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I haven't commented on the whole Governance thing until now. Besides taking one completely unconnected proposal to NUS, paying the bill for ednet, and having a little rant when we went off-line for a week in December and Gemma decided to dance on my grave, I've been very good at keeping my nose out of the whole NUS thing and getting on with real life, which given my decade plus worth of experience with the whole thing has been impressive. Well it's impressed me anyway!

Anyway. I, like every other ex-NEC member I have spoken to has been amazed by the depth and scope of the review -and not in a good way. I'll let you guess which former president said "Even I wouldn't have gone that far."!!!

And that to me is the problem with the review, it goes too far. Far too far. All the arguments for changing structures may well be sound, but the proposal itself is to me at least, worse than what you have to start off with in many ways. While the reality may be that the power has always been in the Presidents office and Conference may be little more than tub-thumping with a few elections thrown in, at least at the moment, there is a facade of democracy. And conference does have some power, even though resolutions which are unwanted by the leadership may be diluted, forgotten or simply ignored. But this to me is the key point against the proposals, whatever any supporter of the review may say about it's benefits, it makes NUS less democratic, taking a leaf straight out of Tony Blairs 'Sod Parliament, I'm in charge' book.

So now the noises are being made about having two emergency conferences, in the Leeds/Wolverhampton style. I'm 100% certain if that had happened then it would have gone through. I'm almost -but not 100%- certain that if this were now to happen it would go through. But is that really the right thing to do? Because no matter how much anyone goes on about the proposal getting massive support and it only falling by a couple of votes, the fact of the matter is it did fall. The NEC took a proposal to National Conference, the sovereign body of the union and despite all the build up, all the lobbying and all the sweeteners to buy in as many people as possible, the sovereign body said NO.

Having 2 emergency conferences now would be saying "Well we took this to our most democratic and represenative forum, our sovereign body, and it said no. So what we'll do is convene another couple more meetings of our sovereign body which will be less representative and democratic, get rid of a load of the people who are likely to vote 'No', and then it will go through! Job done, happy days!"

Am I the only one who has got a problem with that? Is there not a slight issue or CREDIBILITY here? Just exactly what message does that send out?

One of the phrases that was always involved in Bullshit Bingo was "Ordinary Students". Everyone likes getting that one in to a speech, but the last thing you want at a conference that has a leadership-driven controversial policy are 'ordinary students', opposed to officers, as they are always far more likely to vote no. They are more likely to make their own minds up, opposed to officers who have been cosied up to for the whole year since they were first introduced to NUS at summer training. The left may have made the speeches against the review, but it wasn't them who beat it, it was the randoms, the unknown delegates, the ones who made their mind up on the day. The last thing 'ordinary students' will want to be doing during their exam period is wasting a day at an emergency conference, meaning you have a far higher percentage of people there who are willing to vote on personality, opposed to policy.

To all those who have said it feels like two years worth of work has been wasted, I suggest you listen to yourself. I wouldn't use the word 'wasted', but you are right in that what you have been building to for two years didn't come off. You have been working on this for two years -you could argue longer with the build-up. For that time, you've been going all round the country, taking the difficult questions, tkaing the easy questions, making allies, getting friendly people to pack delegations, recruiting lieutennants and foot soldiers, you've been campaigning as hard for this as you could for all that time. But it wasn't enough, and it wasn't enough, not because of you, but because there was something wrong with the policy. With all that work, with all those resources, with all that time, with all of the 'NUS machine' behind it, with all that, it still didn't go through.

Now is not the time to revert to NUS type and stitch it all up by holding an emergency conference, now is the time to stop and think "You know, maybe this didn't go through because there is actually something wrong with it."

The email that came out is frightening, because it says to me that you haven't thought that. It says to me that you are thinking "We know we can get this through at an emergency conference, but we might have to make a couple of changes for the sake of appearances.". If it comes to that, how many people, how many CMs do you run the risk of alienating and how will the reputation of NUS, which has been dragged out of the sewer in the last four years or so be effected?

Any tweaks would have to be a sham if the goal is a third term emergency conference. The clock is ticking and that would leave a month, maybe six weeks before any policy would have to be public. And by going straight to an emergency conference you would actually be underlining the key argument of the opponents, that the leadership want these changes because they are not interested in democracy.

There is a massive, massive credibility issue at stake here. And I know some people are going to be feeling this hard really hard, because it does feel like wasted time, but hey -regret for wasted time is simply more wasted time! But it wasn't a waste, because changes do have to be made, just not necessarily these changes. When you say we've got loads of problems with structures so we should start off with a clean slate, you just end up with a stack load of new problems, many of which you'd never considered.

To Gemma, Stephen and the others that are leaving don't feel bad about this, because the big acheivement has been reinvigorating NUS and keeping unions involved after the massive let down of top-up fees. the whole process has created that 'big ticket' item which has kept so many engaged, and the beauty is, if it is played right that can continue. As bright sides go, that might seem a bit to dim, but there is a bright side.

To Wes, I said I figured what your game was right from the start. Out of all the 'Big P's that I've seen, I've always thought you were the most likely to go all the way post-NUS. So just one question, and I suppose it goes to everyone. How will "Ignored the decsion of a sovereign democratic body for the express purpose of abolishing the same sovereign democratic body." look on the old CV? Or from the NUS point of view, how will that look at a disaffiliation referendum?

So for what it's worth (and at 2p all of this must be a bargain)- Give it time, get it right, come back next year. Taking this straight back to an emergency conference is a risk. It's not the risk you could lose the vote (but if that were to happen, then NUS really would be in trouble), but it's all the other things that you would lose that is the risk.