the article was moved from the News section to the Politics section precisely because it was a follow-up to a news item, a slightly more in-depth look at what she has been doing since she became a candidate than a news story in and of itself.

This, coupled with her personal appeal for help, which we though we should support, and the politics department’s decision to allow her a six month break, made enough material for a rather small piece on the paper.

You commenting on the decision setting an uncomfortable precedent is exactly what we were going for, (if you didn’t read the print version, we asked people to comment on all our articles), and hopefully this debate will attract more comments on whether the decision was right or wrong, and what kind of precedent it sets. Surely, the debate itself justifies the article being published?

Alberto Furlan
Politics Editor

Leave it out mate… We left years ago… These are not our battles anymore…

Councillor James Alexander
Labour Candidate for York Outer

Personally I think it is a worrying precedent that the Politics department have agreed to allow Miss Hazelgrove a six-month jolly in North Yorkshire, when Skipton & Ripon CLP will be running a skeleton campaign in a constituency where they have no Councillors and not a prayer of success. The idea that she cannot do this and continue her studies at the same time is bonkers, and a complete insult to all the hard-working students who have to work long hours on top of their studying in order to pay their way through three years of University.

You put forward fair criticisms, and thanks for arguing in a constructive manner.

However, I would argue that the piece is written chiefly from a student/young person’s point of view, and concentrates more on the life of Claire Hazelgrove and her aim of seeing a higher representation of young people in Parliament. It is not, in my opinion, a Labour manifesto. If anything, we highlighted the uneasy contrast between personal and party opinion.

We did not choose to publish the article simply because the subject is a Labour candidate; this can be seen as a personal manifesto, but then, this is a student newspaper, which prides itself in supporting student activities.

We strive to keep objectivity, and rest assured that if Hazelgrove (or any other student in the University of York) was running for any other party, we would have given him or her the same press coverage.

Thanks again for commenting

Alberto Furlan
Politics Editor

I was going to commend this paper on a fab website…unitl i saw this.