Trigger warning: sensible person runs for NUS president

As regular Spectator readers will know, universities today aren’t what they used to be. From students at LSE attempting to ban a free-speech society to City University students banning newspapers at the institution famed for its journalism school, censorship is on the rise on campus. What’s more, the election of Malia Bouattia — who called Birmingham University ‘a Zionist outpost in British higher education’ — last year as NUS president suggests student politics is becoming further removed from the everyday lives of students

So, with Bouattia is now standing for re-election, Mr S was curious to learn of the ‘change candidate’ running against Bouattia to become NUS president. Step forward Tom Harwood. The Durham student is running on an anti-NUS platform:

If elected, Harwood promises to put an ‘end to all the silly things the NUS has been doing’ — such as a call for ‘all prisons to be abolished’ and a request that people should trade ‘clapping’ for ‘jazz hands’ (as they are a less threatening form of communication).