rwr.TM'ia; ¦IMffl STUDENTS' UNION No. 212 DECEMBER 7th, 1982 NEWSPAPER OF THE LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS WISHES EVERYONE 7'.V»y ¦w f. [\YtftYnrr\rrt...vYiVY* fy\46H OVERHEARD "The only way to get a job today is to be good or to grovel. This year I'm going to have a fucking good grovel." —Adam Holmes, ex-Labour Club Secretary "Chris, I wish I was as good as you." 2 —George Dickie to Chris Collett "Aren't there a lot of- communists and foreigners at LSE? How will you find a husband?" —Cambridge student to female LSE undergraduate. "It is well known that more lesbianism exists in female rather than male prisons," —Director of "Scrubbers" (BBC1). "If I want to wake up at a certain time I bang my head on the pillow for the time wanted. So if I want to get" up at seven I have seven bangs.". —David Bull. Outrage in West 1 Sir, WHILST reading last week's letter page in Beaver, I began to doubt the authenticity of some of your correspondents. I would suppose that this criminal state of affairs arose as a lack of copy material. I wouldn't be surprised to see M. Price posting a handful of envelopes with "To the Editor" written on them, or the Beaver team sweating away late one evening being imaginative with pseudonyms. What student at LSE would stoop to the level of amateur philosophy with a reference to Machiavelli. Surely people realise that both he and Philip Groves are turds? You know? It wouldn't surprise me if this was the only authentic letter on the page, and that the rest were invented during rare waves of creative fervour in the Beaver office. Yours in utmost angst. ANGRY OF MAYFAIR posed as the traitorous closet-Tories, they so logically must be? Or, is this merely another manifestation of the iniquitous "Tory Press"? I think we should be told. Yours etc, ANDREW COOPER, Chairman LSE SDP3 Bad Berger Dear Editors, ALTHOUGH I am concerned With the continuing decline of the British press (and the printing of "C. Berger's" letter has done nothing to abate my depression) that is not the reason why I feel compelled to write to you. After all, who am I to intervene in Editorial discretion — it is the fact you did not exercise it in a correct manner after reading the contents, that is distressing. The whole letteo based its attack on Mr Philip Groves by using language of such an unsubtle nature that it would not have been published by one of the daily tabloids. Whatever one's personal opinion and standpoint on political issues, there is plenty of scope to criticise someone on their views. The stark reality is that Mr/Ms Berger had to resort to terms of unsound abuse for one of the following reasons: Either Mr/Ms Berger could find no fault with Mr Groves' ideals, or he wrote his "masterpiece" on a dressing table and his poetic imagery was confused with the reflection in front of him. Yours faithfully, M. MOSZYNSKI So, if you must make your Special Guest Star appearances in my dreams, Please take off your stilettos when you're dancing in and out of my mind, and you wonder why I've got a head like a sieve.' MIKE HUTCHINSON 0 PAGE 3 NEWS IN BRIEF.... FLORRIES was broken into on Tuesday, November !6th. Thieves used a crowbar to break through the metal shutters, destroying a plastic display unit. Although attempts were made to break into the safe, only £25 was stolen. Lockers in the women's changing rooms were forced open. Florries was closed all day while the CID took fingerprints. The Students' Union has asked the School to reinstate porters in the East Building to improve security, and declined the offer of remote control cameras in Florries and the Three Tuns. overseas students, the education cuts and disarmaments. Florries, a favourite for thieves The library staff are hopeful that the GEAC system, already in use in the Teaching Collection, will be introduced into the Main Library next term, although this is subject to negotiation with the unions. It appears that next year's Student Union Budget will remain the same—£168,000, which represents 1.1% of the School's budget. This will inevitably lead to cuts in expenditure, which will seriously affect the Welfare Budget, and Ents in particular will suffer. Reductions in Society allowances will have to be made, and there may have to be fewer issues of Beaver. However, the Athletics Union will still receive 20% of the Union budget. Martine Mann, Senior Administration officer, made a mistake in her letter published in the last edition of Beaver. The Welfare Office is not closed on a Wednesday afternoon but may be in January, when Phil Wood attends a training course. A summit meeting between the Students Union and Assistant Bursar will be held a week after term finishes to try and sort out general irritations regarding telephones, clocks, the library cloakroom and photocopying. Overseas Studant Action Committee Meetings are now to be held on Tuesdays, at 1.00 o'clock in S221. All overseas studenTs, and anybody who is interested, sre urged to attend. Social secretary Steve Virgin is now making a profit. Despite a £150 loss on the Farmers Boys, the other three gigs made an overall profit of £550. Compared with deficits of £800 at Goldsmith's and £3,000 at Queen Mary College he is doing quite well. According to Steve, the hot tip for next year's Social Secretary is Phil Hague. General Secretary, Tony Donaldson, is in the process of drawing up an Alternative Prospectus-Lecture Assessment but is in need of assistance. He would be grateful if anyone with experience in this field would contact him, It is possible to claim for your rent during the Christmas vacation If you receive an LEA grant, by applying at your local QHSS office. Fiwther details are available from the Welfare Office (E295). The Student Union Hardship Fund received 38 applications this term. After 7 refusals and 3 withdrawals, 28 students received assistance, averaging out at £97 per head. Of those helped, 17 were postgraduates, and 19 overseas students. There are still plenty of good deals for the Christmas vacation, including details of cheap student discount flights, travel insurance, and Transalpino. Plenty of Student Railcards, International Student Cards and National Student Youth Discount Schemes "Countdown" cards, at £2.99, are still available from the Information Centre, E296. Rag Week Committee Elections will be held on Tuesday, December 7th, at 12 noon in C018, when a charity will also be chosen. NUS staff have gone back to work following arbitration and it appears a working relationship has been established. The NUS will now go ahead as planned. The main points of discussion will be grants, Following attempts to buy a racehorse the Students Union have been contacted by The Evening Standard, The Daily Telegraph, the Daily Express, Sun, Capitol Radio and LBC. Representatives wish their interests extended a little further—perhaps as far as the question of student grants! ROSEMARY WHITEHOUSE The Library cloakroom was discussed at this week's executive meeting. It was agreed that it was understaffed and overused, and that the union should campaign for an increase in staff and an expansion of the cloakroom. Rick Young announced that the School has rejected the union's demand for a. budget of £188,000 and.has offered us £368,000, the same amount as last year but a drop in real terms due to inflation. This may mean cutbacks in societies, Beaver, and the Hardship Fund. The Budget Meeting has now been postponed until next term. The Economics Department, until now notorious for being not only the largest department in the School, but also the only one without any student representatives, has finally agreed to have a staff-student committee. Elections will be held in the main Economic lectures next term. EARLY on the morning of December 1st, Florries coffee bar was broken into for the second time in a fortnight. Thieves entered through a broken kitchen window and forced entry into the storeroom and office. A £45 float was stolen from the open safe, the door having not been mended after the attempted break-in on November 23rd. Although it was mended immediately after the latest break-in, Florries was closed for the afternoon while police inspected the premises. During the first robbery chocolate "flakes" and shandy were consumed, but this time no food was touched. The manager of Florries, Miguel Santoro, has estimated that the loss Of two afternoons' trade has cost the Students' Union approximately £300. When this is | added to the £25 float stolen on November 23rd and the £45 float stolen this time, Florries has lost over £370 — eliminating this term's profit of £365.09. The window through which the thieves entered had been broken for four weeks, and had not been mended by the School. Mr Wilson of the Bursar's office said it did not usually take this long to mend a broken window. ' Although he admits that this is his responsibility, he had no explanation for the oversight. The recent break-ins have brought the whole issue of School ' security to a head. They are just part of a series of breaches of : security, which include the assault. | of a female student by a bogus ! cleaner, and numerous thefts of personal property in the School. The School has proposed the introduction of closed-circuit television in Student Union facilities. These would be switched on when the School is "vulnerable" at night, on weekends, and during the vacation. Mr Stroude (House Manager) says this is a good dererrent that has proven fairly effective elsewhere. In the last two years, eight porters have been phased out. This means that there are no longer enough porters left to man the East Building Lodge. Mr Stroude prefers a closed-circuit TV system to increasing the number of porters in order to save money, declaring, "less porters means more students." He would also like to see the introduction of identification cards that would be i worn by both staff and students The affiliation debate at LSE iMARTIN GRAHAMS defeated motion to disaffiliate from the National Union of Students (NUS) at the Union General Meeting, and buy a racehorse with the money represented a significant resurgance of interest in the affiliation question and the use of the money allocated to NUS. Until recently, affiliation to NUS has been something of a sacred cow at LSE. There have always been voices of dissent, usually from conservatives and libertarians opposed to our "forgotten closed shop", who want to see greater freedom of choice. However, "they "always formed something of a minority with students never questioning whether or not affiliation to NUS gave them value for money. The fact that the students affiliation fee never passed through their own hands, if they were British or receiving a grant from the British Government, probably accounted for their apathy on the subject. So, up until recently, most students have regarded it as free along with their university fees; but now, we are witnessing something of a sea change. Many students are questioning the way in which their subscriptions are used and beginning to wonder whether they could get more for their money. For example, everything we have, from Florries to Beaver, comes from LSE Students' Union. The £11,936 which we pay to NUS could be used to subsidise Florries, or on the hardship fund. In terms of grants, it could be argued that NUS have failed consistently, and this year, all they have managed to negotiate is exactly what the government was prepared to give us in the first place. National representation is an illusion. An individual students' union would have no leverage whatsoever with an organisation like the NHS. The counter-argument is that neither does the NUS. The problem here is that it is very difficult to gauge at a particular time to what extent an impact is being made. With a government majority in the House of Commons, it is extremely difficult to force concessions if that government is opposed to them. But, by virtue of the fact that they do have a majority, it is essential that bodies which do not have the leverage stand up and do what is possible to make their issues bub-lic. During Grants Week of Action (15th-19th November), NUS organised a lobby of Parliament. Students from various colleges and universities wrote to their MPs asking for an appointment. At these meetings, they presented NUS claims, and as a direct result, there was a debate on grants in the Commons where the Junior Minister for Education, William WaJdgrave, described students aged over 18 as a "pampered elite" and was howled down by the opposition party. It is believed that the 4% offer is a bluff by the government, the campaign is still being waged. A meeting has been arranged with Sir Keith Joseph after the previous one with William Waldgrave broke up acrimoniously. Disaffiliation would weaken NUS bargaining positions, for example, the retention of the London weighting allowance, against attempts to abolish it two years ago. Disaffiliators play down NUS successes as little more than luck. Concessions offered to students could be gained by individual colleges, for example The Society of West End Theatres offered the NUS student standby schemes, the NUS did not ask for them. They claim NUS is little more than a political training ground where terrorists are defended by a minority of students, claiming to represent the majority and discrediting it in the eyes of the public. Left and right at LSE agreed that conference is controlled by the Clause 4 group, who far from concerning themselves with student issues, have more interest in what they want to discuss. Possibly if this aspect were changed, the discussion of more relevant issues would restore the morale of many ¦ apathetic students. I think most Students woftla agree that some form of central body representing student interest j while in the School, but does not envisage their introduction in the near "future. It is Student Union policy that the East Building Lodge be manned by porters. They argue that the number of entrances necessitates a staff of porters. The General Secretary, Tony Donaldson, does not regard the introduction of closed-circuit television as an adequate substitute for porters. He pointed out that a bicycle had recently been stolen from right underneath one of these cameras, and that they create an "authoritarian" atmosphere even when not switched on. The system is also not effective if there are not enough porters to respond when problems arise. According to Donaldson, further disadvantages include the cameras' lack of audio capability, their inability to see down corridors, and "go on walkabouts". Porter H. M. Williams (TGWU Shop Steward) is in favour of reopening the East Building Lodge, but only if the School employs extra porters to do the job. On December 2nd, a meeting was held between Tony Donaldson, the Bursar, Mr Stroude, and Mr Barrett' (in charge of the portering staff) to discuss the issue. The School said that it did not consider it necessary to reopen the East Building Lodge during the day, as the majority of security breaches had occurred at night. They proposed extra clock-in points on the porters' rounds, the installation of closed-circuit television in Florries, the Three Tuns Bar and the Union Shop to be switched on when they are not in use. The Students' Union has launched a publicity campaign to arouse student awareness of the security problem in the East Building, and is hoping for a positive response. Two years ago when the School proposed a reduction in the number of porters, the TGWU received no support from the Student Union in resisting the proposal. ROSEMARY WHITEHOUSE is essential, and that this should involve all students. To opt now is the easy way out. Those who try to fight to change it from within will be those who win the respect of the students. JIM McCALLUM CATCH 22 EXEC THE main topic of discussion in this week's Executive meeting concerned how the union should campaign for more porters in view of the recent spate of burglaries. Representatives of SWSO put forward proposals to picket all the School committees. This caused quite a furore since the Executive has actually demanded an emergency meeting of the Safety Committee and there were logistical problems about how they could both attend the meeting and picket it at the same time. The SDP represented by Danny Finkelstein raised doubts about whether this was in fact a SWSO plot to occupy. The next suggestion came from Simon Taylor who proposed that we should set up a stall in the Main Building where students could write letters complaining about the porter situation. This also posed a problem because the letters of complaint will have to be addressed to the Bursar, yet in order to set up a stall in the Main Building it is necessary to obtain the Bursar's permission. The unfortunate Gareth was subsequently given the job of asking the Bursar if the Executive could set up a stall in'order to write nasty letters to him. It was also decided to print a letter to explain to the apathetic masses why the Executive actually wanted more porters. The SWSO contingent volunteered to do the fetter despite requests that there should be no clenched fist on it. Arlington dispute THE large police presence (approximately 400) last Tuesday signalled the end of stage one of the three-month struggle at Arlington House, Camden, Europe's largest hostel for single working men. County Court bailiffs evicted 38 Trade Unionists, sacked by Row-tan's for exercising the right to strike. The dispute began when the employees objected to their working (and living) conditions. The majority received about £26 per week and lived in atrocious conditions — their rooms were 7ft x 5ft, separated by thin wooden partitions, and containing only a bed, a chair, and a wall cupboard. The management refused to discuss the matter. Eventually strike action was taken an