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.
Former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith admitted on Friday that she had found it “difficult to adjust” to life after politics, one year after losing her seat in Parliament.
“In some ways I had prepared myself because I was in a pretty marginal seat, I was pretty sure I was going to lose it…but of course it’s difficult to adjust,” Smith told The Yorker in an interview.
Smith, who was forced to resign as Home Secretary in 2009 after a row over expenses, was in York to speak to the university’s Labour Club.
“If you’re an elected MP, you feel the power of those people who elected you to be able to get things done, and to change things. And all of a sudden to just be yourself again — it’s something that you need to get used to”, Smith said.
The former minister also spoke out about her role in the parliamentary expenses scandal, which damaged the careers of several prominent politicians.
Smith was ordered to make a public apology by a parliamentary watchdog after she designated her sister’s home, in which she rented a room, as her main residence. She then claimed expenses on her family home in Redditch as her ‘second’ home.
Details of smaller inappropriate expenses claims also emerged, including a claim for pornographic films viewed by her husband.
“Claiming for the films was a totally ridiculous mistake…it shouldn’t have got within a thousand miles of an expenses claim form,” Smith told The Yorker. “I immediately paid back the money… and I really regret it”.
However, she insisted that her claims for housing expenses were justified.
“I was always completely open with the authorities”, Smith said, claiming that the Commons Standards Committee ruling was “made because of the heat on the expenses issue”, rather than being a fair decision. She was not asked to repay any of the money she claimed for her housing.
Smith, 48, was warmly received at the Labour Club event — and she was remarkably candid in her answers to questions from the audience.
“When you’re in government, you get worn down…you sort of close in,” she said of Labour’s time in office. “All of us [did it]: as a party, as a government”.
She also gave a lukewarm endorsement to new Labour leader Ed Miliband. “He’s getting really good and sharp at Prime Minister’s Questions”, said Smith, who voted for Miliband’s brother David in the party leadership election. “Sometimes he could be a bit more robust”.
Smith, whose activities post-politics include the radio documentary Porn Again, an investigation into the pornography industry, cited civil partnership legislation as her proudest achievement while in office.
And she was upbeat about her plans for the future. “In some ways it’s quite liberating to be outside Parliament”, she told The Yorker. “I know there other things that I want to campaign on, and work on in the future, and I’m going to find ways to do that”.
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