Blog Update

A few items:

- Yes, EUSAless seems to have been taken down. I'm not sure what the legal reason are behind this, and not really sure it'd be appropriate for me to comment on the reasons on my blog, lest I get taken down. Anyway, the fun and games that that blog was has gone. I'll do my best to give my insight on the elections.

- On which note, apologies but being a working man, work has taken over and I hope to be blogging again from this evening (Thursday).

- And to the couple of people who keep telling me I shouldn't do this blog: yes, I agree that I'm in London which makes my election coverage based almost entirely on online coverage, but I feel there's value in that. I'm also entitled to vote, as a Life Member, and will be basing my vote quite heavily on the online presence that these candidates have online.

- And finally, to get this straight at this point: I am not affiliated nor working for any of the Sabbatical campaigns and as this is my blog, you'll no doubt notice my prejudices either for or against certain candidates. They may not be obvious, but they'll probably be there, so you'll just have to deal with it.

Thanks.

Nick - no brainer?

So Harry's apologised. Or told the truth. Call it what you will, he's come out and said his piece.

It's better than Nick Ward who has hidden away and not even apologised for his 'dodgy' photos. This kind of lying got Piers Morgan fired, but at least Piers had the decentcy to come out and say he was sorry for misleading the public. Or if Nick isn't to blame, then who's writing his website? A case of no brains behind the operations?

So Nick, what are you going to do? Come out and tell the truth?

EUSA-less or Harry Cole-less?

Across on EUSA-less, it's come out that Harry Cole has been part of the brains behind the site. Whilst he should have made it clear a long while out that he was part of the operation of the site, his decision to say that he's involved now, during the crucial election season, at least has the mark of man who's putting his hands up.

Harry's letter is right: EUSA-less' very existence has raised the profile of EUSA, raised the profile of the elections and may even make voters who had never thought of voting before, vote. That's an achievement. Last year, this blog got over 5000 hits during the few weeks of the election ... I don't have the stats on how many individual visitors that is, but one way or the other these blogs are bringing more people into the elections.

What must happen now is that Harry must distance himself from the site for the duration of the two weeks. If EUSA-less is to maintain any semblance of fairness during the elections (especially if Harry was to get elected, he'd have to work with 3 other Sabbs who EUSA-less may have chosen to be scathing of), Harry has to put distance and space between EUSA-less and him.

The question is, will he do it?

Manifesto Sunday

Since candidates could place their manifesto online after handing in their election forms, the this Sunday has traditionally been the one where all the candidates were putting their finishing touches (or writing) their manifesto for each position. Of the last two years, I spent this Sunday night up all night with candidates writing a manifesto: this time it's different.

The majority of the candidates in the Presidential & Vice-Presidential elections have gone early, and decided to release their manifestos early; but has this allowed some candidates to cherry pick the best policies? Gabe Arafa, who joined the contest for President quite late on in the game, seems to have a very clean and very efficient website - which seems to lend itself heavily to all of his competitors. But as has been commented on other websites, this is par for the course.

Hopefully a good look through the manifestos might be able to separate the wheat from the chaff?

Nick Ward's lies

I've got to hand it to EUSA less - but they really uncovered the truth on this one:

http://eusaless.blogspot.com/2008/02/nick-ward-its-tough-life.html

Grab'n'run

EUSA. Take your money. Then forget the people? It costs £30 for people to become EUSA Life Members. It costs a certain sum of money (I must admit I don't know how much exactly), to become an Associate Member. You even have to give them an e-mail address (or at least you are given the chance to give EUSA your e-mail address). So it shouldn't be too difficult for them to get in touch.

Apparently, it is. EUSA hasn't bothered to (officially) contact any of the Life or Associate Members to tell them that there is an election on. Or that they could stand for one position being elected. Or that they'll need to register in advance to vote online. No, none of the above. So does this mean EUSA don't care, or are just into the business of taking your money and then forgetting about you?

Josh, Tom, Gordon & Anna - care to respond?

Leaving it late

With a mere 36hrs left, there seems to be a distinct lack of candidates. Now, I'm very happy if I get proven wrong, but to have two Sabb positions uncontested at this late stage is worrying. I really hope that there are challengers, proper contests and something that'll knock the 3 Presidential candidates off the radar for a bit. Even if it is another Presidential candidate.

4 Days left ...

With work meaning that my postings are slightly further apart than I'd like, my thoughts on the candidates haven't really had a chance to form. It isn't helped by what can only be described as a shoddy website, and that the candidates haven't got as many websites up as yet.

It's still early days though...

Selling out, once again

So, Tom's sold out. "Tom French has resigned elections committee in order to support some really great candidates."

First it was Josh leading the charge against Boris and bring EUSA's independence into question. Now it's Tom. Sure, EUSA funds won't be plundered into this election campaign (so we are told), but how will the 'general voting public' (or EUSA members) really think about yet another stroll down this lane.

With Tom's popularity as it is, how will his backing affect candidates?

Heard that before ...?

Adam Ramsay's slogan seems to have an air of familiarity to it. And this time, that familiarity doesn't come from Mastercard. "There are some things EUSA can't do. For everything else, there's Adam Ramsay", says his website.

What he probably doesn't realise is that I used a very similar line for the EUSU election last year ... so either Adam is taking lessons from a guy who's lost more elections than days of the week, or he's come around to my thinking. I'll let you decide which.