Blogging will be light today as I am heading off up to Norwich mid morning. In the evening I'm speaking to University of East Anglia Conservatives to mark the 25th anniversary of the setting up of the UEA Consoc in 1982 - and you can have three guesses as to who started it all. It's on days like this that I feel rather old! A couple of my contemporaries, Tim Quint and Jo Fiuza will be there, along with Trevor Ivory and Antony Little who are more recent graduates, but both leading lights in Norfolk politics now. Trevor also succeeded me as candidate in North Norfolk.I'm also going to have a drink with the Norfolk Blogger, Nich Starling, in the Maid's Head before the UEA bash. We used to hold a lot fo our meetings there, and in a pub opposite called The Lawyer. A favourite hangout was a pizza restaurant a few yards away in Tombland called Pizza One, Pancakes Too. And another few hundred yards down the road is the nightclub - then called Bonds - where I first got totally off my head on pernod & blacks (yes, a real tarts drink, I know). I downed eleven in two hours - very Hagueish. Ah, the memories. Anyway, where was I?
One of my main memories of running UEA Tories was a meeting we held in 1985 with Cecil Parkinson as guest speaker. He was slowly being rehabiliated after his 1983 resignation and we expected a big crowd in Lecture Theatre 1. Little did I know that when we walked in it was full to overflowing, with 900 students.
He got a standing ovation, which I was a little surprised at, as UEA was a very left wing university in those days. In fact his reception was so good that it provoked the socialist workers' crowd who tried to invade the stage. They failed at that due to the skilful work of members of the UEA Rugby Society, so then the eggs started coming in. Noen of them hit Cecil. They all hit Ann, his wife, and me. My new suit was ruined. Cecil was furious and shouted "which little lefty rat threw that at my wife?" The rest of the audience cheered and turned on the egg throwers who left without further incident. What a great meeting! Cecil loved it! The picture is of the ensuing dinner, at the Maid's Head Hotel (although Cecil is hidden behind me!). Anyway, there will be lots of reminiscing later and I have no doubt that the evening will end with me feeling very old and past it.
I have another memory of me debating with Caroline Flint at a student union meeting the pros and cons of taking VAT off tampons. She was Chair of the
Among my other contemporaries were Mark Seddon, who I tried to get sacked as student union president for funnelling student union money to striking miners. Ann Taylor's former adviser Iain Mackenzie was also there, as was former NUS president Vicky Phillips and Jo Gibbons who now works for Tony Blair. She really didn't like me very much.
Anyway, if you have memories of your own time in student politics, feel free to leave them in the comments.
Top pic Cecil Parkinson(obscured (!), me, Ann Parkinson, Jeremy Dann, Jill Powley
Middle picture left to right Jon Shortland, Chris Whiteside, Jo Fiuza and Philip Bastiman
Bottom pic left to right Jeremy Dann, John Powley MP, Cecil Parkinson, me, Ann Parkinson
22 comments:
I did English at Newcastle and on the Arts side I must have been the only right wing person there. It was an unformed instinct at the time but nonethless a deeply unacceptable one in that context.I wish I `d thought of doing something about it.
Who is the chap with glasses in the second picture down . Its not Chris Whiteside is it ?
Oh Caroline Flint may be a tiresome bimbo who has ruined the pub for evryone but she is still the most shaggable MP around by a good long way.The really great thing about sex with her would be the post coital cigarette though.
What a babe
I was in the UEA Conservatives. Briefly! At that age they should be drinking and womanising, not spouting oring political twaddle!
Ten years ago I became a part-time mature student at UEA, juggling study with running a business. I joined the Society during Freshers' Week, but dared not go to any meetings after clocking the reactions of my new friends. What a coward - but I figured it could be a long five years with no chums.
I was shocked by the Marxist content of my course (how yesterday - even then!). There was no balance or free thought. On the otherhand, there was no student protest either. Oh, and it was always cold, as Norwich is! Happy days.
All this tends to make Peter Oborne's point about politics being a career for ambitious weirdos who jump into it at university and never really experience or understand the 'real world'. If we had a few mnore politicians who hadn't been members of this or that political society at playgroup, then Westminster might not feel so divorced from the world the rest of us live in.
Simon, I hope you are not lumping me in with people who have had no experience outside politics! I agree with your general point though about there being too many people who haven't done anything apart from working in a party research department and then a SPAD.
As a final year undergraduate, I feel a bit sad that 'student politics' these days just doesn't seem to compare. You wouldn't see any poultry being hurled around now, I don't think.
Well Iain,you'll know most of my political experiences as I was at UEA at the same time.
Highlights were meeting Maggie during the 1983 election campaign and John Powley winning Norwich South which was quite unexpected.
Have a great time tonight and please say hi to Jo Fiuza for me.
Iain "Anyway, where was I?
Well, I think you said Bonds.
Perhaps the pernod and blacks did rather more damage than you thought?
Does old-style student politics really go on anywhere any more, outside Oxford and Cambridge?
I graduated from a former poly five and a half years ago. There were Conservative, Labour and Lib Dem societies but they didn't exactly publicise themselves, and I didn't know anyone in any of them.
The Students Union organised a coach trip to London to march on Parliament against tuition fees. Apparently most people promptly got off the bus and went shopping. I felt quite depressed when I heard that.
Iain missed a couple of fun bits- my favourite was definitely the 83 election. Going around Uni wearing a blue rosette was interesting- especially in lectures.
Then at least one lecturer would not talk to me for months after we took both Norwich seats from Labour (and who can forget the convoy from the North count!)
Iain
Not at all - you're clearly not representative of the breed
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FCS Conference, Loughborough, 1985. What a party. Ended up with the police being called and on the front page of the Sun.
I was at Bradford and there weren't many Thatcherites there, I can tell you. Got attacked for singing the National Anthem in a union bar. Also got attacked for putting up a fantastic poster pointing out the simularities between Communism and Fascism. Got attacked outside a nightclub for singing a not-too-complentary song about striking miners. Actually that was probably deserved.
Was amazed when I got into the big world of work and found that no one discussed politics. Ever.
Did Cecil Parkinson ever explain to you why he needed to get a Mary Bell Order to hush up the existence of his child Flora, who he conceived with Sarah Keays?
Fascinating to see Chris Whiteside in one of your pictures - he had been a Tory Union president at Bristol just before I arrived there. During my time at Bristol Mark Francois was the BUCA chairman, and stood in the national FCS elections as the 'mainstream' candidate against libertarian John Bercow. Hmmm. How times have changed!
More dramatically at Bristol in the mid-80s, history professor John Vincent was the victim of a left-wing campaign to oust him because of his weekly Sun column. The Union president at the time was desperate not to have to take sides, because he wanted everyone to like him. He was one Lembit Opik, at that time of no fixed party!
Iain. It was really nice to meet you in person for the first time since "hostilities" in North Norfolk.
I really enjoyed reading this post. I remember meeting Cecil too when he laid the foundations for the new Stansted Airport. Of course, I kept thinking the other woman in his life and little Flora. Such tangled, complicated lives we lead.
Having visited the UEA with my son, I know what a great place it is, I know you are in great company too, what great fun it will be.
Glad you met up with Norfolk blogger too. He seems very genuine.
Hope you have a great time at the UEA reunion: please give my regards to everyone.
I didn't immediately recognise myself in the second photograph, partly because I'm now about four stone heavier than I was as a 24 year old postgrad, and don't have quite so much hair, but it is indeed me.
Two respective Cecil Parkinson visits were among my more exciting memories of both Bristol and UEA - on both occasions I remember arrangements being made to have the rugby club present as a precaution against trouble. The difference being that in Bristol the student union sabbaticals laid on the Rugby Club because we were as anxious to prevent trouble as the BUCA officers were, while in Norwich Iain and the Torysoc officers had to do it, while the SU leadership were among the hecklers.
Loughborough 85 was one of the worst points of my student career: that was one of the rare occasions when right-wing students rather than left-wing ones behaved like hooligans. I'm sure Iain will remember the idiots who banged on both our doors in the early hours shouting "Kill the wets" or some such rubbish. At several FCS conferences, the hard-right loonies achieved what no socialist has ever managed before or since and made me ashamed to be a tory.
It's only fair to add that some people on both left and right who in their twenties were obnoxious extremists have since grown up and become decent people!
as vice president in charge of society lists (and sundry other matters), i once got two labour candidates who won student office deselected for not stating on their nomination forms that they were also swp members. they were originally elected unopposed but at the 2nd attempt, two indies ran and beat them by two votes. the labour club were delighted to see two trotskyite entryists lose. all happy, apart from the trots. i am now a happy member of the labour party.
Bastards like you Iain make me sick. It's no wonder women don't want to get involved in Politics, when there's chauvinist men like you around. Thank goodness Caroline Flint is a Minister, showing us female's do have brains. Labour actually appreciates it's women unlike the useless Tory party which is filled with old, fat men with outdated ideas on what women should be like. Shame on you!!!
Did I ever tell about the times Herr Dale when I tore George Galloway to shreads at a public meeting and scared Lady Shephard witless with my bald head?
didn't you have anything better to do as a student, like getting drunk and getting laid ?
cstsgGreat days, I have to confess. And some names that I had almost forgotten, like Joe Fiuza and Chris Whiteside (good to hear from you, guys!). Anyone know what happened to Jonathan Shortland?
But even then, the Labour Club didn't have things entirely their own way. In the 1984 non-sabbatical elections, the entire Labour slate crashed to inglorious defeat, after an election where voter turnout was 200% higher than the Elections Committee had predicted.
Vicky Phillips wasn't pleased at this hiccup on her rise to be NUS President (whatever happened to her, anyway?).
Gosh, all this nostalgia makes me want to go back. Going to the UEA Pub Night in November, Iain?
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