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.
In order to become an MP, Vassie will have to outdo Labour candidate Hugh Bailey who is predicted to lead with a 28.7% margin ahead of Vassie. However, his campaign has been meet extremely positively by members of his constituency. Perhaps he will have the same effect on York as Nick Clegg did on the nation and reverse the odds.
The Yorker talks to Vassie the day before we go to the polls to find out how he feels about this election.
How has the boundary change affected your campaign? Does the fact that York Central is a new constituency provide you with new opportunities?
CV: The boundary change is ridiculous in my view. It would have been far better for the city to have divided it into east and west instead of this silly doughnut.
York in the recent past has elected Labour MPs, what is your strategy to overcome this?
CV: We have had an invisible MP for nearly 20 years. I have made it my mission to articulate to the electorate [in my leaflets and in every husting] what vision, energy, ideas, principles and passion sound like. Politics is about getting things done and not simply prattling on about the number of letters you have written or the fact that you live locally, or not in Mr Bayley's case.
My record as a councillor speaks for itself: bringing the city council the ecoDepot, creating the smart meter library initiative [whereby any york resident can borrow a smart meter for free from their local library], raising Leisure and Culture provision in the city from 2 stars to 3 stars in the year I became executive member for Leisure and Culture, getting the executive to sign up to a Sustainable Procurement Strategy .... etc. etc.
My background as a composer of music for film/television, an author and a public speaker are also all about getting things done and enabling others to make real change.
As a student going into the job market in the near future, what will the Liberal Democrats do for me?
CV: Lib Dems want to transform the economy and tackle the most pressing global issue of climate change by focusing on creating a million green jobs. These will be in everything from expanding renewable energy and insulation, to transforming public transport and the national grid. Revitalising our economy in this way is vital to Britain engaging with the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century. This transformation will then support the rest of the economy. We want to regulate the banks, oblige them to lend to British businesses, cut business rates for small to medium businesses. I believe we should incorporate the European Parliament's latest suggestion of scrapping annual returns for small businesses to enable them to focus on growth and job creation.
Are you planning on visiting the University personally before May 6th? If so when?
CV: I have made a flying visit to the University a few days ago to talk on university radio. I would have loved to talk with a wider audience directly but no-one invited me! I did ten hustings last week all over the city - they went fantastically well. At the York College hustings a straw poll at the end had 80% of students voting Lib Dem! It is amazing to see the resurgence of interest in politics among the young. I think the reasons for it are: • Nick Clegg's amazing performance in the televised leaders' debates. • The realisation that our voting system is totally rubbish and that this election offers us a real chance of getting a hung parliament, reforming the voting system and becoming a modern democratic state and, thereby, changing our nation for good.
Why did you get involved in politics? What would your advice be to students interested in following such a career path?
CV: I have 4 principles: Equality, Liberty, Community and Sustainability. Every choice in politics can be set against these principles and evaluated.
My key motivations to getting involved in politics were environmental and democratic. I want us to show vision and leadership in tackling climate change and I want to live in a modern democracy with a Written Constitution and a Bill of Rights.
The tawdry decades of two party politics have led to the creation of single issue politics as people have given up on the parliamentary system altogether. In the rest of Europe there is no such thing as tactical voting, for example. single issue politics is a trap and simply leaves a rotten political system in place and going nowhere.
To any student wishing to get involved in politics I would say, cherish principles and ideas. The world is full of people who can tell you how the world is and why you cannot change anything when what we need are people who can tell you how the world might be and how we could change it. Politics is the art of managing change - without ideas or principles a politician is just a waste of space.
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