UCL has been buried in white. But the snow, for good or evil, has not returned to us. No, instead it is election season at University College London Union (UCLU) and more posters cover the walls than there are students likely to vote. The UCLU election is the vital tool for students to have their say in the way their Union – and even their University – is run. So, why are so many students utterly apathetic towards student politics? Are students right to believe that the elections have nothing …

This article is the second in our new monthly column, focussing on social issues of race, gender and sexuality.
As voting is underway for UCLU’s first full-time Black and Minority Ethnic Officer, Subomi Anidugbe gives us his views on the position of black students at UCL.

Being asked to write this article, I wasn’t sure how to respond. The creation of the full-time position of a Black and Minority Ethnic Officer made me wonder whether being a black student at UCL was really that big of a deal? It was that question that led me to …

In the course of a week, Kirk Sneade has become one of the most talked about figures at UCL. For those of you that haven’t been on Facebook, Twitter or pimedia.org.uk, let me get you up to speed. Kirk Sneade and his campaign manager, Mark Stander, have launched a campaign for Kirk to be elected women’s officer, voting for which closes on 8 March. Kirk Sneade has openly admitted that the whole campaign started as a joke but is one which he is now taking seriously. I’d like to refute …

Daniel Thomas examines the debate raised by Kirk Sneade running for Women’s Officer

As one of the candidates for the role of women’s officer at UCLU next year, Kirk Sneade has prompted an impassioned debate in UCL circles. That a straight white man should run for this position may be distressing to many women, who will worry that he will not properly represent their interests if elected. Kirk insists that he does not differentiate between men and women, and rejects the notion that he cannot properly represent women. He also pledged …

From the end of January and throughout February, the Student Stop AIDS Campaign will be visiting universities throughout the UK promoting the voices of young people affected by HIV and AIDS from across the world.

The tour is part of the newly-launched 15 by 15 campaign: 15 million people with access to HIV treatment by 2015. Whilst eight million people have access to HIV treatment, seven million people worldwide still do not. Poor policies, constrained budgets, ineffective forms of treatment, high treatment prices and centralised health services are some of the …

Don’t hate the player. Don’t hate the game. Hate yourself for being susceptible.
 
 
 
Futurama may have had a point in its I dated a robot episode, where physically convincing, human bodied robots with downloadable personalities promised to seed humanity’s self-destruction. Without an incentive to attract the opposite or adjacent sex, man would retire all efforts on himself and others, putting in only enough to make his and his robot’s ends meet. It is not the meek who shall inherit the earth but rather, their equally docile, solar-powered widows.
Perhaps the Mayan calendar …

We’ve all known that feeling. You tentatively rest your hand on your swollen stomach, your waistband straining and slowly, one in front of the other, you shuffle your feet forwards, slightly repulsed and guilt-ridden at the amount of food you have just consumed. For most of us this is an occasional experience, usually caused by an over-ambitious post-sports night takeaway or an unwisely planned attempt at taking advantage of visiting parents’ generosity. However, according to recent research, for an estimated 2.6 per cent of the UK population, some 1.6 million …

This article is the first in our new monthly column, focussing on social issues of race, gender and sexuality
“I don’t fit the very limiting definition of homosexual”

Before coming out I tried to be attracted to women, told myself that the attraction to men would pass or that it just wasn’t there. After coming out and telling the world that “I’m gay”, I embraced being attracted to men but suppressed any attraction to women. The label gay was dictating my sexuality in the way that the label heterosexual did. In many …

Unless you’re in the Soviet Union or Maoist China, it’s a given that socialism, or the politics
of the Left, firmly supports democracy. After all, isn’t a rather essential point of politics for social
equality giving each and every citizen a say in the government of their land? Yet some on the Left,
whilst supporting democracy, have an odd tendency to deny democracy and call it, in a confusing
twist of logic, colonialism. I’m referring to some people on the Left’s simplistic approach to self-
determination, from the Falklands to Northern Ireland, and many in-between.
Imperialism …

Charles Kitchen badgers us about the badger cull