NEGATIVE IMPRESSIONS
Student magazines:
Paul Johnson on the predilections
of undergraduate editors
ANYONE glancing through the 1985-86 Crop of university papers might well con- clude that students are serious and warm- hearted but a bit negative. An awful lot of banning, boycotting, vetoing and black- listing goes on. 'Poly Bans Barclays' was the main headline on the Bristol Bacus. The University of York's Nouse also re- Ported a ban on Barclays cheques. The Warwick Boar splashed the news that student pickets, trying to prevent 'Tory rebels' from opening an account at Barc- lays, 'spat on several of them and screamed Obscenities'. Perhaps naturally, banks are a focus of student hostility. Omega, the Paper of Herriot-Watt University, prints a hate-list of what it calls 'unsympathetic bank branches'.
'No Racist Platform' was the front-page lead of Oxford's Cherwell (very political these days). Durham's Palatinate also re- Ported a 'no platform' policy, that being the current cant phrase the Left uses for denying a hearing to anyone whose views are disliked. 'No Chance Fowler' was the heading on an issue of the Wessex Student almost entirely devoted to protest against ,the cuts', changes in welfare benefits and the fight against the government's educa- tion policy'. This abominable nomanism reflects, of course, what the Strathclyde Newsline calls the 'manipulation and politi- cisation of student issues by a small num- ber of left-wing extremists [which] effec- tively silences any opposition'. But not all the banning fits this formula. Nouse also reported that a student had been 'banned from Christian Union meetings and re- Illoved from its mailing-list for leading an active gay life'. On the other hand, at Bristol, according to the Bacus, the union has passed 'an anti-heterosexualist mo- tion>. The Sussex Union News carried an article about the campaign by the Women's Group to ban 'pornographic objects' on ,e,arnpus. They took particular exception to me sale of 'offensive cigarette lighters' and the fact that 'nude women were being used to advertise Brighton'. The group had therefore decided to picket, with a 'mixed picket' on alternate days. By contrast, however, the Wessex Student wants to ban Mrs Whitehouse for 'moral fascism'. At Warwick, according to the Boar, they are planning to ban blood sports by what it calls 'Slaughter Sabotage'. It is the same in Cambridge, where Stop Press reported that a student in digs who hung a brace of partridges 'by a silk dressing-gown cord' from his window-box caused 'uproar' and that, although his landlady told the mob which gathered that 'they ought to go and get a job', the offensive right-wing birds were stolen.
When not banning, students are worry- ing. At Herriot-Watt, according to Omega, it is the outrageous increase in the cost of the campus tumble-driers. The Sussex Un- ion News reports great concern about 'concrete cancer' in the university build- ings. The Edinburgh Student says the worry up there is lea-bag cancer', which I gather stems from a tobacco-substitute. Palatinate, the Strathclyde Newsline and Nouse carry items reflecting the fear of Aids, though they differ on causes and remedies. On the South Bank, according to its Pipeline, the worry is lack of vegeta- rian food in the union, one student com- plaining 'there's lots of vegetarians and were [sic] getting pissed off with chips and beans (pizza's [sic] are to [sic] expensive).' More understandably, perhaps, students are worked up about violence, which seems to infest the campus these days. At Bristol Bacus reports that gypsies invaded the university's sports ground, drove the groundsman out of his home and forced him 'to go into hiding at a secret address'. The LSE's Beaver recorded a whole series of individual attacks on students, some racist, and accused the Bursar of 'paying lip-service to security'. In Cambridge, Stop Press splashed the story that a student arrested for possession of a loaded gun claimed there was 'a risk of attacks on students' and that he felt a 'moral responsi- bility' to help police 'in the role of a quasi-vigilante'. But then students engage in a lot of violence themselves. The Man- cunian gave an enthusiastic account of how 'three double-decker bus loads of students from our union' formed part of a mob which prevented the National Front from holding a meeting at Stockport Town Hall. The `no platform' policy has led directly to violence at several universities, as their student papers reveal.
Rightly or wrongly, students are associ- ated with violence these days — and with disgusting behaviour too. Hullfire, the Hull University paper, under the splash head- line 'Halloween Horror', reported that 'Vomit and faeces were left scattered around the Union building after the Hallo- ween Ball. Used contraceptives and patch- es of burnt carpet were also found follow- ing the cheap cider promotion night.' To judge by the score or so papers I have been reading, too many students take part in violent picketing and not enough in the student Community Action programme, admirably described in Nouse.
These publications provide an insight into student heroes and villains. Sir Keith Joseph gets a lot of stick. The University College London paper, Pi, says student leaders refused to shake his hand when he paid an official visit. Particular fury seems to be directed at Harvey Proctor MP. On the other hand, Enoch Powell now seems an acceptable figure: after a visit to St Andrews, its Chronicle gave him a fulsome write-up.
One rising student hero is Eddie Shah. The Bishop of Durham, as one would expect, gets himself talked about. We know he is a silly man but can he really have said, as reported in Palatinate: 'Some- times I think that God and Karl Marx are a lot more down-to-earth than the rest of us'? Among the writers who get themselves interviewed or enthused about, I noted Julian Barnes, William Boyd, Joseph Hel- ler and Michael Frayn.
My chief criticism is that there is not enough creative writing in these student mags. Some of them, such as Stop Press and Palatinate, provide an excellent news- service to students, with good straight reporting and listings columns. The Not- tingham University Impact, the Bristol Bacus and the Warwick Boar have admir- able layouts too. So does the Mancunian, which in addition gives plenty of space and prominence to readers' letters, which ought to get high priority in any campus publication. But there are few feature articles of any quality, and virtually no fiction or poetry. Many of these papers seem to be used by their editors simply as vehicles to advance particular policies, nearly always negative ones. If student mags must veto something, why not a ban on destructive demos and punch-up politics — and fill the space thus released with the literature of youth?
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