Last
updated: 11/03/08
Response to Wes Streeting’s
Blog – 10/03/08
In response to our article ‘Dirty Games: NUS election
‘stitch up’’ Wes Streeting has posted
a blog questioning the information in the article and the integrity
of our reporter Tom Walker. This is a response to the claims made in
that blog:
The allegations made in the article were made by Manchester Metropolitan
sabbatical Kevin Atkinson on the NUS APL (NUS Active Political Leadership)
mailbase after he was ‘made aware of’ the deal allegedly
announced by Gemma Tumelty at the ‘Labour Students Political Weekend’
on November 17 by a member of Labour Students. Atkinson has provided
The National Student with the name of this Labour Student member
and two others who verified the information – these sources have
asked not to be named, and The National Student has decided
to respect their wishes.
The article clearly states that the allegations featured are being made
by Kevin Atkinson.
Atkinson has been open in his support of Ciarán Norris, but claims
he is not a ‘leading figure’ in his campaign as he is leaving
student politics at the end of the academic year.
Our reporter, followed up on Kevin Atkinson’s initial claims and
contacted two further Labour Students members who both agreed that Tumelty
had been in attendance at the ‘Labour Students Political Weekend’
held near Grantham in Lincolnshire and that she announced the deal.
The National Student has the names of these sources but again
these sources have asked to not be named, and The National Student
has decided to respect their wishes.
Our article did not state that Wes Streeting ‘declined’
to comment but that he ‘failed to respond to our requests for
comment’. A mobile phone message was left with him which he did
not respond to and our reporter called his phone many times over two
days. We acknowledge that further efforts could have been made to contact
Streeting through other means, but he did ‘fail to respond’
to the efforts made.
We are
now told by the NUS that Gemma Tumelty was attending an NUS Disabled
Students’ Committee meeting in London on November 17 during the
day and was at a west-end theatre with her boyfriend in the evening,
which certainly casts doubt on the claims of Kevin Atkinson and the
Labour Students members who all made statements and contributed information
for our article.
The basis of our article is to report claims made by a number of Labour
Students relevant to the election process. Statements have now been
made to us that cast doubt upon these individuals claims but they do
not cancel out the fact that these claims were made; therefore we feel
it is in students’ best interest that we continue to provide the
conflicting pieces of information so that readers may draw their own
conclusions. At present we are not aware of any motivation for Labour
Students members to make false claims about Gemma Tumelty’s alleged
appearance at the event.
The reporter, Tom Walker, is an impartial observer of NUS politics and
is not affiliated to any political faction or party. He did produce
the article ‘It’s time for students to take back control
of NUS’ for the newspaper he edits The Inquirer which
was then republished by the Guardian. Walker does not have
any affiliation to those quoted in the article.
Tom Walker did stand for students’ union president at City University,
as part of an article for The Inquirer, to highlight the lack
of candidates standing against the almost unopposed SU sabbaticals.
His campaign was not supported by Student Respect or any other political
faction.
The National Student does not back any individual candidate
in the NUS elections. The National Student and Tom Walker individually,
had no bias in reporting Kevin Atkinson’s allegations and the
reporting of them is not aimed as an individual slur on any of the people
mentioned in them.
The National Student only aims to fairly and accurately report
the issues which are of interest and importance to our student readership.
