NUS President Wes Streeting in Ga-Ga Land

Today The Guardian wrote an article outlining Wes Streeting’s opposition to potential lecturers’ strikes later this summer.  In it, he claims, bizarrely, to represent all students in UK Higher Education, and espousing exactly what we expect from a dodgy careerist greasy-pole-climber like himself.

Well here he is again, up to his old form, laying into a group of people fighting for what they’re worth. Uni workers, facing compulsory redundancies in their thousands, have had the audacity to refuse to take proposed cuts lying down. Of course,  in  Streeting’s Gaga  Land this is simply unacceptable. Never mind that the quality of our education will suffer massively if cuts go ahead.

These are the same  workers who unconditionally supported  student struggles against top-up fees and who work tirelessly to scrape the best out of our laughably mismanaged education system. We owe them more respect.

Of course, Streeting is part of a new breed of NUS ‘representatives’ who have been fighting to sabotage the last  remnants of decency and political awareness in the NUS over the last few years. In his eyes, and the eyes of the cadre he has surrounded himself with, the NUS should just be a purchasing consortium to offer suckers, er, I mean students, er, I mean “consumers” cheap beer and more shitty “School Disco” nights. These aren’t bad in   themselves (in fact, we’re all for cheap beer!), but it shouldn’t be the main focus of a so-called   union that claims to represent our interests, surely!

The interests of students and lecturers are intimately entwined. Both want an education system that is accessible, rigorous and socially progressive. Both want to see students and lecturers (and other university workers, too) treated fairly and with respect. Both want an education system that will form students into intelligent, articulate and socially responsible individuals, not obedient workers and consumers.

The quality of our education as students, and the quality of our working lives as staff hangs in the balance. Employers are making cuts left, right and centre under the false pretence that because there’s a recession, we’re the ones that have to pay for it. Wes Streeting has shown his cards—he is 100% on the side of university management. What’s more, he is risking the education of those who he claims to represent so he can cosy up to bigwigs to  secure his future job in the    Labour Party head office.

If it does come to a strike, and the University and College Employers’ Association continues to be ridiculously selfish and arrogant, let’s make sure that the likes of Wes Streeting don’t get the way of supporting a decent education and decent jobs.