Your Letters
The author of the best letter in each issue will receive a pair of free tickets to see the film of their choice at the Phoenix.
Sir,
I was dismayed at the depressing level of awfulness student journalism fell to with last week's publication of Patrick Murphy's "Cherwell CSV Claims 'No Basis'". Somehow Mr Patrick was allowed to credulously reprint the entirely false allegations of an OUSU sabbatical officer that our front page splash of 19th October was "fabricated" and, to quote Ms Fletcher, "has no basis in truth". If the OxStu had thought to ring Hunt, she would have told you that she herself had given Cherwell news editor Andrew Sutton a lengthy interview stating that i) she had found a suitable venue five minute's walk from Carfax, and ii) she was considering launching a £500,000 bid for commercial sponsorship. I can quite understand Hunt's anger at having her opinions so profoundly mangled although still cannot understand how it was able to happen.
One has to ask why the Oxford Student allows itself to make itself look so foolish by giving space to the claims of a sabbatical officer that can so easily be shown to be false. One elementary question that Mr Murphy might have troubled to ask is why Fletcher and Hunt had not approached Cherwell to correct what they apparently believed to be a completely spurious story.
The end result was not just shoddy and incompetent but highly defamatory. Anyone reading it could only have been left with the impression that Andrew Sutton is a hopeless journalist incapable of accurately reporting stories and who must consequently resort to making them up. Evidently that is a view more applicable to Mr Murphy and the news editors of the Oxford Student than Andrew.
Jon Boone Cherwell Editor
Sir,
I write in response to your editorial of last week, which branded JCR Presidents as "arrogant", believing themselves to be "omnipotent" and regarding OUSU as "accountable to them and them only.". I have several serious concerns with these views.
Firstly, the notorious Afghanistan motion debated at the last OUSU Council was certainly taken seriously by JCR Presidents. Requests to move to a vote in a debate that lasted almost two hours were not an expression of boredom with the proceedings or a belief that the debate was unimportant, but a reflection of the fact that all JCR Presidents had been mandated by their JCRs to vote in a particular way. No amount of debate could change the way in which JCR Presidents were going to vote as they were there to exercise a mandate from the people they represent, not a personal view. In this sense, although the behaviour of JCR Presidents may have been interpreted as arrogant, it was in fact a reflection of the lengthy debate and discussion which took place in Common Rooms throughout Oxford before OUSU Council.
Secondly, JCR Presidents certainly do not consider OUSU accountable to them only. In my personal opinion, I believe that OUSU is accountable to the students of Keble in particular and Oxford in general. In my experience, often the best way for this accountability to be expressed is though my contact with representatives of OUSU. However, it is my responsibility to ensure that this is communicated to Keble JCR, and is certainly not part of an inflated view of my own importance or even a belief in my own omnipotency.
As JCR President I do my utmost to ensure that Keble is represented properly at a university level. The job is certainly enjoyable, but I am not doing it for my own personal advancement. To describe a body of people voted for by a majority of students in their own college as treating OUSU in an arrogant, self-serving way is, quite frankly, ridiculous. JCR Presidents represent their students, not themselves, when they attend University wide events such as OUSU Council. I will vote in the way I believe students at Keble would want me to vote. Perhaps sometimes I get it wrong, but I find it personally insulting that your editorial assumes that I have such an inflated opinion of myself that I consider myself to be above other Oxford students.
I have the greatest respect for Robin Sivalapan's right to submit a motion to OUSU Council. At Keble we discussed the motion at great length, and then I was mandated to vote in a particular way. That's not arrogance, that's student democracy at its best.
David Furness Keble JCR President
8th Nov 2001