Greg Hands, the Shadow Treasury Minister and MP for Hammersmith & Fulham was well received when he spoke at Nottingham University on 19 November giving us an insight into the country’s economic situation.

After a brief introduction, Greg Hands talked about the issues surrounding the state of Britain’s finances and the handling of the credit crunch by Gordon Brown. Greg highlighted the problems the country will face paying off the national debt, discussed how to reduce the budget deficit and what to do about the banking sector. He gave us some shocking information relating to the management of the economy including that the debt repayment in 2010 will be higher than the total debt repayments for the last 300 years – since the national debt was introduced. He also gave a clear assessment of the impact of this budgetary problem on the students: “Gordon Brown has not just spent your [students’] money he has spent your children’s money as well”.

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Finally he answered questions from the floor, which included a range of topics, from Europe to Tuition Fees. I would like to thank Greg for taking the time to come and speak to Nottingham University students.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9Cjjqc4QY8

Oliver Jackson - NUCA Publicity Officer

This term so far….

It came to my attention that whilst NUCA has been fiercely active so far this term, we haven’t been too hot in writing up what we’ve done, so to make up lost ground I thought I’d write a quick round up of some of the events we’ve had so far this year.

Getting off to a good start before the term even began; NUCA was privileged to arrange for Philip Hammond MP to speak at the Nottingham Bluecoat School to a group of year 10, 11 and 12 students. It’s not every day school pupils get the chance to ask questions to the Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, and they certainly made the most of the opportunity to ask some interesting, and awkward(!), questions.

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A week later came freshers’ fayre where for three days NUCA ran a stall, welcoming students to the university and signing up new members. We also had a visit from Dr Rowena Holland (Nottingham South Parliamentary Candidate), a member of the Conservatives East Midlands Europe team, and James Poland (Broxtowe’s campaign manager). We had a really good response to our stall and our efforts even made the Nottingham Evening Post! (http://www.thisisnottingham.co.uk/politics/Tories-sign-students-election-battle/article-1457994-detail/article.html)

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The week after freshers’ fayre we had a freshers’ only social – a new event for this year and one which I feel really helped the 1st years to get to know each other and really feel a part of the society. The following night we held our ‘Welcome and EGM’ event, where we welcomed all our members to the society, had speeches by both of our local parliamentary candidates (Rowena Holland and Anna Soubry), and elected four new people to the committee.

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Conservative Party Conference was the following week, and what with our newly launched YouTube channel and armed with a camera and a microphone, we found this a unique opportunity to do a bit of MP stalking, and in the process managed to notch up a number of interviews with some rather high profile people (www.youtube.com/nottinghamcf).

This academic year will of course be a particularly important one of NUCA and the party as it will coincide with the next general election, so this year campaigning is very much forming the core of our activities. We decided therefore to put on a Canvassing Training afternoon, where a group of us were formally taught the etiquettes of canvassing, followed by a few hours putting these newly acquired skills into practice.

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NUCA’s campaigning resources are primarily focused on the two local constituencies of Nottingham South and Broxtowe, and for this year Vice President James Spencer is in overall charge of campaigning, with special responsibilities for Nottingham South, and Matthew Snape is serving as Deputy Campaigns Officer and is in charge of Broxtowe.

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In the run up to the general election campaigning will be put into overdrive, however the society is already very active, campaigning on weekends and to a lesser extent during the week. I’ve also taken the opportunity this year to get qualified to drive the Students’ Union minibuses, so come the election we’re particularly well prepared to mobilise our members!

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In between campaigning NUCA members also attended the YBF6 Activist Training Conference in Wellington College, Berkshire, where we heard from some 30 speakers from across the conservative movement. After having attended YBF5 last year, I was really keen to get a large delegation from Nottingham to attend, so almost 10% of the delegates there were from the university!

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YBF also came and visited us at the university and held a TV Interview Techniques training workshop where we got the chance to be on camera, practice being interviewed and get some invaluable feedback on what we were doing well and things we were doing wrong.

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For me, being on camera isn’t something which comes naturally and it is only by having attended previous YBF training days that I can do the YouTube channel videos in the way I do (not to say that I don’t have lots to improve on!).

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Other events this term have included a newly launched ‘Pizza, Port and Policy’ night, attending the OTC Remembrance Sunday Service at the University, the CF Student Life Tours Q&A evening, helping out at a Cameron Direct and a dinner on campus with both William Hague and Ken Clarke.

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Looking ahead to the rest of the term we are looking forward to welcoming Greg Hands MP and David Burrowes MP, as well as a variety of social events and other special events currently in the pipeline.

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So that’s a brief roundup of the story so far – we’ll be keeping this up to date more regularly from now on so make sure to check back, see what we’ve been up to and also do remember to get involved with NUCA! It is a real pleasure to be leading such a fine bunch of people in this society and I really hope this year we can fully play our part in seeing the election of the next Conservative government.

Nick Allsopp

NUCA President

Last night NUCA held its AGM. With a good turnout of 30 people, the AGM covered the outgoing President’s speech, the Treasurer’s review of our finances, a vote on constitutional amendments and the election of next year’s committee.

The 2009/2010 committee was elected as:

Nick Allsopp- President

James Spencer- Vice-President

Amy Hennessy- Treasurer

Chris Loftus- General Secretary

Ed Cain- Campaigns and Publicity Officer

Hannah Dobra- Social Secretary

Well done to those elected- I know they will do a very good job.

It was another successful evening with a cracking turnout of over 40 people who came to hear from Ken.

Roger and Tim also joined us for dinner afterwards which was good fun (albeit with a slight delay for the burgers!). All in all it was a very successful event and NUCA thanks the Young Britons’ Foundation once again for the assistance provided in getting a speaker.

The long awaited parliamentary style debate between the Labour Society and the University’s Conservative Association took place on the evening of the 9^th December in a furore of banter and heckling which any MP would be proud of. Tensions between the parties had been running high since the Politics Society’s ‘Question Time’ debate where we saw the irrevocable difference of opinion between the two sides when concerning the global economic downturn.

The evening’s debate kicked off with a highly competent criticism of Labour’s economic policy by the NUCA’s President Will Bickford Smith, which highlighted upon the incumbent flaws in Labours ‘spend money like water’ policy. Will went on to make the extremely valid and relevant point, that ‘solving debt with more debt’ is - and will never be - a viable solution to the current financial crises. This attack forced Labour’s chair (Jamie McMahon) to hide behind a barricade of numbers and statistics which only served to show that there were regurgitating party literature. Moreover, their personal attack on Will’s use of rhetoric proved they hadn’t a single political argument left.

NUCA’s vice president, and economics student, Nick Allsopp gave a damning report on the cause of Britain’s recession; the fact that Gordon Brown, both as Chancellor and Prime Minister did not regulate the amounts of money lent by banks. Nick brushed aside McMahon’s statistics to reveal the true cost of the crisis on the British Taxpayer- £1 Trillion. Labour’s second in command Faruk Patel resorted to blaming Baroness Thatcher and previous Tory governments for the Crisis, an argument completely unfounded and steeped in the traditional Labour sentiment of passing the blame. When closing speaker Craig Cox raised this issue, he was told to ‘stop living in the past’- a comment which caused much uproar throughout the opposition.

All in all Labour’s performance at the debate could be summed up in three words: hypocrisy, bureaucracy, and incompetence.

By James Spencer

Tonight, the University of Nottingham Student’s Union Council voted NO to ID cards for foreign students and voted to lobby the government to abandon their plans.

This is fantastic news for the people of Britain. It is also great that NUCA has not even run its NO2ID campaign yet, as it has been delayed until next semester, yet there is unanimous bad feeling about ID cards. This can only bode well for when NUCA tables a motion to Council to make NO2ID official SU policy.

Furthermore, NUCA’s presence within Council led to the Nottingham SU President, Nsikan Edung, saying “yes” he would support the Conservatives’ presence within the University to campaign against ID cards. Other members of Council suggested that NO2ID should also be utilised in the campaign against ID cards.

On Tuesday 2nd December, Nottingham University Politics Society hosted its own ‘Question Time’ style evening. The presidents of every political society on campus comprised the panel: The Politics Society, Conservative Future, Labour Students and Young Greens. The addition of a chairman ensured a flowing debate.

Much amusement was caused by the absence of the Liberal Democrats (it turns out they’ve ceased to run an SU society), and the effect of this was that the debate naturally focussed on issues of disagreement between Labour and the Conservatives. Unsurprisingly, the economy was the issue of the day, despite efforts to escape the subject’s domination. Other topics were Heathrow’s third runway, internal flights and membership of the European Union and the Euro among others.

Interventions from the floor maintained audience participation, though not all of them quite qualified as ‘questions’! The eagerness and attention throughout the room was testament to the engaging debate on the table.

Regular interventions from the Young Greens’ president offered a different perspective on what might have become two-party issues. Some found it unnerving how often he found a link to climate change in whatever topic was brought up! The Politics Society’s president seemed to offer a deliberate objectivity, always adding a humorous element to his serious points. Tension was maintained between Labour and the Tories, with exasperation evident on both presidents’ faces after particular controversies - this all added to a great atmosphere.

Time was limited, but it was obvious the audience would quite happily have stayed for much longer. Congratulations to the Politics Society for their success and inventiveness, and I hope there will be many more events like this in years to come.

By Edward Cain, NUCA Social Action Officer

It is not possible to watch this video and fail to notice that Gordon Brown is simply reading off a speech, very quickly and without any sort of passion. He doesn’t care quite frankly about people losing their jobs and homes- he cares only about his own position on the world stage. I would press even any Labour supporter to show me which part of the video conveys a sense of engagement with the problems facing Britain, rather than just reading his sheet of paper.