatening these services and destroying the prospects of providing many much needed facilities. such as a properlv-equip :ed societies room. If the School proce?ds to implement these cuts this will clearly put us into an area of conflict with them, so I make it my intention to organise the
firmest possible resistance to these cuts. Finally, under no circumstances would I te prepared to implement redundancies — I would rather resign.
ALSO STANDING
GENERAL SECRETARY (One sabbatical post) James ALEXANDER (Libertarian Stuaent.-). Mick COLEBY (Forest Gate Popular Front). Inderjeet PARMAR (Democratic Stuuent Etont —Overseas Students Representative).
James Fraser Ross STEWART (Scottish Jacobean Party).
SENIOR TREASURER
Paul CAWTHORNE (Nomadic Afghan Tribesman).
David GIBSON (Libertarian Students). A. J. McKELVIE (Surrealist Subversion for a
New Union).
D. L. M. TALJAARD (Independent Social Reasonableist).
SOCIAL SECRETARY Mick COLEBY (Bruce Springsteen Fan).
PAGE 12
LONDON ARTS
0
BERNICE RUBENS
THE ROSENBLATT INTERVIEW
THERE can't be anything better than spending a morning with someone to whom you can actually relate; and so after literally five minutes it was as though I had known Bernice Rubens all my life. After all she made me a cup of coffee, wanted to turn the heating up urease I was cold, wanted me to sit wherever I would be most comfortable, all in traditional 'Jewish mother fashion; and I, in equally traditional 'Jewish boy' fashion, took her tulips.
"I was a teacher, a middle-class housewife, and rather bored, :o I took up writing, it was as simple as that."
"V
Are your books a serialisation of your own life ?
"My family provided me with my first novel, 'Set On Edge,' and past experiences inevitably feature in my works. 'Go Tell The Lemming,' another novel, is basically the story of the breakup of my marriage. I have just sold the film rights and I've been a ked to write' the screenplay, butl reread the book and really didn't like what I had written at all."
Bernice Rubens is a lady whom many critics feel hasn't received the recognition that she deserves, but Miss Rubens didn't agree. She said that she wasn't someone who looked for acclaim anyway.
There have been tremendous succe ses in her life though. 'I Sent a Letter to IViy Love,' another novel, was filmed staring Simone Signoret and 'Madame Sousatzka' had also been made into a film.
Do you write your problems out of your system, is that a purpose in writing at all?
"Writing in the heat of the moment, during a bad patch, is a very bad thing to do, the fiction that will be produced will be«,almost distorted. You must write from a distance, after the event has orted itself out. You
HOBSONS CHOICE
TOO1 often when directors search for a suitable work with which they can show off their
see, for me, writing is not escaping, by actually writing I am living through an experience, I cannot see how it can be a means of running away."
"Being a novelist can become an elitist occupation, an ivory tower situation, if you begin writing for an audience. If a publisher wants you. to write a certain type of book which from his point of view will be good commercial prospect you will not write a good novel because it won't come for you."
There 'are large canvassa- on Miss Rubens' walls and the large room where we sit is a typical writer's room, the occasional Victorian chairs dotted around confirm this feeling. In many ways the whole setting is a reflection of the strong character of the lady hitting on my right.
Her novel, 'The Elected Member,' won her the prestigious Booker prize and 'A Five Year Sentence,' was the runner up for it in 1978.
Do you like life ?
"My God. what a pertinent question. Do I like life? I lead an exciting life, I've done mad things in my life, had mad love affairs, but that's all part of me. I have lived on my own for some years but won't give up the advantages of it. I have many friends, feel lonely from time to time, though loneliness is a universal feeling."
If Bernice Rubens were an American, she would fit into the school of Heller, Bellow, Roth, all who have written on the Jewish theme.
Is your Jewishness almost an obession that you have to write about ?
"Of course. 'The Elected Member' concerns the breakdown of the good Jewish boy, where neither the mother nor the father can cope with the situation and go around in total disbelief of what has happened."
In 'Spring Sonata,' Bu-ter is
inside his mother's stomach, as yet unborn because he is all too aware of the confused mother he has and the ridicu-
star lead's acting ability they settle for something weak and mediocre. But 'Hobson's Choice' is a remarkably good play for Penelope Keith.
Miss Keith plays Maggie, the Lancashire lass, who, still at the age of thirty, works in her
7 A
I prefer the label of the Jewish writer.
lously possessive grandmother that he will gain. Mis' Rubens writes about the claustrophobic closeness of the Jewish family and the apparent neuro-ticism that being Jewish often entails.
Do you think that the importance of the Jewish mother is necessarily a Jewish monopoly?
"Look at the saler of Roth's 'Portnoy's Complaint.' The mother son syndrome is a factor that takes place amongst all families. Perhaps it was primarily a Jewish thing, but basically, it belongs to all women."
"When I won the Booker prize, I remember telling my mother that I had won this award, which wasn't too bad an achievement; she caid that maybe I should now consider giving up smoking; that was all. So, all families have their problems.
What are your feelings about feminist writers?
"Feminist writers are now begining to write themselves
father's shoe sho.o. Yet Maggie determines not to end up a spinster and so scoops up one of her father's workmen from the factory floor forcing him to marry her.
Penelope Keith is basically playing the Leadbetter and
Forbes - Hamilton character, Maggie being the Northern offering. But she plays her part with tremendous punch and bravado, her accent being faultless.
Trevor Peacock is a genuinely polished actor and plays the
into a corner. It was important what was . aid in the sixties, it had to be said, but this dislike for men is' pointless. You cannot wipe away fifty per cent of society just like that; such writing means progression is limited. I'm glad I'm not referred to as a 'Woman Writer,' I prefer the label of the 'Jewi1 h Writer'
"Women are basically virgins all their lives, men need women more than women in fact need men, and not just sexually either, emotionally as well. Feminist writers tend to see man's need for woman as such as his weakness. I fee it as an advantage in his character."
But the sound of the telephone broke the morning. It was someone demanding how to become a writer. Miss Rubens laughed.
"How do you tell someone how to become a writer?" she wondered.
Bernice Rubens' latest novel, "Birds of Passage", was published last year by Hamish
Hamilton, price £7.95p.
DANCE
THE double bill of "La Bayadere" and "The Two Pigeons" at Covent Garden does not prove to be the exciting evening anticipated.
The arabesques of the thirty two ballerinas of the company admittedly give an effect quite stunning though this was offset by the continual shaking in the rear section of the corps de ballet. The timing of the "Shadows" was not so good, nor did they seem to dance comfortably. Nureyev himself made technical errors and one particularly bad one when "hoisting" his partner with absolutely no gentility. Only Bryony Brind with her movement and apparent easiness with which she dances was the highlight of the performance.
Unfortunately "The Two Pigeons" began badly with Wendy Ellis' fall and thus her inability to continue. Lesley Collier who took over, danced with emotion combined with measured agility producing good effect.
J.R.
RSC
RUSSIAN playrights tend to produce works that are too laboured in their message and | inevitably too heavy in their performance, but Ostrovsky's "The Forest" is a magnificently amusing play that lifts and moves you. The simpie though not quite simplistic story is; that of an ageing widow's dilemma of to whom she should leave her estates when she dies. The entertaining acting of Barbara Leigh-Hunt as the widow, physically rich in stature anyway makes Raissa Pavlovina seem rather lovable and increases the subtle comedy through her performance.
Another glory of the evening belongs to Alan Howard and Richard Pasco. Howard is the widow's nephew and an actor (an unforbidden word) who visits his aunt with the intention of securing her favour, Pasco is under the pretence of being his servant. Together they poke fun at the society of which Raissa Pavlovina is a party and eventually as the games turn, more "wicked" she is made to see her nephew as "likeable" as opposed to the un-likeable view that she saw him as before.
,	J.R.
subjugated and later the subjugating husband with immense wit and fun. Even Anthony Quayle explores the character • of the father well and as he relents in old age he is almost moving. And so "Hobson's Choice" is in fact entertaining and simultaneously lifting.
PAGE 13


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THE PENGUIN BOOK OF POLITICAL COMICS
Steef Davidson £5.95, 204pp.
CONSPIRACY Capers, Class Wars, The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers. All names from what is now a bygone age and culture. The '60s was a decade of many things but for the political comic, it was the decade. It was a time when the medium of the comic was tops —whacky humour, fantasy and. of course the Superhero. But in the age of mass youth unrest it was the ideal form for propagandists right across the political spectrum to put over their anti-establishment views.
In this book Steef Davidson has not just put together the best from the sixties, but has attempted to trace the history of the comic from its conception as a mass-appeal organ. Obviously the bulk of the book is a reproduction of comic strips/features, but it is strung, together with short written explanations of the ideas and conditions prevalent around the time/country of each section of the book. It works well as a whole but many of the non-English cartoons lose a lot by having translations in footnotes at the bottom of the page.
This book has a wider appeal than is immediately obvious — clearly it is a wonderful nostalgia piece for those who remember the era but it is also of great interest to those who just want to get an insight into the mentality and atmosphere of the time. Many of the extracts have a very dated feel and seem incongruous to us today but for anyone with an interest in the period and six quid to spend, it is worth a look.
MINE'S A PINT—WHAT'S
YOURS?
Bill Tidy
Pearl Books, £1.95, 65pp.
On to a lighter note, this is a collection of cartoon strips of a more recent era—the decade of the Campaign for Real Ale, proper pubs and an end to the monopoly of fizzy beer. Most of you will have come across Bill Tidy in some magazine or other—the Daily Mirror, Private Eye to name but two, and his' style is well-known. This offering • is collected from the pages of CAMRA's newspaper, "What's Brewing ?" and follows the fortunes of the superhero of real beer, Kegbuster (and his dog) in the fight against the

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Skip Williamson's cover of Conspiracy Capers, USA, 1969.© The Conspiracy.
THIS CHEMICAL STUFF IS WDPCSC THAN PO SON, ITS WnCMPEB..
NQHE'S AS STEM# A6 WHEN YOU BROUGHT HIM IN.
BW HAN<5*MG UP My POT/
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big brewery combines, Grot-Yieys and Twitbreads. The humour ranges from the subtle to bawdy in what is clearly portrayed as a (thinking) man s world, but for beer-drinkers all over it is vintage stuff.
My one quibble, as with the previous book, is the price. At nearly £2 it rapidly loses its appeal as a casual purchase, but at London puices that's only three pints now.
THE BEDTIME LEUNIG
Michael Leuing
Angus & Robertson, £3.95.
The cover-note describes Mi-
chael Leunig as "sometime car-toonist-in-residence at the Old Ferret and current contributor to the Melbourne Age." Since he does not have a regular outlet for his work in Britain, his name, is not widely known, but this is the third collection of his work to be published here. Possessing a simple but at times devastatingly effective style, he is cynical, witty, philosophical, sad and satirical. Anything but dull, he on occasion displays pure genius in conveying so much so easily. Undoubtedly the best book of the three on review and well worth its cost to all readers.
Colin Bates.
"Mine's a pint ..." — Bill Tidy
BURGESS AT QUEEN S THEATRE
"ANOTHER COUNTRY" is an account of Guy Burgess at Eton in the 1930s. From it we are to glean an understanding of some of the influences there exercised which lead to his eventual career as a spy. As well it is about love, homosexuality and life in a public school. Indeed to understand the play fully I recommend a glance at a glossary of public school "lingo", for the script is liberally peppered with references to obscure little rituals. It is by such devices though that the author, Julian Mitchell has succeeded in recreating the atmosphere of such an apparently impenetrable world. With the
exception of Burgess's friend, Judd, Mitchell is able to create convincing characters who also convey the tragedy of such a repressive environment for one like Bennet (in the play Burgess is known as Guy Bennet) who knows with certainty that he will "never like woman". Judd, as a 16-year-old committed Marxist who spends every available moment studying "Das Kapital" is somehow not credible. Rather he seems to be a foil for Bennet — always objective where Bennet is romantic—an ironic dupe in that he continually eulogises about the society in whose favour Bennet was later to work.
Bennet, superbly played by Rupert Everett is as aware of the gross injustices displayed by his school as his friend, but he wants to play the system rather than reject it. His wish is to exploit it for all it can offer him. He is ultimately prevented from doing so—from joining the "elitist 22's" and from being a top prefect when his love for a fellow student is discovered. It is then, when one of his superiors has attempted to "flog" his nature out of him. that Bennet decides that he will use his considerable talent for convincing people of one thing while he actually believes another, at the highest possible level.
As well as exploiting dilemmas of romanticism and reason, and the cruelties imposed by accute homophobia, "Another Country" is extremely amusing. Bennet, tall and exuding adolescent gawk is the wit of the school. When accused of "get-
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ting above himself" he dryly replies, "It's my favourite position of all."
Thus a play with much to say and which spends over two hours saying it is not for a second dull. It has transferred to
the Queen's Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue from a small theatre in Greenwich, and all credit must go to the producer for recognising an interesting fringe play with West End pontential.
PAGE 14
0
—I should have known better.
Why does he keep comparing himself to Lenny Bruce ? Lenny had talent. He had it sussed. Alexei Sayle isn't half ' way there. To make taking, the p:ss out of the audience work you've got to challenge their ideas and preconceptions. Lenny could do this (that's why he-got benr.ed), Alexei Savie can't do it. The audience laugh, even faugh at themselves, but it doesn't worry them, so what's the point ? Is saying "Fuck" all the time funny really ?	R;£K
SO' at la t something good is happening in Rag Week, the G. d Theatre is pac red and it's not even- a - Union meeting. Ale ;ei Sayle is no longer a cult lave: his audience is now much wider : the usua: trendies were there—lots of beards and expensive pullovers; Houghton Street jammed with Morris Minors—but no v there's another contingent—OTT watchers, or blockheads if you prefer.
It was obvious from the start that he had a nice safe audience and that he would go down
we
he knei
that "Give 'em now 'cos they
any old crap fck'nk we're, all right." So why bother working, at it Alexei, just do it quick and collect the cash;
Unfortunately I've seen him before ; I've watched OTT and I've heard the Comic Strip album. I waited (patiently at first'! for a new joke, a different routine, something to make him live up to my expectations
FROM RAG TO RICHES
A play in three acts by George Fabian-Bore
RAG REVUE
THE HIT SQUAD STRIKES
A knock at the door. Our host, Margaret Cameroon-Wallaby, rushes down the packed hall. Her black ostrich-feather boa now looks like a string of bedraggled starlings; it has been a heavy night for the poor dear. Opens Door.., M C-W : Nic ! Do come in.
N;c Newtperson : Happy burpday . . groan . . want to buy a ticket to the Rag Ball—very good value, only £1.50 . . (collapses, assisted into bedroom by companions).
Scene II Later. . . .
David Beergut: Quick, in here! (dives into bedroom to escape oncoming Ovaltine). Shit! (trips over Newtperson).
Keir Locksley : (helping him up) He's given away free Rag Revue tickets to the empty wine bottles! Think of the lost revenue !
Beergut: That s not so bad at least they won't notice when I forget my lines and Mike cocks up the Cheeseshop sketch again.
Scene lit
Later still . . . Kentish Town Road. Two shadowy figures appear to be carrying a sack. We zoom in and recognise Beergut and ' Lccksley assisting Newtperson home. . . .
Locksley : (waving umbrella) Taxi, taxi!
A cab draws up.
Locksley : Rosebery Avenue, please.
Driver: O.K. Guv.
Newtperson : (to cabbie, having recovered business acumen) Psst, want to buy a Rag Ball ticket on the side . . .
Fade into glow of streetlamps.
ACT 3 Scene I
The Rag Ball. A packed Old Theatre. Audience waits for the next film, Star Bores, which they have already seen seven times each but are too pissed to care. . . .
Audience: Rhubard, rhubard, mumble, rhu-bard.
Girl on Bsfcony : . . . but apparently she was on the floor.
2nd Girl: Really? That's not what I was told ...
A figure stumbles on to stage. Audience, chuckles, expecting fun. Figure, male, begins to strip . . .
Audience : Off, off, off ... off with it. all . . . bloody hell, he's going all the way! (crowd begin to throw coins at him).
Girl : Quick, where's my glasses?
2nd Girl: On your forehead dear, where you always lose them.
Money piles up on stage.
Girl : (peering at the naked frame) Wasn't really worth the effort, was it ?
2nd Girl: Oh no ? You've been spoilt.
Second figure leaps on to stage. Audience murmur with expectation. Figures get down on hands and knees. Hush. Figure begins collecting the money now covering the stage. Audience mumbles in disappointment.
Lockstey : (for it is he) 55 ... 65 ... 70 .. . 72 ... 77 pence . . there's nearly enough here to. pay the band . . .
Scene Hi
(The treasurer's office the following Monday. Locksley confronts piles of crumpled banknotes. . . .
Locksley: 1353, 1354, 1355, 1355.50 . . . £1355.51| —at last, a successful ENTS venture.
Splintering of timber. .Beergut appears in office having taken direct action on the door and 17 Chubb locks. Locksley groans . . .
Beergut: Sorry about that, I just thought it was a bit stiff. (Gets icy look as Locksley rn^ikes mental estimate of damage). I just thought I'd drop in the bill for shaving foam for the Hit Squad. (Sneaks unnoticed out of door).
Locksley: (turning suddenly ashen-pale as figure registers) How much, David ? . . David ? . . . (leaps over desk, gives chase down corridor. Fade to two animated figures chasing one another into the sunset).
Stuart Silver and Ka i Urban d d a few sketches a la P. Cook and E. Moore which raised the odd self-conscious titter from the atxdienee, but I found them e\;t of style, out of jokes, and (perhaps worst of all) out of Cambridge.
The Nau ettes, a sort of downmarket Man-Tran without style, entertained us with some classic musical numbers with rewritten lyrics which at times
very confident stand-up routine, left everyone feeling rather embarrassed as he stumbled clumsily through an act which nine out of ten eat owners would rather die than admit authorship of.
Everyone else was present just to boost their egos, the running-time, and the tally of stupid and unnecessary lavatorial jokes.
MARK CHAPMAN
DAVE BULL was the best thing that came out of the Rag Revue, his only fault, as Hertz van Renta', a sort of junked up American Billy Connelly, was showing too much stamina in what should have been a short sprint. Happily, his other act, as Tex Rutter, was perfect: witty', snappy and well delivered.
ACT 1
Seene I
The BEAVER office. An assortment of political hacks are hard at work. Alternative drafts of a leaflet for the forthcoming NVS "Couple of Days of Nothing In Particular" lay strewn on the tabletops. A bespectacled hack with rain-bow-coloured hair looks upset. . . .
Gerrad Jones : . . . and besides. I don't see what was wrong with my version anyway. I do all the work for these leaflets and you come in, change it all at the last minute and grab all the glory.
Bony Donaldson (looking pained): It was just no good. Get the line right. We're a broad organisation looking for mass support—we, want to get me elected, remember, and that is far more important than your article on Workers' Militia . . .
Jones storms out of office.
Scene II
The ENTS office. A bunch of easily-recognisable thugs are trying to disguise themselves with stockings. It is the HIT SQUAD. . . .
N'c Newtperson : . . . No, the stocking's for your head, not Andy Crabbe's throat.
"Anonymous" Hit Man: (mumbling) Sorry Nic. (thinks) ... If I put it over my head, won't I ladder it on my beard ?
Newtperson : (looks to heavens) Who'd be a Social Secretary ?
Enter a fuming hack . . .
James: (for it is he) Five Pounds. Hit Bony Donaldson.
Storms out.
Newtperson : (looks up again) Thank you, thank you, Lord.
Scene III
A Labour Club business meeting. The Chairperson speaks. . . .
James : (for it is he again) Next motion, proposed by Bony Donaldson, is on sectarianism among the Left . . .
NIC NEWTPERSON
got dangerously close to being funny. The arrangements v ere a bit heavy-handed on ha. monies, but the performance was competent, and at least looked rehearsed, which is more than can be said for our Gen. Sec.
Steve Pound, who stunned everyone at this year's otherwise disastrous panto with a
ACT 2
Scene I
A Council flat in Kentish Town. A party is in full swing. The theme is "Black and White" so the assembled throng are dressed mainly in Dinner Suits. All are feeling very self-conscious in this unusual clothing, save for a bunch of FCS "Natural Leaders", who normally dress like this for their breakfast. In the hallway an election campaign is in full swing. . . .
Danny Ovaltine : . . . and another thing. We Social Democrats believe that the Union Television is in far too big a room and promise to move it elsewhere. The Labour Club would never do that for you.
Bemused Victim : (under his breath) Who is this nutter ? (aloud) I can't say that I am swayed by your argument (feigns incontinence, seeks sanctuary in the toilet).
Ovaltine: Oh, never mind, where's the next floating voter ?
A
PAGE 15
Iftv-
THE RAG BALL
THIS year's Rag Ball, no star bands but money was made.
The evening opened with "Jaws", of which any review is Irrelevant.
Nicky Home then exercised his ego and showed that he is one of the prime exponents. of the art of the Saturday night soul roadshow. He did however manage to create a lively atmosphere. The policy of zero Ventilation further boosted bar sales of 30p a pint Skol which ensured that those already drunk, were soon too pissed to care about anything.
The Skank Orchestra, a seven-piece from Brixton followed, purveyors of their own brand of syncopated reggae Junk. A foot-tapping sound of the moment band ; catch them If you can.
Those resolute enough or perhaps too drunk to move then caught Star Wars in the Old Theatre. Professionally shown Without a break, it was enjoyed by all, capping a fine evening Of frivolity with one of the funniest films ever made.
RAG HITCH
SIXTEEN pairs of people signed out for a sponsored hitch-hike to Paris. No one, of course, told them that hitching was illegal in France or the many other problems they would encounter and so in true "British" adventury style they set off.
So far we've received three postcards back, the earliest timed at 5.45 on Friday signed Clayton and Mike who are now winners and should collect their massive prize from the Ents Room. The other finishers are Tim Malwin and Sharon Taylor, and Mark Huddlestone and Stephen Walsh.
RAG REVUE
"THE ALTERNATIVE REVIEW RAG REVUE"
IT should be remembered that the Rag Revue was only meant to be a "fun Revue". With this in mind, the lack of professionalism and rehearsals don't detract from the enjoyment of the audience and the enthusiasm of the cast.
Fortunately not all of the audience were blessed with the vast experience and enlightened judgment of Mairk Chapman, recently seen on stage in "Waiting For Lefty", at which the audience of eight were outnumbered by the cast.
Beaver has been unable to find any of these eight to review the play. The main aim of the Revue was achieved in that it raised a considerable sum for Rag Week.
PASSFIELD RADIO
53 hours this time, beating last year's record broadcast. This year's highlights included a live oivair disco, a pop quiz, sports-check, jazz funk extravaganza, love hours, Sherlock Holmes serialisations, all-time classics from Keir Hopley and John O'Neill, magazine programme featuring sabbatical election preview, etc.
Radio Passfield broadcast in super mono on 103FM and provided hours of fun and entertainment. The most enjoyable part, from a DJ's point of view, was the 3 a.m. to 7 a.m. programmes when no one was listening. Who knows what we got up to.
Many thanks to Nick Jones, Katy Davies, Jon Priest, Jon O'Neill, Nic Newman, and the rest for again raising over £200.
PREVIEWS
' </ " »«- . • ;
" >4- f	™

SHAKATAK
With their recent top ten hit, ' Easier Said Than Done." Shakatali; culminate their extensive U.K. tour at the L.S.E. They are then-off to Europe and return to the UK in May to headline the Hammersmith Palais on May 2nd. One of the major coups for L.S.E. Ents this.year, the gig is bound to be a sell-out. So get your tickets soon before they all go.
SHAKATAK and ERONZE play L.S.E. Haldane Room, on MONDAY, 15th MARCH. Doors open 8.00 p.m. Tickets £3.00. adv. £3.50 door.
S MOVIE, CROWN OF THORNS, LOVED ONE
Two events in two days kick-off with a night of futurist style* music; B-Movie, best remembered for their epic single "Remembrance Day" have lined-up a major U.K. tour to coincide with the release of their new single ''Nowhere Girl" which is picking-uj* extensive radio airplay at the moment. Their only London date-is at the L.S.E. this Saturday, 13th March. Doors open 7.30 p.rn; Ail tickets £2.00.
by GOSCINNY and UDERZO
Hodder & Stoughton
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PAGE 16
IN FRANCE
THE season ended, or so it is rumoured, with a highly entertaining game against City and Guilds. The quality of the rugby may have been somewhat dubious but Simon Brayshaw's vociferous encouragement together with Martin Roster-brook's eccentric kicking caused a great deal of mirth amongst the players and the lone spectator.
Rosterbrook's first kick at goal travelled 10 yards backwards and Mark Tompkins cleaned up on a 3:1 bet when the second kick travelled even further backwards. For the record the boys recorded a victory by eight points to nil, superlative tries were scored by Nigel Wright and Colin Perry our new and- inspirational captain. Richard
Dahill also deserves a mention for when his fist was assaulted by an opposition player's face, upon completing the act Dahill proclaimed to all concerned that he was not responsible for starting the altercation.
Space prevents me from giving any details of the match against Kings last Saturday. Suffice to say we lost in an extremely tight game —25 points to nil. Despite the score there was little doubt that we were the better looking team which augurs well for the future.
Unsurprisingly enough, the Second XV also played against City and Guilds. It's rumoured that yet another victory was chalked up although I, as leader, was unable to be there. However, I was there when we played Kings.
Despite several unavailabilities a
team (of sorts) was turned out. That stalwart of the rugby club (indeed the whole AU) Pete Bur-bridge marked a momentous day for him by scoring our only try. It was momentous only in that he did not need any stitches, something which habitually happens when he plays flanker for the seconds.
From under the posts The Mouth converted with the aid of an upright, or was it the crossbar. This concluded the L.S.E.'s scoring, but it would be misleading to leave it at that without mentioning the fact that Kings scored 11 points. Next time Paul, please can we have some scrums!
I've just been given an update on the City and Guilds game, and horror of horrors Mark (Girls look
better after eight pints) Haskett scored a try. Other tries were scored by Padd, Holdich and Dave Rowe, with the inevitable contribution from John Box.
A few weeks ago some of the-more adventurous element of the Rugby Club made the trip to Paris to see England play. We would like to congratulate National Coaches on their selection of drivers, one of who wanted to leave three people behind in Victoria, and the other who wanted to leave two behind in Paris.
In pursuance of empirical research on the chances of getting mugged at midnight on the Metro, Ritchie Dahill spent the night wandering the stations with neither coat nor wallet—good bluff Ritchie; Thanks are also extended to the Gendarmerie who allowed three of our men to sleep in an 8ft x 6ft cell and even proffered coffee.
KEITH PROSSER
Hockey L.S.E. Riding Club
LAST Wednesday the Ladies' Hockey team could only manage to field seven players for their League match against Royal Free Hospital who had 11 players including a member of the U.C.U. Nevertheless L.S.E. put up a very creditable performance despite losing 6-1. The quality of L.S.E. can be summed up in a tremendous break by Gill Harris which produced our only goal and the momentous occasion when the goalkeeper, Liz Morgan-Gray, saved the first penalty flick she had ever faced.
This week records were nearly broken when 11 players turned up outside St Clements in the pouring rain for the match against Chelsea College. L.S.E. did not let a single bail past the post, but, despite having most of the play, the ball refused to go into the Chelsea net. All the players worked very hard and had several cracking shots but unfortunately the Chelsea goalkeeper was the best player on the pitch. The result was a very frustrating goalless draw, nevertheless it does give us a league point and so far we haven't got very many of those.
Charity Cricket
AS organiser of this event I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of those who participated in it. Highly successful as it was, special mention must go to Surrey Professional Graeme Cluton who gave up his time to appear in this charitable event. It is unfortunate that many other celebrities weren't willing to do the same.
Only seven of the eight teams entered appeared, Nat West being forced to withdraw, however Nat West still donated £100 plus a trophy towards the event. Of the teams participating in the day's fun, L.S.E.'s 1st achieved a notable victory over a very strong Overseas team in the final, despite early hiccups with the students' union team pushing them to the fullest in a previous round.
A special vote of thanks to those like Dinesh Patel who reckons to have made approximately £62 in sponshorship from the event. It's people like this who make Rag Week such a success.
THERE I sat, astride the big white horse, looking down disdainfully at the lesser mortals on less mystical creatures, the sumptuous green and yellow fields and meadows spread out beneath me as far as the eye could see, the proverbial babbling brook bounced joyfully over the time-worn rocks in the valley below. . . .
"Hey you on Strider! Get in line with the rest of the horses!" The sharp voice broke my reverie, and suddenly cold harsh reality swept over me—I was at King's Oaks Riding Stables in Enfield 1 of all places) and this was the first lesson last term with the L.S.E. Riding Club. It was in fact only the second time I had ever been on a horse—the first was a few months px-eviously: he was an amiable old thing called Sweets or Charm or Mr Mittens (something fairly innocuous), quite happy to plod placidly along behind the lead horse down a track and into a field eat some lunch and then . . . er . . (well you know what horses will insist on doing) and then head back to his stall for a nap. I felt about
as effective as Mrs Thatcher's monetarist policies on unemployment reduction. But back in Enfield I was on altogether a different animal.
Strider, as anyone in the L.S.E. Riding Club will verify, is the horse that moves only when told to stop, stands stock still on commands to move, tries to bite the horse in front and kick the horse behind (he's rather good at that, actually)—in short, he's a brute. But thankfully not all the King's Oaks horses are like him. There's the usual array of horsey names like Midnight, Sugar, Sunny and Rover (Rover?), each with a distinct nature.
My favourite is Quilt, a horse of the most peculiar col'ouring—looks like he's got some dreadful skin disease, probably contagious. One time we all had our horses walking around the oval track inside the arena with our "feet out of the stirrups (important fact—take note).
We were each in turn to make our horse trot around the track
to the end of the queue. My chance came, so I gave Quilt a little kick just to get him going. That was fine, except Quilt was feeling rather energetic that day: so off he took in a full gallop down the straightaway—me clinging on for dear life as best I could. But with no feet in the stirrups, I was gripping as hard as I could with my legs — the signal for the horse to carry on cantering.
As the end wall loomed up in front of me all the physics I'd ever learned was rushing through my brain, calculating the chances of staying on the horse as he went round the curve—they were minimal. Any moment now, I thought, the horse will turn right, I will go straight and they'll have to scrape me off the end wall with a spatula.
But horses are intelligent animals, and dear Quilt was no exception (he knew some physics, too). He leaned into the curve, so by some miracle I stayed on. Quilt finally stopped when we came up against the end of the queue-thank goodness they were there, or I might still be going around to this day.
Riding a horse is a pleasant way of spending an afternoon, but
watch it—it's easy to get hooked. You know you are officially a horsey person when you're so bowlegged you can open an umbrella between your legs, or you suddenly develop a liking for hay —in which case I recommend you either visit one of the L.S.E.'s 2J psychiatrists or buy yourself a field in Cumbria. Snorting or tossing your head are bad signs, too.
In fact, the main argument against riding (physical transformations aside) is usually expense, but with the L.S.E. Riding Club subsidy an hour's lesson is a mere £1.50 at King's Oaks or £4.00 at the London Equestrian Centre. And each year here is a Riding Weekend in the Brecon area of Wales for some 30 odd members (we certainly are odd).
Some of you may not ride for fear of falling off, but your fears are (mostly) unfounded—it's actually a great deal easier to fall off a log. Well, maybe just a bit.
See? There's actually no reason not to ride, unless you object strongly for some obscure reason to a 3i ton horse stepping on your foot, but that's another story. . . .
MALCOLM dARK 18-2-82
L.S.E. Riding Club member
We can't go on like this
and score a hatful of goals in Smith, will get the nod from the process.	now on.
"WE can't go on like this." Quite true. ' The cuts have got to stopMaybe so, but our Seconds are about to suffer the unkindest cut of all.
With next year's reorganisation of the leagues the top reserve division is being split into the new Second and Third divisions and the LSE look like being in the embarrassing position of having the Thirds in a higher division than the Seconds.
At the moment the Thirds are well up there — indeed they could actually win the reserve league. While the Seconds were trounced by Imperial Seconds (and every other Imperial team), the Thirds beat them 3-2, and while the Seconds were thrashed by UC, the Thirds eased to a 4-2 victory.
What is their secret ? Is it Steve Kennedy's crafty captaincy? Stuart Freeley's forward forays ? It most probably lies in the fast that there are no second team players in the' side which by, anybody's reckoning," is a' distinct advantage.
Nevertheless Willy Jack's
jerks are ready to kill all the jibes and regain their pride in the up-and-coming, awesome Seconds v Thirds clash.
As their first game was recently cancelled there is, alas, no result to report in this report on this classic encounter. Now a daunting "double header" (or to be more accurate, one game for four points — you don't think these lads could play two games on the trot do you ?) will ensue.
It is difficult to predict how the game will go and (he grudgingly admits) the Seconds are unbeaten for three games.
But the result probably depends on whether Willy picks a team that comes from the LSE or picks his mates from International Hall. If it's the former the Seconds have no chance. Still Phil (Billy) Blundell, football club supremo and Second team bad boy, promises he'll try not to get sent off this time.
On to the mighty Firsts and their quest for the league title, which up until last Saturday, seemed something of a foregone conclusion. Until then they could not help but win matches
Indeed, in the three games during one week they scored more times than Ceri Davies visited his hairdresser (just).
Against Goldsmith's, St Thomas' and RCA they rattled six goals past each, with such unlikely characters getting in on the goal spree as Rick (the Gob) Gibb (temporary refugee from the Seconds and flatmate of the football club's greatest ever thug, Andy Collin — one appearance this season, one sending off), and "Baal" Davidson (well have you seen his teeth?) who shrugged off rumours that he could not tell an air-borne football from a low-flying seagull to stagger into the opposition's penalty box and get in the way of a stray cross.
Against UC, however, our lads obviously decided to give up football for Lent and got soundly turned over by a team that could actually play the game.
It didn't help that the mighty Mackintosh missed another penalty, but seeing as our resident paraplegic can barely runup to the ball, let alone kick it, that was hardly surprising. It looks like first-year apprentice, dainty — but deadly Duncan
The Firsts still have a chance of the league, however, especially having since beaten plucky little King's College in the New Maiden sludge.
Having put the wails of Brian, our heartbroken groundsman, behind them, they proceeded to turn his carefully prepared pitch into something resembling the battleground at the Somme, winning 5-3 along the way.
The highpoint of this game was keeper Julio Mazzoli's brilliant lesson in how to turn a harmless half-way line, free kick into King's third goal (well he is an American).
Meanwhile, super - skipper Paul Jackson is at it again. After leading the Fifths to a closely fought 15-0 victory against KCH, he had an unprecedented thirteen man turnout last Saturday when they notched a mere eight against Charing Cross Hospital.
The problem is that if Jackson continues to recruit players as he is, our impending football club dinner is going to be more like the feeding of the five thousand. Still, there's always room in the Saunders bar.
(Based on an idea by Liam O'Donague).
DAVE KNIGHT
Published by London School of Economics and Political Science, Students Union, East Building; Printed by Ripley Printers Ltd, Ripley, Derby.