Union President is pawn to King’s Rag stunt

Students from King’s College took a detour from traditional fund raising routes during their recent Rag week, by holding assorted Students’ Union representatives from the across the University of London to ransom.

The Rag Committee fired off a series of hoax faxes, purportedly from Duncan Rasor, KCLSU president, calling for an emergency Executive Committee meeting to discuss the disaffiliation of King’s College Union from both University of London Union and the National Union of Students.

Senior officers from the aforementioned organizations, as well as prominent representatives from other London Universities were requested to attend, under the apprehension that King’s students were in desperate need of their expert opinion.

The honoured ‘Guests’ included Alison Griffin, the National Secretary for the NUS, and the London School of Economics Union General Secretary, Dan Crowe, as well as Imperial College Union’s own President, Eric Allsop.

The meeting commenced, without Mr Allsop, in the usual fashion, but was suddenly interrupted when the ‘Executive Comittee’ removed their tops to reveal King’s RAG T-Shirts. They then led their bemused victims to the bar, where they proceeded to ply them with beer and sandwiches. The unsuspecting Mr Allsop arrived late, but was met by the same fate.

Kenny Roberts, KCLSU Vice President, later commented: "We would like to stress that none of them were tied up or treated brutally in any way. It was a typical rag week joke, and didn’t cause any harm to those involved. In fact, I think most of us enjoyed it quite a lot!"

Those present greeted the whole incident in the spirit with which it was intended and were promptly released when their respective College Unions begrudgingly paid the Ł50 ransom demands. KCLSU is reported to have made a grand total of Ł200 for their nominated charities, a princely sum for an afternoon’s drinking. Later, Eric Allsop described the jape as "poorly timed but well constructed." He went on to comment that "I was treated adequately; as in accordance with the Geneva Convention."

Despite a specific personal invitation to the fictitious meeting in the fax, University of London Union President, Sarah White, failed to fall for the fundraising stunt. Presumably Ms White learnt her lesson last year when, as ICU President, she was kidnapped by St Mary’s Rag in a similar incident. Although the then President was missing for over 24 hours, no-one at ICU noticed until they recieved the ransom demand