As President of the Union of Students he represents a decisive break from past NUS bureaucrats. From his term of office at Leeds, which his double act of victimising students and then 'leading' them in an occupation, to his response to the Warwick files, his behaviour has been consistent. A combination of ideology and action which last month led him to attack The Black Dwarf-and have dinner at No 10 Downing Street.
We made an initial investigation of Straw's record. We went along to see him.
Cracks are appearing in the walls of No 3 Endsleigh Street. The structure of the building is SO shaky that even the entrance, the public frontage of the National Union of Students, is propped up with timbers. Inside, bulletins for vacation work and other tatty notices litter derelict notice boards. The only colour in the drab office is red: the election red of labels se st-cons telephone dials, - consciously prophesying 'Labour will win' There are chaotic piles of paper, scribbled messages, hasty snatches of conversation from dehidden professional students half hidden piles defunct literature; the immediate impression is boredom. The atmosphere astonishingly reflects the stultified nature NUS politics. Here, in its central headquarters, she passivey and ineffectiveness the National Union of becomes concrete.
In his office, up a precarious three flights of stairs, is a pale faced man of twenty three. He has marked conventional appearance with short hair cut as smoothly as his suit, for all the world giving the correct appearance of a young, possibly dynamic, t ICI management trainee. is Jack Strawresident of NUS. The man billec by Fleet Street as the leftwing, militant, socialist, atom-age. student leader. Let's trace Straw's carrer and see what his politics amount to.
THE BIRTH OF.
BUREAUCRAT
Fleet Street mythology year-old Straw discussing with his grandfather the tight to conver crunch came at the age of orced, the maturity (and the insecurity)
said of his home family thought it to be a sin to be a conservative or a communistJack was pleading introduced to Minister"; a warning. He went to responded in his first terms by last years became 'Daily Mirror' quips "...always a socialist, he was tolerated by his Straw chose to go into law-he still wants to become a solicitorwent to At this stage, his first term in Leeds, was, to quote cacitist. po The immediate, radical oacifist The and formulative influence on him was Labour's General Election victory in the same month. It was, ragically, an inspiration by Patrick Burns & Jonathon Coe.
this later session (1966-67), he moved into the NUS bureaucracy for the first time. Constitutional debates dominated NUS at the November conterence, and Straw threw himself into these with remarkable enthusiasm. He played leading role in such world-shattering discussions as the Single Transferrable Vote. It was at this conference that NUS established the Structural Commission. In the voting for members cost song Straw came first contemporary hero Dave Adelstein came second. Both were greatly helped by the CPYoung Liberal, Radical Students Alliance. Effectively, the Structural Commission rewrote the NUS constitution, providing Straw with an intimate knowledge of its mysteries and sharpening those necessary bureaucratic skills. Straw's chairmanship of the commission marks the end of the first stage of his political career.
When asked about his election successes, Straw told us "that they have always genuinely surprised me." His early • success at Leeds was not the fluke that he would like it to appear.
At Leeds, Straw came under the influence of Alan Hunt. Hunt was an impressive and influential operator in powerful Communist Party group. Led by Hunt, who teaches at Manchester College of Commerce, the CP group sing their base onto un gaged in bureaucratic made little attempt to radicalise the mass of the students and there was, as a consequence, a strong right-wing element in the union, mainly applied science faculties. Straw, summing up the stard ran on the back of the situation with rose to power on CP, since when they have never ceased trying to remain underneath him. His appeal then, as was bureaucratic adminnow, istrative competan the white which dazzled the CP with heat of its Wilsonian pragmatism, and was 'realistic' enough to win the approval of the budding scientists. Straw was very cagey with us about his CP connections.
He referred to that had existed in movement existed Leeds since 1960, which I came in on."
residency 1st on tar later, Easter 1968, he made his Presidency Leeds first miscalculation. With two months of his office at Leeds to go, he stood for election to the presidency of the NUS, against Trevor Fisk. He lost. and had to take on the dud job of Vice President. Fisk, a total disaster for the NUS, was completely out of touch with students. But Straw the RSA ibility. He had had not gained credibility. to prove that he was not a puppet in the hands of the militants and the 'extremists.' Then followed the issue which allowed Straw to establish his credit with the right:
The Mrs Patrick Wall incident. to speak to his party's supporters there. It was 1968-and Sacs month-May Jack Straw was Leeds president. When the meeting ended their his wife had make their way through protesting against their presence on the camPost Here is one Yog hire then Newspapers Ltd., dealt with the event next day trumpeted from its neadlines: MP's wife kicked to the ground and trampled on.' Straw presided over Britain's biggest student scuffle What actually happened? A confidential memo, brought to light by the Warwick students, gives an accurate picture Written by Leeds vice-chancellor Stevens, 101 or and Mrs Patrick Wall wes the guests of the Conservative Association of the Students Union on May 3rd. After a noisy meeting they were taken to lunch across a courtyard in which various scuffles broke out, and tore denis lets the incident was when a lier-in raised his legs. widely and adversely publicized and both the Vice-Chancellor and the decided to hold innicon.
cert) to hold inquiries Those charged with offenses by the latter were brought under Straw, in mutal concert with the vice-chancellor, took action against fellow students for raising they were lying down. If that were not enough he satisfied his zeal for law and order by leading the prosecution fellow students?) and that the executive prosecutionede ensured impartiality. In fact ensure that the concerned isolated and de prived of the organised force of the union to defend them against rote a Test have ensured that authorities it was the authorities who were forced to move against militant opposition did the authorite politics. Powellite Strav dirty pan or t to so to a mi tool of the communists, he was not a hot-headed student militant. Rarely has a student president acted SO repressively against members of his own Union. Jack had cleared himself of the red smears.
But the month also saw the May events in France. Students were moving strongly, en masse, into direct action against the authorities. Straw's dealings with militant students were far from
The Black Dwarf 10th May 1970 Page 11
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Teachire Conservative Doned by Yorkshire
there was a lie-in on the steps of Mr wall and Mrs wall eil t at
in person. He told us that it hac been his "distasteful duty" (to his