This happened at the beginning of may, so it has taken me a while to write about it.

 Just before the local elections, Gordon Brown suffered his biggest Labour revolt- around 30 Labour MP's voted against the government and for the introduction of a feed in tariff.

 The feed in tariff was designed to give incentives for small businesses such as mills to create their own electricty and sell it back to the national grid.

Obviously, this would not had solved all our energy needs, and ultimately at the level proposed would had only prodcued around 5% of the energy we need.

However, it is the added implications for this that the Labour Whip encouraged MP's to vote against it. 

 If the government were to start increasing incentives for small businesses, and then maybe households, to start producing their own electricty and selling it back to the grid, then there would be less need for these massive national energy companies (who conintue to make profits year on year despite our energy bill going up) which obviously goes against everything New Labour stands for.

 Furthermore, this would had been a signifcant step in our battle against Climate Change. As stated, it would not had solved our problems, but at the same time it does help and creates the foundations for this measure to expand so that each house has an incentive and help to produce its own electricty that it could sell back to the grid.

 But no, the bill was defeated. 

 It was defeated because of 'following the Party line', and Gordon Brown-nosers.

So three issues i see here:

1. We all know, but it reafirms, New Labour is in the pocket of (inter)national companies.

2. New Labour's committment to helping slow down the rate of climate change is defunct.

3. Party lines, and political opportunists are hampering worthwhile (and perhaps radical) political change. 

Ive just heard the unsurprising news that there is no water in James Watson Hall. Why does this not surprise me I hear you ask? Well the lovely people called UNITE who own the halls have a tendacncy of cutting through pipes and laying pipes liable to bursting. My mind is cast back to my first year when we went 3 days without water because some plonker cut through the pipe. On that occasion we were issues with 1 X 500 ml bottle of water to last us each day, and £10 which was supposed to pay for breakfast, lunch and dinner. As far as washing was concerned we were invited to go and shower at the Nuffield Gym. Lovely and private those showers in the gym. Of course our exams and coursework suffered and as did our bank balance, although the very kind Dr Craven gave us a £50 refund at the end of the year. 

 This time round I doubt you will be so lucky, I have heard stories of poeple not getting water. Although you are being given plastic knives and forks to eat your deli too's with. So if I were you I would walk down to University House now and demand answers. UNITE are useless - FACT. Hopefully one day the University will realise this and ditch them. We have to pay over £3000 for the privilage of living in the dumps (which by the way is more than the basic student loan!) so the students should have some say. So stand up and hold the people who run this place accountable. 

 And for all of those students coming here in the future, avoid the UNITE halls, unless of course you like living like a tramp.

Clearly iconic video campaigns are the way forwards at the moment! Awesomeness!

    Students are increasingly having to work long hours to support themselves through University. Often this is in the most exploitative areas of hospitality and catering where you have no access to a staff Union.

  Expected to work with little notice? Do you get your legal requirement of a 20 minute break in the middle of a six hour shift? Lied to about the working conditions? Do you get your 4 weeks paid holiday per year? (even if you work part-time for part of the year it should be proportional).

   www.acas.org.uk   has lots of information about employment rights.

 If your employer is breaking them, the Citizens Advice Bureau can help you to win your legal entitlements www.portsmouthcab.org.uk

    Tell us your stories!

        Elle xx