Buddy's Folly

I rode up to campus last Friday and upon arrival, in the usual way of things, went into the campus shop to buy some tobacco and a coke. Whilst queuing up I saw the first edition of the new-look KRED. Hungry for some laughs I picked it up and hied me away to a corner for a quiet smoke and sprawl on a bench.

In terms of useless information (and I would go on to get plenty) I first learned how KRED acquired its name (it is an acronym for Keynes, Rutherford, Eliot, Darwin apparently), so my theory about it being named for an 80's hip-hop act in spangly trousers went down in flames. Skipping over the article about student housing (the wounds of last years struggle have yet to heal) I came to an article by one David Budd, the self-styled "SU President", from which I will quote extensively:

Kent Union is undemocratic!
The Sabbaticals just run Kent Union however they want to!
Kent Union doesn't care about students!

Since I became President, I've had all these things thrown at me when students come to my office and complain. My response, in a calm and reasoned voice: "Did you vote in last years elections, and did you turn up to last years AGM?"...last year, I lost count of the number of people who when I approached them said, "I'm not voting, I don't care..."Yet when things don't go their way, suddenly people change their mind and demand the sabbatical officers do something about it. I don't mind if people don't want to take part...I do mind if those people then turn up in my office and start complaining at me.

Something stank about this self-righteous tirade, but I was too tired to think about it much at the time. In due course, KRED took up its rightful place on my bathroom floor and when, a few days ago I re-read the article, I figured out what it was. That will come later, but first of all, intrigued by this character I looked him up on the SU website (http://www.kentunion.co.uk/main/reps/president), this visit only served to confirm my worst suspicions. I was entreated to "forget the first bit" and call him simply "Budd", he then listed all of the things that he is expected to do in his job, but concluding that: "but the most important of all I am the student representative (sic). Therefore I will always strive to have an open door policy for students who have issues or opinions, which they feel I need to know about."

Well Buddy, I was all hopped up ready to write an attack on your attitude to non-voters, and proudly defend my status as a lollygagger and a flubberhaddock, when I remembered that, contrary to all of my nature and most of my nurture, I did vote. A house-mate of mine last year, William Howard, was running for the Park Wood presidency and to support my friend, I traipsed around with a banner for a couple of hours and handed out forms on the day before the elections. Then came the big day itself, when I was required to do the business and vote, I voted for William and just hazarded a guess at all the other votes. I will return to the issue of William Howard later on in the article, but for the time being let me get back to Buddy. If, before I remembered my selflessness of the year before, I had paid Buddy a visit to complain about whatever (paying a fiver to enter the library when I forget my student card, paying £22 for books late by a matter of hours, no computers in Park Wood etc) Buddy would no doubt face my indignance with his self-proclaimed calmness and ask me if I voted. "No, Buddy" I would reply, "then you have no business bothering me when I am about my many business'" he may have said. So away I would have sloped, perhaps to the door, before my moment of recollection. The return encounter may have gone something like this:

"Buddy-"
"That is a familiarity, I only allow voters to call me that."
"Aha, but you see I am a voter, I forgot that I did; will you then listen to my opinions?"
"Well naturally, it's my job."
"Thanks David-"
"-'Buddy', please, we're very informal here."
"Well Buddy, as I say, I just made up my votes as I went, I was really just there for my friend and-"
"Wait. You voted, but just guessed at them? Well I'm afraid I can only listen to half of your opinions and thoughts then."
"But Buddy-"
"-David. And did you attend the AGM?"
"Well, Buddy-"
"DAVID."
"Sorry, David, actually I didn't attend the AGM either, you see it was my mother’s birthday and-"
"Well that makes things even worse, I may only now listen to a quarter of your opinions."
"...I'm sorry David."
"'Sorry' won't make it better, will it."
"No, David."
"What was that, I didn't hear?"
"NO DAVID!"

Buddy, however personable his nickname, has no right to pick and chose whom he listens to and whom he represents. He hasn't really done anything wrong, it's just that the tone of his article infuriates me so; priggish complacency always offends me and the fact that it goes against what he says on his web-profile just compounds the flaw. On a national level, the maxim of "if you don't vote, don't complain" holds more water, but until there is an "abstention" box on the ballot paper, not much more. On a local scale, though, it is faintly ridiculous. If it wasn't for my aforementioned friend William Howard, there is no way in hell that I would have voted, because I am an apathetic student, just the sort to annoy Buddy, perhaps. Had I not voted though, I would have been proved right, to find this proof, we need look no further that William Howard.

He sits on local council boards, is a Young Conservative and a junior Member of Parliament. His campaign posters were green and said "William Howard for Park Wood President", the leaflets that he and I gave out listed his qualifications and his accomplishments. Did he win? Did he fuck. The guy who won styled himself "Chucky" and put a picture of the similarly named 'Rugrat' on his posters atop the slogan "Why vote for a Muppet, when you can have a Rugrat". I have no idea if he is a good president or not ("That's because you didn't attend the AGM", "Get cunted, Buddy") but I know, as a cast iron fact, that William would have been better. This says something about the electoral process in Kent University: Students by and large, couldn't care less and will only vote if a mate is involved or they are given a sweet by the ballots. Again, it's important to remember that there is nothing wrong with this, but Buddy seems to think that to have my opinions heard, I need to hop onto this grotesque carousel and gallivant about before I can knock on his door with impunity.

I think I need to put this article in some sort of personal context. I don't think that anything can be done to change the way the elections happen. I don't think that anything can be done to make students more interested in the process. I would object to be coerced into any such initiative. I am not bemoaning this; it is one of many, many things about which I couldn't care less. What this article is about is Buddy, a man whom I strongly suspect that I dislike, and that you will too.

By J.L Cranfield