A group of York students has won the opportunity to have their very own I-phone application developed after winning The App Challenge final, held at the Ron Cooke Hub on Wednesday, January 18.
YUSU Welfare officer Bob Hughes has warned students to be vigilant after a student loans phishing scam has been revealed.
Her Majesty the Queen will be visiting York on Maundy Thursday, 5th April, as part of the 800th anniversary of York’s Charter for the traditional “Royal Maundy” ceremony.
A flood caused by a heating system “failure” forced the university IT services to shut down many essential systems on Sunday night, causing problems for many students on the eve of their exams and assignment due-dates.
York Outer was won by Julian Sturdy, with 43% of the votes cast. This amounted to 22,912 votes, and signified a 6.7% rise in Tory support. The whole constituency saw a swing in voting allegiance of 3.7% from the Liberal Democrats to the Conservatives, gratifying for a Tory campaign of which York Outer was the third Conservative target seat.
It was a fairly close result though, with Madeline Kirk, the Liberal Democrat candidate, polling 19,224 votes and 36.1% of overall support. Nonetheless, the Liberal Democrats, despite what may have been expected given all the hype over Nick Clegg’s rise to political celebrity over this campaign, suffered a 0.7% loss of support. James Alexander, former YUSU President and Labour candidate for the area, only polled 9,108 votes in an election that saw a 9.9% drop in Labour support in this constituency. However, despite the drop in Lib Dem support, it could be seen that the possibility of a hung Parliament galvanised the election process for this election, as the turnout stood relatively high at 71.1% - a 6.7% rise on the election of 2005.
York Central, in which many second- and third-year students live, was kept secure by Labour polling 40% of the votes. Yet, there was an 8.9% drop in Labour support this year and the Tories and the Lib Dems both experienced rises in support: by 3.2% and 5% respectively. Disappointingly, the turnout was only up by 1.4% from the last election, and stood significantly lower than in York Outer, at only 62.1%. There was a swing of 6% from Labour to the Conservatives.
The British National Party stood for the first time in both constituencies, receiving 2.5% of the vote in York Central, and 1.8% in York Outer. UKIP gained 2.1% of the vote in York Outer, where it stood for the first time; while experiencing a 0.3% rise in support in York Central with 2.4% of the final votes cast. The Green Party also received 3.6% of the vote in York Central, though with a loss of 1.7%. Perhaps a surge in support for the Lib Dems was at the detriment to the Greens.
An interesting candidate was Eddie Vee, standing for the Monster Raving Loony Party, who actually managed to receive 0.3% of support, with 154 votes. One student commented that they considered voting for Vee simply as a mark of protest at how little our individual votes seemed to count. This student went on to imply he voted Lib Dem, and was annoyed that the apparent surge in Lib Dem support had come to nothing in York’s constituencies.
Elsewhere, Mad Cap’n Tom, York alumni and former YUSU President (as Mad Cap’n Tom) polled 0.2% of the vote – ironically, the same percentage as his rival Jack Nunn from the Pirate Party UK, who was also running in the Cities of London and Westminster constituency.
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