A hung parliament? What’s the size of a parliament’s manhood got to do with anything?

In the first election that has resulted in a hung parliament since 1974, very few people know what the hell it actually means.

The short explanation is that a hung parliament means that no single party has an electoral majority, as 326 is the required amount and the nearest to that is the Conservative party with just over 300.

This problem is the reason that electoral reform has been called for by some politicians since 1997 because in the UK we use a first past the post system, but the problem is that if no one gets past the post, we enter the unknown territory that we are currently residing in.

So what are the possible outcomes from the results of the election?

Well there’s a big debate over this – the age old legal argument over constitutional technicalities and precedent – but in short, the main options are:

A Conservative coalition with the Liberal Democrats

David Cameron has made an offer to the Lib Dems and this could result in Lib Dem MPs getting some important jobs, as well as guaranteed policy agreements over things such as the economy and political reform.

However, should this break down, Labour may swoop in.

A Labour coalition with the Liberal Democrats

This will result in the same as the above, only with Labour rather than the Tories.

A Conservative minority government

This is a possibility should all talks break down and will result in Cameron technically being in charge, but not having the parliamentary clout to get anything passed – without backroom and underhand agreements on policy with different members of parliament in different instances.

So where are we with all of this?

Well right now, we don’t have a future leader of the country – Brown is still in office until the talks are finished – and this is wreaking some minor havoc on our economic stability in that, from an international financial point of view, we are becoming a bit of a gamble for investment.

The overall ramifications will eventually come to light in more depth in the future, but as of now it looks like both the Conservatives and the Labour party are in a new minor race of their own, aiming to form a coalition first so that either Cameron or Brown can continue to run the country.

Barry Sheerman, Member of Parliament for Huddersfield since 1979, held onto his seat last night but with a much decreased majority of just under 4,500.

Sheerman, who has made many visits to Queensgate campus to partake in debates and give lectures, last week made a surprise visit with foreign minister, David Miliband.

Sheerman’s share of the vote has decreased since the 1997 election, where he then had a majority of over 15,000.

In 2005, that majority fell to just over 8,000 and was last night closed by Conservative candidate Karen Tweed to 4,472.

Foreign and Commonwealth secretary David Miliband today visited Huddersfield campus to meet staff and students.

Miliband, who has been tipped to replace Gordon Brown as the next Labour leader for some time, faced questions on contemporary foreign affairs.

After speaking to staff and students, Miliband was hurried away to be interviewed by the BBC, but was questioned again on leaving about Britain’s place in the EU and the lack of referendum on the Lisbon treaty.

Miliband was joined by local MP Barry Sheerman who has attended debates and given lectures at the University previously.

The University of Huddersfield is allowing its students to vote on whether to make a switch to Googlemail or to stay with Microsoft.

The Microsoft package, which will be upgraded from the current set up, will allow students 10GB of mail and access to online versions of word, excel and powerpoint.

The Google package, currently used by Huddersfield Student, allows for greater mobile access and access to GoogleDocs, Google’s answer to Microsoft Office online.

The Google package will give students only 7.5GB of space, 2.5GB less than Microsoft but still a vast improvement on the current package.

Students are being asked to vote and provide reasons for their desire to switch.

A ‘Have Your Say’ days is also planned for this month, allowing students to view the two solutions to make a more informed choice.

Today, Huddersfield University campus bore witness to its first ‘Green Day’.

The event, initially linked with a move by the Students’ Union council to grass over the car park outside the SU, was organised by Business students and featured ‘Green’ produce stalls and an art exposition.

The day was piggybacked by Union activity, as the sabbatical team took to the campus to find out what students would like to see the car park turned into.

Among suggestions to make the car park a social space for students, some asked for it to be turned into basket ball courts and one a coal factory.

Proceeds from the day are as yet unknown.

Vote stand set up in iZone providing information on the UHSU by-elections

A cross-campus by-election has been called for the end of March to decide who will take the final place to represent the University of Huddersfield Students’ Union (UHSU) at the National Union of Students (NUS) annual conference in Gateshead.

Applications for the position can be downloaded from the UHSU website and must be signed by the candidate, a proposer and seconder and at least eight other students.

The form must be submitted to UHSU reception by no later than 12pm on Thursday, 18 March, leaving little time for nominations to be submitted.

The results will be decided in a cross campus ballot during the Easter break – on 23 & 24 March.

Looking at this photograph, with a swastika spray-painted on the window and the obvious sprayed on the floor, you would assume that this article is about something in the distant past. In actuality it happened just under a week ago in Staffordshire.

Some local students, with rumoured ties to the British National Party (BNP) and English Defence League (EDL), began a smear campaign against the sitting President, Assed Baig, handing in one hundred signatures as a vote of no confidence, which led to a referendum on Baig’s position.

The ploy was two months in the works from the group of students and, upon handing in the signatures, the graffiti work shown in the picture appeared overnight on the Students’ Union building on campus.

Baig beat the referendum back, telling all students that he would not let it affect the Union’s day-to-day life, as they have tried and they have failed. Now it is back to business.

The University of Huddersfield Students’ Union (UHSU) have said that they completely back Baig in his bid to combat racism on Staffordshire’s campus, and will offer any and all support that they can.

Personally, I cannot believe that, in this day and age, there are people, especially people studying in Higher Education, that are so closed minded. To some extent, I expect it from the ill-educated, ‘on-benefits’ waster who thinks that “immigrants are taking our jobs” – but a student? There just literally aren’t enough words.

Huddersfield student radio station RadioHudd will elect their controller next year instead of taking it to SU general election

RadioHudd have won at least half of their battle to ensure the continuity of the station after its current managers, the team who set it up, graduate this July.

Matt Christie, Head of Programming at the Huddersfield student station, voiced concerns that, if the new position of Radio station controller was elected from the student body, someone with little experience may run the station into the ground.

Christie, with a group of current RadioHudd DJs, took the issue to the Students’ Union Council meeting on 1 February, just nine days before nominations for elections open.

Adam Findlay, a first year student who hosts a show on RadioHudd, spoke of how it was important to keep the decision of who took over the top job amongst those currently working on the station.

Students’ Union President Junaid Ejaz backed the move, praising Christie for the hard work he had put into making the four-month-old student radio station a success.

Who to vote for, Brown or Cameron?

It’s the start of a new decade, and in the political realm it is the year where we are going to have the first general election that the majority of you reading this will be able to vote in.

So what are the choices? Well, we’ve got the choice of voting Labour and keeping in a party who saw us go through the recession worse off than the majority of the other countries of our economic calibre, whilst being constantly told that we would be better off than said countries. Or, we can vote Conservative, who are promising that they will be reducing the size of government – and therefore reducing the number of people employed by the government when we have unemployment already at a ludicrously high level – as well as budget cuts to the fundamentals of our modern welfare state.

What to do, what to do… well I suppose we will always have the abstention vote that is the Liberal Democrats, but is that enough? The party elected in the election will be in power during our first few years of being in the real world; this will massively affect each and every single one of the current students studying right now.

Obviously, each of you have to make up your own mind at some point, but right now I can honestly say that with all of the facts in front of me, I am actually scared of what a Conservative government would do to this country – to us as students and to us as future members of the job-market. Yes, Labour have absolutely messed up in various areas, but the Conservatives are intending to reduce the safety nets that allow me to sleep somewhat safe at night. Should our degrees lead to nothing job-wise, in an economy which is watching graduates join the unemployment lines en masse, the safety nets are all that make me think “it might be ok after I graduate”. Do I want to be on the dole? Do I hell, but I’d like to know that I’m definitely going to be covered should everything go completely wrong.

Granted, my opinion may well change before the election is called and I could well be chanting “go Tories” at some point – anything could happen – but right now, I’m afraid it’s time to steal the American chant of “four more years! four more years!” and pray that the party sacks off Brown, before he has a stroke from the stress of being hated by the public as much as he is, and just get down to business and save all of our sorry behinds.