Politics, pirates and Papadofragakis, or: How I learned to stop worrying and love union elections
Student Politics is a serious business. Students want commitment, experience and innovativeness from their student presidents – failing that, they’ll settle for eye patches and cutlasses. This is why last year the position of Student Union President for the University of York was won by a pirate; he was called Mad Cap’n Scott, donned a ponytail, an eye patch, a flared white shirt and a fluffy yellow chick as a substitute parrot.
He maintained his buccaneer character – ‘’ahoy’s’ and all – throughout his campaign. The Cap’n secured the position – and it’s £10,000+ salary – to a great uproar of anti-Cap’n petitions and talk of no-confidence votes. So this year YUSU elections will be reported in a purely straight-faced, factual manner in an attempt to instil a sense of proper decorum amongst the candidates. The student newspaper is as dour faced as ever, with a special supplement packed with all those serious student politics facts. This is student politics damn it, not a sketch show. Serious stuff.
So what can be learned about the serious candidates from their extensive (read a poster on nearly every window on campus) serious marketing campaigning? With fliers, leaflets, posters, t-shirts, Facebook pages, billboard, sandwich boards and…plain boards, what do the serious candidates’ serious campaigns have to say?
The political paradigm that one sinks by levity and rises by gravity has been turned on its head
Paradigm seems to be all the rage this year. Rhianna Kinchin has used the Kellogg’s Special K font and trademark K to suggest a candidate that is handy with Photoshop and/or is obsessed with low fat breakfasts cereal. Whether Rhianna is edible is undisclosed. Rory Shanksis another potentially edible candidate, opting for plagiarising the packaging for Kellogg’s pop tarts. Are we to believe Rory has a warm, gooey centre of strawberry paste or that he will be popped into a giant toaster prior to every YUSU meeting? Again, this is undisclosed.
However the nutritional pie chart on his flyers tells voters he is high in policies, low in salt. Rory’s arithmetic seems as lacking as his salt content; his flyer outlines 5 policy plans but advertises “8 SOUND POLICIES”. Could the unexplained three policies be cereal/breakfast bar/Kellogg’s/strawberry based? Is a Kellogg’s collation to be formed between Rory and Rhianna? Even more worrying is the flyers declaration that Rory’s net weight is 400g – how can a man the size of a Borrower work a toaster? It is even possible for him to hold one of his own flyers? Time will tell.
George Papadofragakis (so glad this isn’t a podcast) has chosen to create a Wikipedia page to print off as his poster. Campaigning with a website know for its factual inaccuracies and heavy handed opinions (I was once told Chaos is “Your Mum!!!”) is a daring move, especially when the poster declares “The neutrality of this article is disputed” and says “citation needed” after certain facts. George’s Wikipedia page has been now deleted, so any changes made to the article will have to be made with marker pen.
Ed Durkin has decided nothing says perfect candidate for the Democracy and Services position like…erm, Monopoly. Ed’s flyer and poster campaign sees Ed’s face representing the whole of Islington, with the tactical choice of leaving the Jail tile off the board – which begs the question as to whether Mr Durkin has something to hide. Worryingly, one of his policies takes up a “Chance Card” tile; will Ed be relying on a dice and card set up to make executive decisions? Again, time will tell.
Other plagiarisms include Dave Sharp’s ingenious “Fix Up, Vote Sharp!” tagline (Dizzie will turn in his grave when he dies) and Mandi and James ‘I heart NY/MJ’ logo. These raise just as many questions as the other candidates campaigns, but one thing is obvious from the campaigns; the best candidates have learnt from the Mad Cap’n’s madcap success.
The political paradigm that one sinks by levity and rises by gravity has been turned on its head; student politics doesn’t have to be dryer than a digestive biscuit holidaying in the Sahara. Politics is too important to let politico’s bore people into disinterest. Take advantage of student’s love of pop tarts. Monopoly themed flyers is barely pushing the boat out. It’s OK to break the suit-and-tie dress code. Cry a-vast once in while. Student politics may be serious, but students sure as hell aren’t.
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