Money for War

I am, like everyone, currently deep into essay hell. However I just came across a really relevant poem in a copy of Celyn magazine while scouring it for inspiration.

It summarises frustrations about spending priorities pretty well. The fact that in the London governments latest budget defence spending is protected whilst education is not. Even the university have shares in arms companies, which Campaign Against the Arms Trade highlight year after year.

Anyway, im not a massive poetry fan but thought this was pretty fitting so here it goes.

Money for War by Herbert Williams - from Red Poets issue 15.

The patients are lined up on hospital trolleys,
They're waiting for ten hours or more.
But put down Iraq for another six billion,
They always find money for war.

The schools are a shambles, there aren't enough textbooks,
The damp's coming up through the floor.
But stack up the cluster bombs, target the missiles,
There's no end of money for war.

We can't pay the nurses half what they're asking.
They're stroppy? Then show them the door!
Just make sure there's a smile on the face of George Dubya
By giving him money for war.

The dentists go private. Our molars go rotten.
The trains are a joke. It's a bore.
But so long as the profiteers make a good killing
You'll find that there's money for war.

We know what the future holds. Pain and frustration.
No this and no that. It's the law.
And most certain of all is the truth beyond telling-
There'll always be money for war.

Yesterday a pay rise, today more cuts!

Yesterday the Western Mail revealed the University Vice-Chancellor Richard Davies had recieved a 28k bonus (see last blog).

Today the news is MORE CUTS - this time to academic staff in the Arts and Humanities department.

American Studies, Cymraeg, English Literature, Media Studies, Modern Languages, Translation, Classics and Ancient Eygyptology, English Language, History, Medieval Studies, Politics and International Relations and War and Society students, your courses are under attack.

The result for students, less value for your money. You will pay the same money but can expect less contact time, longer waits for feedback and less of the books you need in the library.

The information available says there will be compulsory and optional redundancies to your lecturers and academic staff, with postgraduate students filling in the gaps.

These cuts will have a real impact on your education and experience - we must make students aware they are happening and resist them together.

I am keen for the good relationship between the Students' Union and the University to continue, hopefully we have the same aims, the best education and experience for Swansea students.

However the prospect of cuts just a day after the Vice-Chancellors bonus was revealed is a real slap in the face and an attack on Swansea students best interests!

Vice-Chancellor pay rise a slap in the face to students and staff

Vice-Chancellor Richard Davies recieved a 14% pay increase between 2007/08 and 2008/09, according to figures released by Swansea University and revealed in the Western Mail.

The increase worth 28 thousand pounds was the joint second highest in Wales in percentage terms - click here for the full list.


Pay rise: Swansea Vice-Chancellor Richard Davies

This increase comes after a year where the Students' Union rallied students to protest outside a meeting which decided the futures of several staff in the School of Society and Environment - the jobs eventually being saved.



General Secretary of the University College Union has called the pay rise "unfortunate and perhaps a little distateful" and crucially added "It should not come as a surprise that staff are sometimes sceptical when their 'leaders' ask for belts to be tightened."

We, as students, should therefor be equally as sceptical next time we are told there isn't the money to fund things crucial to our education and experience we pay thousands of pounds for each year.

For example we now have:

- Lectures starting at 8am and going on until 8pm
- Saturday exams
- University plans to use Wednesday afternoons for lectures
- Room for massive improvement in feedback
- A lack of computers on campus

And those are just a few things amongst others where, as students, we are not recieving value for money.

So how then does Swansea University and Richard Davies justify a 28 thousand pound pay rise?

That is a question for myself and fellow Students' Union representatives to get answers for as soon as possible.