Yes, JLJ Buckingham, it is very easy to claim “positive results” when you’re acting as a cheerleader for the party in government. When you consider that the very party that Sam Wakeford is cheerleading for is the one that is planning to bring in full variable fees (which will fuck students and academics); dismantle the benefits system (which will fuck millions of ordinary people, not least many mature students); privatise large chunks of the NHS (bad for patients, workers, nurses and junior doctors); build a third runway at Heathrow (bad for everyone); and retain Tory anti-union legislation (bad for all workers, and also for student unionists, thanks to the 1994 Education Act which has survived since 1997 untouched); all the ‘achievements’ of Sam’s that you trumpet look pretty shoddy (Ah yes, but what about the minimum wage?, I hear you cry. What about it? It’s an insult and it discriminates against young workers). What’s so courageous about staunchly defending a party that shits all over students and workers, especially when that party has been in government for 12 years? Although, I’ll admit, to publicly support a party that defied public opinion to launch a disastrous war based on a transparent lie – that takes some serious balls.

In terms of my achievements in Cambridge, I contributed to the campaign to save the Portuguese department from closure, which was an unambiguous success. The lecturers’ dispute which I helped support ground to a halt when the AUT executive accepted a sell-out deal (following the shocking harrassment of many of its members by university managements around the country).

As for the campaign for free education, which has been my major focus over the last year, no, it hasn’t been successful – but neither would the approach of nicely asking the government to mitigate its attacks, which the New Labour leadership of the NUS seem to be advocating (insofar as they make any public statements or give our movement any leadership at all). But then, we are living in a climate in which the labour movement has been in retreat for around 20 years; our national union, shackled by Tory laws, is being eviscerated by New Labour apparatchiks; and the government and CBI are on the offensive on all fronts. These factors mean that, no, you’re not going to see success immediately. But the fact that what Education Not for Sale is trying to do, (i.e. trying to piece together a national movement of student unions who are prepared to fight against the governments’ attacks on the basis of mass student involvement) is extremely difficult doesn’t affect the fact that it is the only correct course of action that has any hope of bearing meaningful success for students, rather than the spurious ’success’ you allude to, which consists of basking in the dubious and reflected glory of the party of government as it systematically dismantles the welfare state.