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

What a tiring, yet awesome, weekend!

The last two events held by the ever successful VIP (Volunteering in Portsmouth) went smoothly this weekend and although I enjoyed them as always, a small part of me was very sad indeed. Unfortunately these two events would be my last and I really am gonna miss it for several different reasons. I love all the people who help out at these events, the children from the CP Centre who always seem to have fun and the elderly people who are great to chat to.

I think it really hit me today how much VIP has influenced my life (as cliche as that may seem!). I lost my nan the week before returning to uni this year after a summer of caring for her during her fight against leukemia and it hit me really hard. It took me months to get back to my normal chirpy self and I believe that the VIP OAP Christmas dinner last year was a real turning point. I realised that even though many of my immediate family (esp. on my dad's side) have passed on, there was still ways of interacting with elderly people, it's just case of putting yourself out there. This particular event also suprised me as I believed that I would have got upset during the day due to missing my nan, but I was strong enough and had so much support from those around me that I stuck it out.

Reflecting upon today's final OAP luncheon was quite a sad affair. I got a bit upset shortly after the event after talking to one of the guests who lost someone dear to them in the same way I lost my nan and who was also suffering from the same condition my uncle is at the moment. It's been a year since all the "bad stuff" that has happened in the past year started, and just recently we nearly lost yet another family member who is still quite poorly. I feel I've grown over the past year and am now able to cope much better with such events and even though I am still petrified that everything may go wrong again, I reckon I will be able to cope better. But most importantly, I now know who to turn to and who I can confide in when I'm feeling the strain and ironically all of these people I have met through volunteering in some way at the Union.

So if you're wanting to get that little something extra from your uni career then think about doing some sort of volunteering. It could be anything from helping to run a club or society, helping RAG to raise money for charities, writing or designing for the student media publications or simply getting involved with a VIP project. It's the best thing I've done with my time at uni for so many different reasons, and I just wish my time in Pompey wasn't nearly over...