Berlusconi’s influence rides high amongst the Sabbs
I’ll admit that when it comes to elections, whether national or at University, I’m not the most prudent voter. I am easily swayed by large swathes of Cicero-like rhetoric, and impressed by people with deep, booming voices and pulsating veiny foreheads. I like the Berlusconi-style politician – flashy, fake tanned, and a little bit naughty.
At this point I imagine lots of you will be scoffing to yourselves. “Pah! What a bimbo!” you’ll exclaim, remembering all those hours that you spent slaving over a hot batch of Ngwena’s policies, looking up every single footnote and sub-clause. Except, oh no, wait. You didn’t, did you? Because you, my friends, are actually just like me.
When we voted in the YUSU elections, we would all like to think that we voted for integrity, passion, and good, hard facts. Indeed, I’m not trying to suggest that you didn’t. Whilst the ‘good hard facts’ of our YUSU Officers are sometimes a little messy, I don’t think that anyone can question the enthusiasm or dedication to the Union required when sitting through a three hour meeting on bus routes versus angry Badger Hill residents, or trying to persuade some lecherous alumni how ‘golden’ we all really are inside.
What I am suggesting though, is that we aren’t the scrupulous voters that we’d like to be. So what’s the relevance of all this, you may ask yourselves – why have a pop at the happy-go-lucky voter that we all know and love? Well, it’s because I’d like to point out, however obvious it might seem, that the policies of a candidate aren’t everything, and that how many of their policies they have, or have not achieved, isn’t necessarily representative of how ‘good’ a job they’ve been doing.
library fountains of fresh orange juice squeezed on the thighs of virgins
It’s so easy to look at the results laid out on our news feature, and respond angrily. But before you storm the YUSU towers, pitchfork in hands and demanding knock-knock jokes for all those nights you missed out on at B Henry’s (“the home of YUSU comedy”), hold on a second. Cast your mind back to last elections and remember how seduced you were. You wanted a swimming pool the size of lake Geneva, library fountains of fresh orange juice squeezed on the thighs of virgins, and enough pregnancy tests to sink a small yacht. And you weren’t going to vote for anyone that wasn’t promising a free gifty. You weren’t “keepin’ it frugal”, you were “keepin’ it COOL”, and any candidate worth their salt will have realised.
I’m not trying to encourage future candidates to come up with bizarre, ludicrous policies, that they can never even dream of achieving. What I am saying though, is that not carrying out every single one of your policies through to the bitter end isn’t a crime. For a start, there are more important things to do when you get into office. As the University has demonstrated recently, they don’t stop for student whims, and the most pressing matters at hand overshadow more trivial aims.
An officer who has spent their entire time awarding themselves gold stars looks best on paper, but in reality they may have left Rome, or more aptly York, to burn. I’m not trying to suggest that any of our Union officers have done that either. Some policies can be more easily achieved than others, whilst some of the more holistic, ‘blue sky thinking’-type policies are nigh on impossible to measure.
What started out as one man’s pre-election dream can easily fall under the remits of others a couple of months later where it’s more appropriate, and YUSU shouldn’t be forced into absurd behavior to satisfy the masses, in place of what matters here and now.
Perhaps, then, the most interesting thing isn’t how many of their policies our Union officers have achieved, but indeed what they were in the first place. How ambitious were they really, and how far have they taken their ideas where reasonably possible? It is only through examining how they have reacted to the obstacles they have faced, and what they have prioritised, that you can truly measure how worthy they were of your precious, cherished vote.
Loading ...
here here
I suppose you used Berlusconi only in order to attract a lot of readers to your article
Actually I sometimes find him funny too, but honestly I really don’t admire him as man at all. In his case the politician term is an abused word, being much more similar to a kind of (mediatic) dictator. In fact his thoughless behaviour has weakened the democracy of my country. Fortunately “the autumn of patriarch”is near. Yet maybe you might be a second-rank minister likewise Mara Carfagna for your supposed beauty under Silvio’s government 
Thanking to the Cavaliere Berlusconi, I decided to spend my ‘one hundred of solitude’ in a foreigner country, maybe fading somewhere likewise any Buendia.
Did you know that José Saramago could not publish his last novels at his usual italian editor Einaudi for his critic thoughts about Berlusconi? Berlusconi bought Einaudi too.
Cheers
Adso da Melk
ps: Can we ever have too much of a good thing?
“Library fountains of fresh orange juice squeezed on the thighs of virgins”?
EEEWWWwww
Great article Jones.
Another fantastic piece of journalism
“I’m not trying to encourage future candidates to come up with bizarre, ludicrous policies, that they can never even dream of achieving.”
Take note, Lewis Bretts!
“library fountains of fresh orange juice squeezed on the thighs of virgins”
I would recommend that you re-think your attempted comical use of metaphors instead of assuming that stringing a few words together to describe a “jokes” image in your head communicates the message clearly. Juice squeezed “on” the thighs of virgins? Perhaps you mean the virgins squeezed the oranges thus producing juice. Either way I believe the clumsy employment of prepositions clouds the dodgy image, rendering it far more risqué than what seems to have originally been the intention. Freud would love this. “juice from oranges freshly squeezed by the thighs of virgins”. I’m really having trouble with this one myself.