Tell Me it’s O-Kaye

The most controversial of next year’s sabbatical officers is, no doubt, Chris Kaye. In an online media outlet that may never be named within these pages, we are told that the incoming Deputy President (Welfare) ran on a platform of a scaled back and cost-effective union, merging the positions of Deputy President (Welfare) and Deputy President (Education), and has a mandate from students to roll the union back.

This claim is at best mistaken and at worst disingenuous: Mr Kaye’s manifesto promised donations to the scholarship fund, a vote on whether sabbatical officers should become honorary life members of the Union, and pressure on college to reform draconian coursework rules. These are all very worthy policies, but Chris’ big point about reducing the number of sabbatical officers was nowhere to be seen on his manifesto, and was not information that was readily available to voters.

In fact, it took cross-examination on STOIC’s “Meet the Candidates” show for the real story to come out. After a perplexing chain of reasoning that started with pub chat with an alumnus who had a good time at Imperial back when there was only one sabbatical officer, Chris Kaye told viewers that he intended to get rid of the Deputy President (Welfare).

Now, it was never clear why Mr Kaye becoming DP(W) would be the most effective way to achieve this; as he himself pointed out, any Imperial student can bring a paper to council. What is even less clear is why someone who doesn’t think a job should exist is the person that should be doing that job. How does Mr Kaye have any incentive to expand and improve the welfare offerings of the Union, when he himself thinks that students should take their problems to the college instead because it is better run than the Union?

Meanwhile, the problems that students at Imperial really face every day continue. We still see extremely high levels of stress and low levels of satisfaction among students, we have big problems with mental health and sexual assault: Mr Kaye’s response is to suggest that we need less rather than more attention focused on the pressing welfare issues that we face. This brings to mind his campaign for Gender Equality Officer, running on the platform of “this position does not need to exist.”

We have been told recently in an online tabloid (the name of which I cannot remember) that Mr Kaye’s election as Deputy President (Welfare) will prompt debate and allow students to evaluate what their Union should be doing for them. This is true in the same way that telling the police to not turn up for work might show us how much we rely on the enforcement of laws for public safety.

There is a vulgar saying that goes something like, “it’s better for one to be on the inside of the tent pissing out than on the outside pissing in.” Mr Kaye, through his (often admirable) dissent in Union Council has shown that he was never afraid to attack the Union, but now he is very much inside, we have to make sure he does not try to piss all over us.