Student stirs
Sir: Mr Wiggs reports (Letters, 16 May) tHat student representation in Southampton Uni- versity is not working: that the left is packing and prolonging the meetings to secure its own triumphs. What did he expect? What is the use of trade unions if not to set us an example? They have been doing this sort of thing systematically for years.
So much, then, for student representation, that latest' disastrous product of soggy liberal- ism: In my own university the Hart Report has just been issued, recommending another proliferation of student bureaucracy. Can we now all take the lesson to Hart that student representation, or any representation, is not an ear-trumpet for the vox populi, but rather a way for the nearest believing minority to assume power?
Like Mr Wiggs and many others. I do not see why I should forfeit good drinking time to attend 'stuffy meetings because those nominally entrusted with the running of the university suffer froM funk: I do not see how the fan- tastic freedom 'for idleness and fornication that we enjoy can be a matter for complaint: I do not see how, as a system of government, our conscience-stricken.dictatorship could have been bettered : and I do not see why the general will should be taken as a function of loudness of voice and length of hair. But if I write in vain, and the great soggy tide rolls on, let all and sundry beware: if the law will not pro- tect us.' we must do it ourselves: and I predict events that will make the educational backlash look like the Cambridge scrum.
Christ Church, Oxford Peter Croft
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