BEAVER
.NEWSPAPER OF THE LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS
STUDENTS' UNION
l.fB«ARy ?f984
-AL AND
SCIiNO
No 224
imuEiGMUin
10 BE an
It is important that all students are aware of recent proposals by the Department of Education and Science concerning new arrangements for meeting travel costs from this September.
At present, students receiving grants get a notional £50 towards their travel costs, and submit separate individual claims for their actual expenditure where it comes to more than £50. The DES stated on 1st February that 'under the new proposals, all students would receive a flat-rate sum as part of their grant to cover travel costs. They would then have to decide how best to budget within their overall grant to meet their travel and other expenses'. • They are proposing either a flat-rate sum of £110 or differential rates of £160 for those residing at home.
and only £100 for students away from home.
The Department claim that these changes are aimed at achieving considerable administrative savings. The DES admitted to 'Beaver' that they also expect to pay £7 million less in total travel expenses to students. At the same time, they claim that the majority of students will benefit from the change.
These changes are obviously going to cause concern to students who live a long way from their place of education. In a letter to Neil Stewart, president of NUS, the DES admit that 'achieving a worthwhile degree of simplification would inevitably involve an element of rough justice.'
We telephoned two MP's for their views on these proposed changes.
Russell Johnstone, Liberal MP for Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber, replied,
"These proposals for a flat-rate sum are both illogical and unfair. They hit hardest those students living furthest from their colleges, and the fact that railcards do not apply on Caledonian MacBraynes ferries and that mature students must register before they can even apply for railcards have been completely ignored by the Government."
Charles Kennedy, MP for another Highland constituency, agreed completely with Russell Johnstone, and both members have joined many other MP's in signing a motion deprecating these proposals.
Iain Crawford Malcolm Lowe
.WARWICK UNION. FIGHTS FINE
Students at Warwick last week successfully forced their University authority to rescind a fine of £30,000 imposed on them after an on-canipus demonstration. The protest last November took place in the presence of Keith Joseph, who was dining with the Vice-Chanellor of the University and the Labour Mayor of Coventry. The authorities penalised the Students' Union to the tune of 10% of their yearly block grant after they refu.sed to divulge the names of students whom they wished to victimise.
At a Union General Meeting a
unanimous verdict was taken to fight the fine and a questionnaire which was organised, proposing a boycott of university facilities and a rent strike received 95% and 70% support respectively. The authorities lost £20,000 through the boycott and faced the danger of losing a further £'/j million through the rent strike. This brought them to the negotiating table. Agreements were reached several times in closed meetings between the authorities and the executive, but were repeatedly rejected by the U.G.M.
Finally, however, at a meeting of
1100 students the agreement was passed which returned the £30,000 subject to certain conditions. These involve restrictions on the right to demonstrate and recognition of the authorities' disciplinary regulations.
Whilst these are important concessions, (there were accusations of a sell out), it's likely that in practice the authorities will adopt a less inflammatory approach in future. On the Union side, it seems the students have lost faith in their sabbaticals and lack political direction.
INSIDE
LETTERS 2 SOCIETIES 7 ARTS 13 SPORTS 14
Education Campaign 9 Should We Laugh at 1984? 6 Tatchell: the Future of Gay Rights 4
MON13 FEB
UNIVERSITY CHAI .LENGE The Return of LSE
LSE's record on the television quiz game University Challenge must be almost uniquely bad. Indeed our consistently dismal intellectual showing has been compensated only by our equally consistent facetiousness towards the programme.
Five years ago, about ten minutes into recording the quiz, a member of the LSE team slumped forward in his chair and remained, motionless, in an alcoholic coma. On our last appearance, Granada TV sent a coach down from Manchester to carry our allocation of supporters to the recording. When it arrived at LSE, three students turned up for the trip at a cost to the television company of about £85 each; the Producer informed us with considerable bitterness that it would have been cheaper to puy the three aspiring spectators in a taxi to Heathrow Airport and fly them to Manchester!
On this occasion the apathy in LSE towards University Challenge was if anything greater. The General Secretary took five months to pass the invitation letter onto the Debating Union. When she did so, comparatively few students even showed
the desire to be part of the team.
Now, however, a team has been chosen (on the basis of a general knowledge test ^ la University Challenge), one ready to go forth and defend the good name of LSE and to tackle questions about Anglo-Saxon poetry, Icelandic monarchs of the 4th Century and the lesser predictions of the prophet Isiah.
The team consists of Gerry Newman, Mike Maddon, Eddie Lucas and Andrew Cooper (Captain).
(The programme is expected to be recorded in March and broadcast later this year. The only drawback? It is no longer shown in the London area, so even the team may never see it!)
Anyone wishing to attend as a spectator, please get in contact with the Debating Union.
Andrew Cooper
DEMOCRATS ABROAD
The world-wide Democratic Presidential Primary for Americans living abroad will take place on 13 March 1984. This Primary takes the form of a postal vote, and will elect the Presidential preference of Democrats abroad as well as ten delegates to the Democratic Convention in San Francisco.
Although this overseas Primary is the third Primary after New Hampshire and Iowa, it has assumed great importance this year because its timing is such that its results will be the very first to be announced: the time difference between Holland, where the overseas count takes place, and the USA, allows this, count to get underway long before those in New Hampshire and Iowa can begin.
Democrats Abroad, the organisation in charge of conducting the ballot has offices in the UK, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, Germany, France, Finland, Japan and Hong Kong; and it holds four seats on the Democratic National Council (DNC), the policy committee for the Democratic Party in the USA.
If you are a US citizen of voting age (18 or above), a Democrat, and
tA/ich (n	tn	Opmnrra-
tic Primary for Americans Resident Abroad, you can obtain a Primary ballot sheet from Democrats Abroad, 5, Warwick Square, London SWl.
The ballot contains a list of delegate candidates pledged to Mondale, Glenn, Jackson, Cranston, Hart, McGovern, Hollings or Askew, as well as uncommitted delegates. For the first time, the delegate candidates' names will be accompanied by a short description of their views and aims, so that, if you wish, you can choose a delegate for his or her own merits as delegate, independently of which presidential candidate they represent: you arc no longer tied to voting automatically for the delegate pledged to your choice of a presidential candidate. Irene Nyborg-Andersen
Is 1984 Funny?
P«^7tW ;
BEAVER Monday 30 January 1984
School reply to UGC Jaif
Letters
Dahrendorf replies
Dear Editors,
"Beaver" contains much material for the "education debate", not just on one side. If I comment on John Donkersley's contribution, this is mainly because it makes me realize how imperfect the information passed on by one generation of students to the next must be.
Like Mr. Donkersley, the School wishes to give a serious reply to the UGC Circular 16/83 (not, as he says, 16/84). Long before this letter can be printed, we shall have discussed our response with student members of the GPC as well as other School Committees. 1 hope it will then be seen that we all share the view that LSE cannot contemplate further cuts. We also have a clear view of our role in higher education.
This view has never changed: excellence is a condition even of "relevance", of "vocational usefulness". The social sciences have a special contribution to make. Our own combination of research and teaching is exemplary. The character of a British institution open to the world must be preserved. There is an important place for mature students at LSE. The list can be extended, and is extended in our response to the UGC (from which you will no doubt quote in your next issue).
It is quite true that in the past we were subject to serious and objectionable cuts. We objected strongly. This may have had some effect on changes in Government policy. But we also helped ourselves. "A public and open refusal to implement" cuts, once they are imposed, is simply a meaningless phrase. What is meaningful, however, and has been that throughout, is to follow the principles laid down by the School:
-	There will be no redundancies on account of the cuts.
-	Promotion on merit will continue to be possible.
-	Reductions should fall equitably on all groups of staff.
In fact, we have been able to do better. At all times, the School has filled a considerable number of vacant posts, many more than Mr. Donkersley thinks. If we have been unable to attract any "new blood" posts from the UGC, this is because we ourselves have appointed a dozen or more new lecturers and research staff (and more administrative staff) each year. This year, at least 90 per cent of all posts falling vacant will be filled.
Maintenance has not only not ceased, but our buildings are in good repair, and there have b«;en major improvements, as the Athletics Union will tell you, and as all students and staff have seen.
Yes, there has been a price in class sizes and teaching hours for staff (though student numbers have of course not risen by 1,000, but only by about 300). The Working Party of Teaching Standards has however suggested important improvements.
Dear Editor,
Today (Wednesday) in the library I found a leaflet espousing the cause of nationalism published by the Young National Front Student Organisation. This is not the first such leaflet to be seen at the LSE this academic year but its presence in the library once again demonstrates that some LSE students are not only sympathisers but also active members of this racist and fascist organisation,
1 feel that it is vitally important that all black students at the LSE should be aware of this and that - as the victims of both institutionalised state racism and everyday racist attacks on the street - we should be united in our opposition to it. I hope that all black students will bring up this issue in their respective societies and resolve to organise and to fight such attacks on our liberty where-
We hope that the UGC will be impressed by the need to add to them funds for further staff.
Overseas students are now charged a very high fee. If we have charged new students more than the "recommended minimum", this was, and is essentially in order to avoid fee increases for students already on course. Such increases ; were in my view the most distasteful aspect of Government policy changes. Incidentally, "General Course" students continue to be among the most able and popular students at the School. Admission procedures are strict, standards are high, and final certificates are geared to the requirements of their home universities.
The LSE 1980s Fund is a unique venture. Which other university in Britain supports nearly ten per cent of its students to some extent from appeal funds donated at home and abroad? We shall continue to work for the success of the Fund, and perhaps even get the support of the students in doing so.
Research has also flourished at the School in recent years. This is not due to our "selling space", let alone to the very funny list produced by Mr. Donkersley which includes the poor old British Sociological Association as well as the "Pasold Fund" (not "Pasfold Fund"), set up in March 1964 which administers small sums of money each year for Economic and Social History. It is however due to several Research Council financed projects, and to the splendid donations which we have received for the International Centre for Economics and Related Disciplines, and the Business History Unit.
When some years ago, I wrote the paper on First Steps in a New Situation, it included a final section of proposals which had been made to me but which we did not intend to take up. fdr. Donkersley lists them from a to r, as if they had become policy. He is wrong. No, we strongly oppose (to take but one example) two-year courses, and we say so in our response to the UGC. There will be no decline in standards at LSE, nor will our commitment to scholarship be deflected by extraneous notions of "relevance".
It is not for me to say whether there is such a thing as "Dahren-dorf's road" - but if there is, I hope it will be recognized that some of its elements are the insistence on excellence, the maintenance of the international quality of the School, a humane approach to staff, and a combination of resistance to damaging policies with self-help. LSE is certainly worth ever)' effort along these lines.
Incidentally: The School deserves open discussion, and we are conducting it once again in connection with the "great debate" on university education.
Yours sincerely,
Ralf Dahretidorf
soever they may arise. The experiences at my previous institution (Essex University) have shown that when blacka and overseas students are united and organised we were able to pressurise the Students Union, the Police and the University Authorities and Academics into taking affirmative action and thus able to drive the racists out.
Finally 1 would hope that all overseas students (the leaflet was also Anti-American, Anti-Semitic and Anti-everyone who is not pure Anglo-Saxon white) will realise that such nationalistic and fascistic outpourings are directed against them as well and that we will see them uniting with their fellow anti-racist students at LSE to demonstrate our fullest opposition to this pernicious and hateful ideology.
Yours sincerely,
Karim Murji.
Sir,
The School has now drafted its reply to the UGC letter circulated to all Universities throughout the country. That reply, the full text of which will be readily available to all students, was fair and most certainly took students' interests into account. While it may seem unbelievable to some, the Director is concerned with the standard of education that the School provides and is concerned about the staff-student ratio at the School as well as countless other issues relating to students' interests. Why then has the School's policy, under the Direction of Professor Dahrendorf, whose political credentials are such to make these accusations clearly ludicrous, been dismissed as 'privatisation'?
This policy is in fact an effort to attract funds from outside the sphere of governmental finance, through such things as the 1980s fund and encouraging an influx of overseas students, I do not see why
Dear Sir and Madam John Donkersley thinks I would be out of place in his working men's club. He needn't worry. So nauseating is the prospect of voluntarily belonging to the same club as Mr Donkersley that I would start to heave, and possibly choke on my own vomit, if I thought about it for very long.
In his letter he says that Beaver is wrong to suggest that the Union could lose its charitable status as a result of ultra vires payments. "I did make the full implications of ultra vires payments clear" he puffs. "Those implications do not include -as Malcolm stated - the loss of charitable status". He goes on to claim that, for the Union to lose its charitable status, a motion would have to be passed to that effect by the UGM. This is patently untrue. The Charity Commission could unilaterally revoke LSESU's charitable status at any time if it so chose. Moreover, Mr Donkersley admitted as much to me in conversation only a few weeks ago! 1 think he may be going mad.
Sir,
I am sure that the sublime irony of Mr Donkersley's letter (Beaver, No 223) will not have been lost on your readers. Here was the Senior Treasurer bestowing upon us the gift of his wisdom, specifically in relation to 'factual inaccuracies' cropping up in Beaver.
Notable, one might think; another step forward in the eternal quest for truth. And yet what does one find? Mr Donkersley tells us that renunciation of the Union's charitable status will automatically result in our becoming liable to Corporation Tax.
As all first-year Accountancy and Finance students know this is baseless drivel. There are a number of forms of association available and the only way in which liability to Corporation Tax could arise would be if the Union were to form a limited Company.
Without entering into the myriad details of this particular minefield of Tax law, I would just like to say that, were a limited company to be formed, it is by no means a settled issue whether tax would have to be paid. Such matters as stock relief, group relief and the like will be strangers to John Donkersley - he never was a person who let mere facts cloud the brilliance of his rhetoric.
The Senior Treasurer proudly trumpets in the year's Union Handbook of the scale of the funds he oversees; why does he not concentrate on his responsibilities instead of using his time writing petty flatulent letters to Beaver.
I am. Sir,
Your obedient servant,
Simon Bradbury.
this should necessarily reduce educational standards at the School as Mr Donkersley and Miss Hindson stated in their draft reply and as Kevin Cooper suggested in his letter which appeared in the last edition of Beaver. In fact I would suggest that it adds to the international flavour of the School and must be seen as beneficial, in addition, to those students like Kevin Cooper himself who are interested in international affairs and are granted thereby a chance to discuss such issues with those who have had first-hand experience of foreign regimes. Surely Kevin Cooper would be one of the first to complain if the LSE became a completely introverted College lacking the international reputation it enjoys at present. Clearly overseas students benefit in the same way.
I feel it is vital to stress the fundamental difference between the School and the government. Because Professor Dahrendorf has chosen to
Even if he is not, he clearly lacks the self-perception to realise that his boringly frequent letters on how Beaver should be run are singularly unwelcome. Mr Donkersley has demonstrated to me that he has not the remotest conception of the energy and commitment necessary to produce what even Pat Hayes admits is "the best college paper in London". It is very sad for Beaver that Mr Hayes could not bring himself to utter such sentiments only a short time ago when Beaver was trying to get a badly needed telephone. Neither was Mr Donkersley blameless on that occasion. I still cannot comprehend how anyone could have such grossly perverted priorities as to recommend that our Union spend one thousand four hundred pounds on affiliation to the London Student Organisation -which is, at best, a dubious investment and at worst, pouring our scarce money into a bureaucratic black hole - and not endorse Beaver's request for its own telephone, something which would have cost eighty pounds and benefited all students.
John Donkersly's analysis of the drive to privatize the LSE, published in the previous issue, contains a regrettable distortion. He suggests that overseas students may be excluding British school leavers from places at the college. The evidence simply does not exist to prove the charge which can only serve to heighten the existing tensions between home and overseas students, particularly Americans.
While many Americans at the LSE conform to an ugly stereotype, with money to burn and too self-absorbed to take an active role in the life of the Students' Union, others experience real hardship as the Donkersley article notes. As the school wrings exorbitant fees, many overseas students are denied any access to the crumbling National Health Service and are set adrift in the housing market without a scrap of benefit. The Student's Union has, of course, responded but it simply lacks adequate resources to meet these burdens.
The Dahrendorf response to the assaults of the Callaghan and Thatcher governments has begun to degrade academic standards and the danger exists of the LSE churning out persons who devise austerity programmes which mean mass starvation in the Third World. At present, however, the vast majority of overseas students have a material interest in fighting privatisation, uniting to fight back against the merciless decline in resources for higher education.
George Binette
submit a full reply to the UGC's questionnaire rather than answering only the 'compulsory' parts, it does not mean that he endorses such cuts as the UGC proposed. Surely it is clear that most academics through their choice of occupation have demonstrated the importance that they attach to education. (Incidentally donations from School staff to the 1980s fund totalled over £75,000),
Of course such matters as September resits, access to records and a review of the whole examination system should be striven for whenever possible, but attacking the School on issues over which they do not have any direct control as Kevin Cooper does in his letter is not a very clever way of preserving those channels of communication that are vital if we are to make any progress in the future.
Yours,
Sally Elvidge
(Independent student member of GPC)
The only possible explanations are either that, despite what one might consider as the normal parameters of human intelligence, someone can actually be that stupid, or, that he was being blackmailed by the LSO.
Mr Donkersley has shown his contempt for Beaver, and indeed for all students. He cannot seem to appreciate that in a place such as LSE, an excellent newspaper is of profound importance. Jim McCal-lum and 1 constantly struggled to reflect LSE's immense diversity in Beaver, and help people from different cultures and races to learn more about each other. With two new editors, neither of whom is British-born, there is good reason for optimism. As for Mr Donkersley, both in his attempts to run the Union and in his criticism of Beaver, the kindest thing one can say is that he aspires to mediocrity, and hasn't quite made it. It is probably best just to ignore him. ¦
Your faithfully,
Richard Bacon (Immediate past editor)
Lib'n objects to 'Lib'______
Dear Sir,
In your last issue you list the Libertarian candidates in the recent election under the truncation 'lib'. This is bound to cause your readers to confuse our dynamic, challenging and burgeoning society of 'extreme' or consistent classical liberals with the stagnant little band of woolly-minded milksop liberals. This obviously does your readers a disservice as well as being highly embarrassing for us.
As we are primarily an ideological group our 'election campaign' com-pri.sed no more than putting up a k'w posters the night before the election and leafletting the Brunch Bowl on the day with a non-electral Libertarian briefing: 'More Private Policing Please' (see me anyone who wants a copy by the way). Given this our 39 (6-1-%) first preference votes is a very heartening result for us (one of the elected candidates received only 89 first preferences). We certainly did a lot better than the Liberals who apparently lacked the resources to field even a single candidate; let us hope they are soon to go the way of the Fabians.
To rectify matters 1 should be grateful if you would print this letter and in future give us either our full name and some distinguishable abbreviation (Lib'n would do) - at least until the milksops have completely disintegrated.
Yours Faithfully,
fan Lester
Chairman LSE Libertarian Students Society.
On YNSO leaflets at LSE
JD 'to concentrate on his responsibilities'_
Bacon 'fries' Donkersley
BEAVER Monday 30 /anuary 1984
Page Tkrff
Matthew Price at the Union
Groves guilty of 'creeping totalitarianism'
The Editors, Beaver.
At a Union General Meeting last year, a motion was passed of No Platform for Racists and Fascists. In the last edition of Bever, Philip Groves accuses all those who supported this motion of totalitarianism. In his argument, however, he shows himself guilty of creeping totalinar-ianism, as I shall indicate.
i) Philip Groves states that even if st)meone is a racial bigot, that person's right to preach these beliefs must stand inviolate. But what of people who are racially discriminated against? Surely they have a right, in a civilised society, not to be racially discriminated against? In which case there is a conflict between two sets of rights. The absolute expression of one necessarily infringes on the other. So if there is a conflict, we have to decide which right, in which circumstances, should 1^ given priority.
How do we make that decision? Hopefully on the grounds of fairness and decency. Racists ask that black people have their entire lifestyles curtailed - where they may live, work, gather, etc. The reverse request is only that racists should have their freedom to spread racist ideas by public advertising and in public meetings curtailed. On any criteria of decency and fairness, surely those whose whole lives are threatened have a greater claim to have their rights prevail?
To further illustrate the point, take the following example, unencumbered by most prejudices. Should people have an absolute right to burn fires in their own gardens? The competing right is that of the neighbours not to have their washing blackened. In most areas, councils have decided that the right not to have one's sheets blackened comes first. So people's freedom to bum their own leaves on their own property is curtailed - not arbitrarily, but because that activity is likely to interfere with other people's lilies in an unaccept-
Dear Beaver,
The motion to remove Karl Marx's picture from the cover of this year's Union budget was amusing and pertinent. I supported It unhesita-tingly.
1 do believe passionately in freedom of speech, thought and expression for everj'one - Fascists, Socialists, Racists, Liberals, Stalinists, Nazis, and anyone and everyone else.
Karl Marx undeniably wrote materia' that, by today's standards, b nds him unambiguously as a racist. Fascism had yet to be invented then, but his followers -Lenin, etc - have perpetrated enough tyranny, terror, torture and oppression to leave him far more likely to offend the tender-minded bigots who support 'no platform' than the pathetic posturing of NF tinpot Nazis to whom they seek to deny free speech.
'No Platform' casts a wide net. Seeing Karl Marx ensnared in it
Dear Madame, Dear Sir,
When is a racialist not a racialist? -When he is the father of the Communist movement.
Gerard McMahon (Beaver, Monday 30 Jan, 1984) has every right to accuse Edward Lucas and myself of hypocrisy, but this is to miss the point.
It is possible to oppose racialism, but still defend a racialist's right to expression. This does not exclude objecting to the championing of a racialist on the cover of our Union Budget. This move, opposing racialism, is one we have every right to take, without restricting free speech.
Perhaps it was hypocritical to use a rule, to which I am opposed, to the detriment of the rule's supporters. 1 feel not. In my speech, I stated exactly my stance and my motives.
able way.
In the same vyay, fairness and decency indicate that racists' freedom to publicly preach racist ideas should be curtailed - nor for arbitrary reasons, but because they interfere in other people's lives in an umcceptable way. What must not be restricted in any way, of course, is rational discussion on the issues of race and racism, and questions arising therefrom. Caution should only be exercised where other rights are being infringed. In all other circumstances, freedom of speech must naturally be guarded absolutely as a vital ingredient of our other freedoms.
Where Philip Groves is wrong, is that he is advocating that people be allowed to bum their racist fires regardless of their neighbours - for we are all neighbours, in a sense, in British society. He is misguided, 1 sus{>ect, rather than malicious. But to insist that some rights are totally absolute in all circumstances, no matter how they infringe on other people, is itself a first step towards totalitarianism. At the other end lie Stalin and Hitler. I hof>e Philip Groves will think again.
ii) There is a second important issue in which Philip Groves demonstrates that he has not considered the other side of the coin. He states that "incitement to violence ... is covered in the law". He then claims that the No Platform motion contains an "implicit incitement to violence" By using the word "implicit", and by the fact that he hasn't taken the Student Union to court, he contradicts himself - he makes it quite clear that he recognises that there are incitements to violence that are not covered by the law.
Let me give an example of such an instance. Last year a gay man was murdered in a park in Dublin. His attackers, four young thugs, first stuffed a billiard ball into his mouth to muffle his screams, and then castrated him with their knives. I don't know, or wish to know, what
might have penetrated even the leaden prejudices of its supporters: in fact, it did not.
Neither did a subsequent motion, inviting Stokely Carmichael to LSE, protesting at the government ban on his speaking tour, and upholding free speech. Yet the motion was carried without a murmur of 'left' opposition.
'No Platform' will, I believe, be defeated in the next few weeks, either in the UGM, or through the ballot box. Its supporters will not even then have the consolation that it was applied consistently and even-handedly when in force. A true 'No Platform' policy would deprive all racists and fascists, whether suspected or proven, of a place or platform in the Union.
'No Platform' supporters should think through the implications of their own policies before accusing others of self-righteousness and hypocrisy.
Yours for Free Speech,
Edward Lucas
They have not changed, and that is not hypocrisy. There was no other way to highlight the sheer hypocrisy of the supporters of 'No platform'.
There is no doubt that Karl Marx was a racialist, as vile as Oswald Moseley (see 'The Marxian Legacy. Race, Nationalities. Colonialistm and War.' by Leslie R Page). What if Moseley's face had appeared on the budget?
My move in the Union Meeting was aimed at ridiculing the ban on free speech, as well as opposing racialism. It was necessary to highlight the absolute hypKKrisy (which is not admitted) of the left, even if it requires slightly ungentlemanly conduct to do so.
In support of free speech.
Yours faithfully,
Dominic Freely.
else they did to him, but eventually he died. The thugs were quickly caught, because they made no attempt to hide what they had done. At their trial they pleaded that they were just trying to rid the world of homosexuals, which was, after all, perfectly reasonable. The judge agreed, and let them off with short suspended sentences.
What clearer incitement could there be, not only to violence, but to vicious and brutal murder of a hardly stomachable savagery. Where is the law to stop this judge? Philip Groves provides his own answer - there is none, because the incitement was not explicit. Does this deficiency in the law therefore make the judge's effective incitement acceptable? Thousands of black people in this country risk harassment, attack or even murder on account of their skin colour. Much of it is because young thugs take the attitudes of various authorities as tacit support and encouragement for their actions - attitudes such as officially acknowledged police racism, the light sentences handed out by judges to racist attackers, and the refusal by many authorities including some MPs to even acknowledge racism as a problem.
1 am against all incitements to violence, explicit or implicit. The law is not perferct. The fact that implicit incitement to violence can be technically legal does not make it acceptable. It must never be allowed to blind us to the awful realities of life under constant threat of violence as suffered by thousands of black people. Philip Groves is allowing himself to be blindly led by what is in the law, with oppressive consequences. He states that "totalitarians are in our midst". I reply with a quote he will recognise: "Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?" (Matthew 3). Yours sincerely,
Richard Snell.
Groves chastised
To Beaver,
We are writing to answer some of the inaccurate criticisms and factual errors made by P Groves in his article Totalitarians in our midst'. We have 4 points to make;
1)	Groves attacks the labour club all the way through his article, this would suggest that" he is unaware that the 'No platform' motion was presented by members of ACARF (the Action Committee Against Racism and Facism) and was formulated and discussed at an ACARF meeting.
2)	He claims that the motion will lead to 'Stalinist' and 'totalitarian' tendencies because of the 'left block vote', yet he is fully aware that the motion included a clause to ensure that a % majority of a UGM must support its use against an individual, we feel that this is an adequate safeguard to ensure that no misuse of 'No platform' occurs. (A point which was made perfectly clear by Dominic Freeley's ridiculous display when attempting to use it at a Budget Meeting).
3)	In stating that M Moszynski was attacked by John Hall during the NGA debate, he is showing a blatant disregard for the facts, what actually happened was that Moszynski was intimidating a speaker (J Ward) and Hall lent over to tell him to stop. We suggest that Groves thinks a little more before making such slanderous statements.
4)	Finally we are somewhat disturbed by Groves' premature negation of the policy, we feel that it is He who is being undemocratic by threatening to ignore a policy supported by a majority of students at a Union General Meeting. Can we take this threat as evidence that he intends to invite speakers showing racist or fascist tendencies?
We would also like to take this opportunity to state that, as the proposers of the 'No platform for racists and fascists' motion, we would deplore any attempt at the cynical manipulation of this Union policy by any group whether they be left, right or centre.
Yours sincerely,
Simon Ellis/Richard Scott
/'	V	III
, / ¦ ¦
Before Deep Purple concerts lead singer, Ian Gillan used to say to his sound technicians, 'I want everything louder than everything else'. As a result people would stagger out from the concerts, ears bleeding and heads aching. Something of the same mentality and on almost equal degree of pain and confusion is seen during the societies section of the budget meeting.
Before the festivities began, meesrs Lucas and Freely attempted to demonstate that by prohibiting a platform for racists and fascists, they had bitten off more than they chould chew. The Left, by being asked whether it would allow Stokely Carmichael to sfjeak at the LSE, was being offered a radical dish but Lucas and Freely were giving it a distinctly liberal flavour. All was
Richard Snell at the Union
I climbed onto the stage at last Thursday's Union General Meeting, to take the minutes in the unexplained absence of Matthew Price. A barrage of vulgar noises greeted me. Dominic Freely and his friends in the Tory ranks were delighted to see a gay man in so public a position -such an easy target. Even Philip Groves, chairperson of the Conservative Club and self-confessed non-bigot, was amused. Skinhead thugs are just the same. They're not interested in a fight, they just want an easy victim. Bully-boys are the same, whatever their social class.
The budget meeting rolled into its fifth week. Houghton Street Harry, alias Martin Graham, was first at the starting line to suspend Standing Orders. He wanted to discuss the apolitical question of a jockey being suspended. The Meeting didn't want to be that apolitical, and his motion fell at the first fence.
A more exciting, though not unfamiliar, note was injected by Iain Miller and Philip Groves, as they lashed at the sabbaticals for not consulting more widely about the reply to the letter from the University Grants Committee. Kevin Cooper and John Donkersley pleaded in vain. The motion was passed, and the sabbaticals were sent off to draft a reply for submission to a UGM as soon as possible.
By 1:30, though, people were getting withdrawal symptoms. They needed their weekly injection of the Budget, that's what they had come for, and the crowd started getting restless.
The Budget returned just in time.
saved at the Union Meeting because of the ITMA show; ITMA for all those under retirement age means 'It's That Man Again'. Yes, it was Dave Bull who once again put the ball back in the other court.
As well as the yearly sacrifice of the debating society, at which the liberals and labour club were to be first to plunge in the knife, there was the more recent target of wine appreciation, obviously singled out due to its sinister connections with the SDP, another well known claret tasting association.
Most surprising of all was Philip Groves' attack upon the Animal Rights Society. After all, which of your cardinal sins have animals committed, Phillip? They do not get divorced, carry out abortions or have homosexual relationships and they are not even asking for positive discrimination. It seems strange that coming from a religion which refused to carry out acts of animal sacrifice and sect of that religion that teaches the sanctity of life, Mr Groves is not prepared to feel sympathy with the innocent creatures that are sacrificed upon the new altar called laboratory tables for a new religion of progress.
Unfortunately I was absent at the next meeting, but my place was admirably taken by Wchard Snell who takes up the story so far.
Groves: "A moral disorder".
Forsaking his usual position of glory in mid-stage, John Donkersley draped himself languidly over the edge of the platform to see his Budget through. Animal Rights got their money. £15 was voted to wine-tasters' mothers. Then Philip Groves gave them what they wanted. Homosexuality is a grave moral disorder, he thundered. And he didn't like the speakers the Gaysoc had invited to speak to them (where's freedom of speech now, Philip?). The Gaysoc money was to be moved to four societies apparently chosen at random. The Government Society didn't want the money! The crowd booed or cheered, according to their feelings at the time. When will Philip leam, that no matter how principled you may be, if what you're advocating would have as its consequence gross discrimination towards any group, then most decent people are going to think you're pretty horrid?
After that, the Budget was passed with scarcely a murmur. John Donkersley, his wordly task done, slipped quietly away from his not-always-so-appreciative public, and was last seen heading towards the 3 Tuns, which is once again in operation.
BEAVER STAFF
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Beaver is published by the London School of Economics Students' Union, East Building, Houghton St., London WC2. Copyright Beaver and all authors 1984. Telephone 405-8594. Typesetters Gee Graphics. Paste-up Frank Donovan. Printers. Cambridge Heath Press.
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The 'hypocrites' protest
Pa^e Four
BEAVER Monda}/ ,W january 1984
PETER TATCHELL
The Future of Gay Rights
Peter Tatchell is still having bricks thrown through his window and his bicycle tyres slashed, a year after the most vicious and homophobic by-election ever. He's written a book about that, "The Battle for Bermondsey", and he brought a few copies along to his talk at the LSE. He's still active in politics, fighting, as he sees it, for a decent life for all. The following is the gist of what he said.
Firstly, an optimistic note. Despite Bennondsey, we need to put it in historical context. Homosexuals have been oppressed for millennia. But in the last 25 years, for the first time in history, we see arising i) a clear gay identity, ii) a large visible gay community, and iii) a significant and influential gay political movement. No-one can deny these really major achievements for gay rights.
However, we mustn't take things for granted. The brief socialist-inspired gay rights movement at the turn of the century was quickly snuffed. Today there exists a major indirect threat to gay rights, taking such forms as attacks on the GLC and Islington Council, by Tories, some Liberals and SDPs, and the right-wing media. In many cases, these attacks are precisely because of these councils' gay rights policies. The GLC has put money into a gay community centre. Gay Switchboard and counselling services. So defeat for these councils is a defeat for gay rights. "Gay people and the Labour Party have a common interest to oppose the attacks on such councils, and on the implicit attempts to frighten other Labour councils.
The Labour Party's record is not perfect. But more Labour councils are now sticking their necks out to defend the people in their local communities. Gay people are part of the community, they pay rates and they are entitled to have a proportion of the rates spent for their benefit. Hackney and Haringay, for instance, have now outlawed job and housing discrimination against gay people.
Liberals, by contrast, have a better policy on gay rights in theory, but when in power have almost totally failed to deliver. In the last general election, eg., the Liberal and SDP manifestos had no word on gay rights. The Labour manifesto did -not as far reaching as we would like, but at least it was there.
Where do gay people fit into the wider political spectrum? Some are black, some women, some Irish, some manual workers - you can't compartmentalise. The prtjsent government hits them all, making coop-
The article written by P. Groves "Totalitarians in our Midst", in the last issue of BEAVER is one that cannot be allowed to go unopposed. As someone who spoke in favour of the "no platform for racists and fascists" motion when it was debated last December, I feel 1 should be allowed to issue a reply.
Mr. Groves covers a lot of ground, much of it irrelevant, and even worse, of a party political nature.
"Totalitarianism" is a totally unscientific concept, hurriedly developed in the 1920's and 1930's to equate fascism and communism as opposed to Western "democracy". Today it should be discarded and it has b«en by most self-respecting scholars, as meaningless.
No free speech for racists and fascists is not an excuse to silence our opponents, as everyday reality shows, but is a principle in the fight against racism and fascism. Far from being "illegal", the no-platform motion is actually implementing International Law-specifically the Potsdam Declaration, the Yalta Agreement and the U.N. Charter. The three major powers in 1945-1946 signed these declarations, and swore that fascism should never be allowed to plunge the world into catastrophe over. The Nuremberg Trials were
eration more important than ever. A year after Bermondsey, people say how terrible it is that Peter Tatchell is still attacked in the street, and still receives threatening 'phone calls. But he's not the only one. Gay p)eople are queerbashed, and had up on minor offenses that wouldn't be offenses for heterosexuals. In the East End of London, Asian families are terrorised, petrol bombed, their children attacked, their stores smashed. This political terrorism is symptomatic of a wider system of oppression in society. That's why it is worth working through the Labour Party, not just through the gay rights movement. Only when we all work together for a common purpose at all levels of society, can we all win freedom and equal rights.
» » 4
There are several issues affecting gay people at the moment.
1) One of the most important is 'the Police Bill. This is a problem for everybody, not just gay people, as it is a fundamental assault on the civil liberties of people in this country. One would associate if more with a Latin American dictatorship, or Eastern Europe, than with a parliamentary democratic state. Two issues pertain especially to gay people.
i) The Bill will introduce a new offence; "an affront to public decency". Police will be empowered to arrest someone to prevent an "affront to public decency", in effect, a new kind of SUS law. You needn't commit an offence - the Police only need a "reasonable belief" that you might. There is already another gay SUS law on the.Statute books. Section 32 of the 1956 Sexual Offences Act. Police can arrest a person for "persistently importuning for immoral purposes". Although homosexuality has supposedly been legalised, for the purposes of the Act it is an "immoral purpose". So a man can be arrested - and men are - for chatting up, talking to, smiling at or even persistently glancing at another man. Police need no witnesses and nobody has to be offended. The Police Bill will allow for more and more people lo be arrested and convicted purely on suspicion, without
based on these principles. The Potsdam Declaration aimed to, "wipe out the Nazi Party, and its supervised and affiliated organizations ... to destroy German militarism," ... to prevent Nazis from standing in free elections ... to prevent them carrying out propaganda, and so on.
In the LSE there is a diversity of political groups and opinions, many of which 1 disagree with - but not once have students who support "no-platform" ever prevented Liberal, Libertarian, Fabian etc . . . meetings from going ahead. It is not mere "opponents" we seek to silence, but a particular type - the racists and the fascists.
In his entire article, Mr. Groves failed to make the all-important link between words and deeds, free-speech and action. The history of fascism shows that what the fascists say and do are completely integrated : they make, speeches, produce "ideology", propagandise, to organise and mobilise people for fascism and fascret attacks. They don't merely walk the grounds of universities dreaming of the "millennium" : everything they do - from winning the hearts and minds of the work-ing-class youth to the university professor - is geared to organising and justifying racist and fascist
any real offence being committed, or other witnesses being present.
ii) The other important Police Bill issue is that of intimate body searches, of the mouth, anus and vagina. Although it is illegal at present, it still goes on on a small scale. But the Bill makes it routine. It is simply equivalent to legalised sexual assault, with saieguards nonexistent in practical terms.
The Police Bill is just one asjject of a creeping authoritarianism, which will create a more oppressive public opinion, causing more gay people to be queerbashed, lose their jobs, and be arrested. It is a more subtle way of harassing gay people. Harold Salisbury, chief constable of West Yorkshire, said a few years ago that gay rights activists were a threat to our society, and all gay right activists were under police surveillance in his constabulary. The police files accidentia dumped in Edinburgh showed that information was kept on all homosexuals they knew about as a matter of fact, regardless of whether they had committed an offence or not. We must have no illusions about the fact that the gay community is the object of official suspicion and oppression.
2) There is the question of "gay diseases", such as AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome). G3y people are merely the principal victims. There are about 20 deaths so far. If it concerned infants, the elderly or expectant mothers, no doubt there would now be a big national charity established, with all the lords and ladies of the land jumping on the band-wagon to have their names on the note-paper as patrons, and maybe the Sun would be giving half its bingo profits to find a cure. Instead, despite all the warnings from America, the government did nothing when the only victims were gay. They were not interested or concerned. Then late last year, a heterosexual woman in Liverpool died. Only then was the government finally galvanised to do something. Gay people pay taxes and rates too. We have a right to have a proporfion of our rates and taxes used for our benefit, in research on diseases like AIDS.
attacks. The "academic" race theorists like Eysenck and Jensen, are merely the modern-day counterparts of the pseudo-scientists used by Hitler to jusfify mass genocide.
There can never be free speech for all, because "free speech" does not exist in a vacuum. As it is, "free speech" is limited by the laws of libel and slander, as well as by the various Race Relafions Acts and so on. The likes of J.S. Mill spoke of the necessity to curb the rights of those who sought to deprive others of their democratic freedoms. And that is what the whole issue is about. It is the racists and fascists who deny democratic rights to members of nafional minorities; they are criminals, and as such they must be prevented from exercising the freedom they use to perpetrate racist and fascist violence.
Mr. Groves complains that the mofion does not refer to the National Front itf the 'resolves' section, but merely to "racists and fascists". A racist is a racist, whether he wears a swasfika and jackboots, or adheres to racist principles within any of the major parties. Who can deny, or seek to make credible the assertion, that there is no racism in the Conservative, Labour and other parties? Who can deny the racist intent and
3)	The age of consent: 21 for homosexual men, 16 for heterosexual men. Look at the prison popula-fion. At any given Hme, there are about 200-3OT gay men in prison for consenting sexual relations - gay political prisoners, prisoners of conscience, who are being held in British prisons because of their sexual orientation and preference. These homosexuals were convicted for consenting sexual relations, both partners willing. Compare with the heterosexual prisoners convicted of sexual offences. Nearly all were convicted because one of the partners was unwilling or forced. That is the difference - the way in which homosexuals and heterosexuals are treated differently by the legal and prison systems. There was a good example last year. There was a show trial in Exeter, five gay men were arraigned for consenting sexual relations, in a huge trial at public expense. The result was that a 36-year-old man got SVi years in prison for consenting relations with an 18 and 20-year-old. That's more than people get for armed robbery, than some rapists get, than for some grievous bodily harm. Yet such sentences are commonplace. A few months previously, a man in his 50's got 4Vi years for consenting sex with a 19-year-old. Just because he was two years under the arbitrary age of consent.
We must state the position loud and clear - for gay people, democratic rights, civil rights, human rights have never been achieved. There are some gains, but a long way to go yet. Many gay people live in a state more akin to fascism than to democracy. Not only are they physically threatened, and psychologically terrorised, they are also subject to a penal system not compatible with democratic society.
4)	Employment protection - basically, there isn't any. An employer can sack at will any gay person. Gay employees have no recourse to an industrial tribunal. It's been said quite clearly, and established in case law, that dismissal on grounds of homosexuality is not grounds for appeal for unfair or unjust dismissal. So effectively it is legal in this country to sack employees regardless of work records or anything else.
Thankfully, the trade union movement, like the Labour Party, is making amends at last. A few years ago, a Campaign For Homosexual Equality questionnaire to trade unions was ignored by most, or they said it didn't concern their members. Now that has changed. Many trade unions have adopted gay rights policies or are busy doing so. For example, NUPE now has a progressive gay rights policy. NALGO, a white-collar union, not only has a gay rights policy, it also has a regular annual conference to train officials in awareness of gay rights issues. CPSA, another white-collar union, has written into its rule book opposition to discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation, and a commit-
effect of Immigration and "Nationality" acts? Racism does not end with the NF and British Movement - if is part and parcel of the laws enacted by the major political parties. If is precisely these "respectable" racists who talk of being "swamped by alien cultures", of "blood ties", etc., and who create and foster the conditions in which racist attacks can take, place. And if the initiators and executors of these racist laws come to justify their racist behavior and win our hearts and minds so we support racist laws, of course we will oppose them. Do they think they can pass laws that divide people on the basis of race, stir racial hatred, split up family units, degrade and humiliate people, without being opposed?
People generally, and LSE students in particular, have a fine tradition of fighting racism and fascism. And our opposition to fascism does not "give them (the fascists) added credibility and sympathy" : on the contrar)', it destroys them as a political force. The experience of the 1970's shows that very clearly.
To conclude, the struggle against fascism is a struggle for everyone to take up and no free speech for racists and fascists is a central element in that struggle.	I. Parmar.
ment to full equality between homosexuals and heterosexuals.
5)	Child custody. For many people, gay parents having custody of children is a very sensitive issue. Time and again, judges deprive lesbian mothers of their children, because they regard them as unfit parents. In extreme cases, not only do they do that, but they have actually given custody to a heterosexual father who was highly unsuitable, eg. because of alcoholism, or persistent criminal tendencies -purely and simply because of the judge's prejudices against lesbians. This is a problem that must be addressed.
6)	Immigration and nationality. The Home Office doesn't recognise long term gay relationships. So if a British person meets a foreign gay person, there is no way they can come to live together in Britain. Interestingly, when the Nationality Act went through Parliament last year, a group of Labour MPs sought an amendment that the Home Office would recognise homosexual relationships on a par with heterosexual relationships. The government rejected it out of hand. So now Britons and foreign partners are separated and unable to fulfil their relationships.
» » »
So finally: we need to look forward, and work together regardless of our political opinions. Last year. Labour MP Jo Richardson sponsored a Sexual Equality Bill. This contained not only a radical extension of women's rights, but also provision to outlaw discrimination against gay men and women at work Sadly, gay people weren't well enough organised. Since the demise of the old Gay News, there is no national gay campaigning newspaper; and there is no real national gay organisation, only lots of different organisations. We need to address these two issues - the need for a national gay campaigning newspaper, and some umbrella organisation to unite groups around the country to a common purpose - to defend the rights already won, and also to win those rights we are still denied.
Mice at LSE
The LSE has mice. Although they have never been seen, their droppings have been found inside books, and smeared along walls in various buildings. It may seem odd that such a hygenic place should suffer from mice, but these are no ordinary vermin. Unlike their more infamous cousins in east London, they do not sport swastikas or shaved heads, nor do they sling petrol bombs. Rather, they pose as students, and like most other rodents only dare come out into the open when there are no human beings about. The reader will no doubt be aware by now that the creature we are referring to is in fact a member of the National Front. The problem, • fortunately, is not of epidemic proportions, and quite frankly, never can be - nobody at the LSE is foolish enough to fall for the appalling propaganda sheets, ("Red and Reactionary Lies"), which have been found in library books. Furthermore, these pathetic creatures dare not show themselves (and would not, even before the policy of no platform for racists and fascists was passed by the UGM), because they know that like all household pests they will get swept out of the door.
However, you are urged to keep an eye out for any suspicious activity, including leaflets in books, and stickers on walls, (which should all be handed in to the General Secretary in room E298, as should any other information on NF activities in college). The Nazis are trying to organise and recruit in the LSE. They have not got a hope, but in order to prevent the problems we had during Anti-Racism week from recurring, we ought to stamp them out. It would be easy enough. Perhaps Burns' definition of a mouse says it all: "Wee sleekit cooring beastie."
Simon Morris
CASIO PT30 for sale as new 6 months old. 55 quid. Contact Stuart Kilpatrick room 627 Rosebery Hall (278-3251)
iThe "No Platform" debate continues!
BEAVER Mondaif 30 January 1984
Pof^e Fivf	f


THE GAS PEOPLE WORKING FOR TOMGRROUS
UORLD TODAy
Jf your home uses gss — 3ncl the chsnces sre it will, since British Gas is the largest single supplier of heat in Britain — then you are benefiting from yesterday's planning and investment in advanced technology by the gas people.
Yesterday's research anticipated the needs of today's customers, and some of the developments produced by the gas people were revolutionary.
Did you know, for instance, that the gas people helped to pioneer the technology for transporting gas across the world's oceans — gas which would otherwise be wastefully flared-off? This was done by cooling the gas into liquid form at minus 160°C and carrying it in specially designed tankers. The transportation of LNG is now a major world trade.
The gas people also saw opportunities in newly available gas-making feedstocks and developed the Catalytic Rich Gas process for making gas from oil, rather than coal. Advances like these underpinned the transformation of an ageing industry into a highly competitive and rapidly expanding modern business.
The gas people went on to exploit the natural gas which they had helped to discover around our shores. To achieve this they constructed a network of underground high pressure steel pipelines to the highest standards. A great deal of money and technical expertise were expended in devising a means of inspecting these pipelines, and a sophisticated electronic and mechanical device called an 'intelligent pig' was developed. It works inside the pipeline while the gas is still flowing.
TOMORROW'S WORLD
Yesterday, the gas people solved what would have been today's problems, and we've given you just a few examples. But you may be more interested in the work we're doing today to solve tomorrow's.
For instance, in readiness for the time when Britain's indigenous supplies of natural gas begin to decline, and nobody knows when that will be, the gas people have already developed the technology for producing substitute natural gas from coal. The results of this pioneering work are being viewed with great interest in many parts of the world. Whichever feedstock is available at a competitive price, however, the gas people intend to have the technology to produce a substitute natural gas from it.
And because gas will still be there for tomorrow's customers, the gas people are helping to develop a new generation of appliances for tomorrow's low-energy homes. They are starting to apply ways of recuperating waste heat in industrial and commercial applications by using gas engine-driven heat pumps. These reverse the normal process by which heat flows from a high temperature to a lower and so can consume less energy than they deliver! The gas people are even looking at new ways to avoid traffic congestion — by replacing underground gas pipes without the need for digging up the road!
Much more is going on besides, so if you'd like to find out about today's high-tech gas industry, write to the Public Relations Department, British Gas, Rivermill House, 152 Grosvenor Road, London SWIV 3JL.
WONDERFUEL GAS FROM THE GAS PEOPLE-WORKING FOR TOMORROW'S WORLD TODAY
Past Six
B£y4V£R Monday 30 Jam
(SOCIETIES & THINGS
TUESDAY 14 FEB DEBATING SOC lpm-A698: "This House believes that education is a privilege, not a right". LABOUR CLUB 1pm-A40: ¦ BUSINESS MEETING. MUSIC SOC 1pm - Shaw Library:	1pm - A344: "THE PROBLEMS OF SRI LANKA", talk and discussion. All welcome. CHRISTIAN UNION lvm-S017: "CAN YOU REALLY HAVE INNER PEACE?"	PAKISTAN SOC 6pm-S601: "WHY HAS PAKISTAN FAILED TO CONSOLIDATE ITS FREEDOM?" By Justice SAFDAR SHAH, ex-judge of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. FRIDAY 17 FEB CATHOLIC SOC 1.05pm-S67: ROMAN CATHOLIC MASS.	LSE CONSERVATIVES Start of "PEACE and FREEDOM" Week. DANCE SOC Ipm-COlS: EXERCISE and DANCE CLASS with Evrol Evril, from Pineapple Dance Studions. Only 75p.
	EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 2pm-E191: REGULAR MEETING. FEDERATION OF CONSERVATIVE STUDENTS 1pm- S305: EXECUTIVE MEETING.		FEDERATION OF CONSERVATIVE STUDENTS lpm-S421: BUSINESS MEETING.
LUNCHTIME CONCERT. Rose Andresier, guitar. South American composers.		COMMUNIST SOC 1pm - S53: REGULAR MEETING.	GAY SOC lpm-E298: REGULAR OPEN HOUR.
DRAMA SOC 2pm - Old Theatre: "THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING ERNEST".	GOVERNMENT SOC lpm-L109: REGULAR MEETING.	ISLAMIC SOC 1:20pm - Basement of King's Chambers:	GRADUATE OFFICER 1pm- E197: REGULAR OPEN HOUR.
OVERSEAS STUDENTS OFFICER lpm-E198:	MILLENNIUM 2pm - IR Common Room: EDITORIAL BOARD MEETING. All welcome.	MIDDAY PRAYERS and MEETING. SOCIALIST WORKERS' STUDENT SOC (SWSS) 1pm- S300: "MARXISM or FEMINISM?" By ANNE ROGERS. Are men responsible for women's oppression, or is it class society that causes it? Why Greenham Common failed. AFRO-CARIBBEAN SOCIETY Announcing cultural evening In aid of South African Scholarship Fund for a student to come to LSE Afro - Caribbean music, dancing, steelband, food, rum punch, etc. Evening will end with a dance 6pm - midnight - A45 Tickets £3 in advance -£3.50 at the door	LABOUR CLUB 1pm- Graham Wallace Room: BUSINESS MEETING.
REGULAR OPEN HOUR.			LSE LIBERALS lpm-A282: REGULAR MEETING. TUESDAY 21 FEB ANGLICAN CHAPLAINCY 1pm - Graham Wallace Room: "LIFE UNDER APARFHEID and the CHRISTIAN STRUGGLE" Introduced by Barney Pityana, Anglican priest and exile from South Africa. He will talk of his experiences and the things that must be done here as well as in the Republic itself.
PSYCHEDELIC ACTION 1pm - TV Rm: REGULAR MEETING.	WOMEN'S OFFICER 1pm - E298: REGULAR OPEN HOUR.		
AIESEC LSE Present LSE VALENTINE'S PARTY AT STRINGFELLOW'S Check posters for details DRAMA SOC 7.30pm - Old Theatre: "THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING ERNEST".	DRAMA SOC 7.30pm - Old Theatre: "THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING ERNEST". THURSDAY 16 FEB BUNAC LSE 12:45 - Outside Old Theatre: STALL: come and find out about working in the summer in the USA. SOCIALIST WORKERS STUDENT SOC (SWSS) Morning - Outside Florries: BOOKSTALL.		
FILM SOC 7pm - New Theatre: "HOW TO STEAL THE WORLD ". Directed by Sutton Riley. Feature film bflsed on the Man from UNCLE series with Robert Vaughn and David MacCallum.			BAHAI SOC lpm-S78: REGULAR MEETING.
	ATHLETICS UNION 4pm - East Building Gym: REGULAR OPEN BASKETBALL HOUR.		DEBATING SOC 1pm- A698: ELECTION of new Executive and President.
GAY SOC 6pm-A201: MEETING. LONDON STUDENT MOVEMENT 6vm - S175: "THE NECESSITY FOR REVOLUTION IN BRITAIN". How will revolution come about? LSE - SSEES JOINT SEMINAR 5pm - A40: "CZECHOSLOVAKIA", by Gordon Wightman, Liverpool University. WEDNESDAY 15 FEB ACARF - LABOUR CLUB -SRI LANKA SOCIETY -	FILM SOC 7pm - Old Theatre: "ROMANCE for TRUMPET". Directed by Otaker Vavra. Czech classic - a beautiful and sensual fibn about the romaiitic love of a boy and a mysterious girl from a travelling fair in the 1930's.	GAY SOC 8.30pm - C018; GAY DISCO BY HOT STUFF Entrance 50p. All lesbians and gay men welcome. MONDAY 20 FEB AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL lpm-S53: REGULAR MEETING. All welcome. CATHOLIC SOC 1pm- S401: REGULAR STUDY GROUP.	OVERSEAS STUDENTS OFFICER 1pm - E198: REGULAR OPEN HOUR. PSYCHEDELIC ACTION 1pm- TV Rm: REGULAR MEETING
	The Music Co-op Presents: The HAPPY FISH & 2 other support bands 8pm - C018 - Under 3 Tuns Including disco and very very cheap booze Only 50p entry - A must for the discerning		FILM SOC 7pm - Old Theatre: "FRIDAY THE 13th Part 2" (1981). With Adrienne King and John Furey. Directed by Steve Mirier. INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS DEPARTMENT LECTURE 5pm - Board Room: "INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS IN FRANCE: Developments in Labour Law since 1981", by Prof. JEAN-CLAUDE i JAVILLIER, Professor of
	RAG COMMITTEE 5pm - TV Room: REGULAR MEETING.	LSE CHAPLAINCY 12.10- Chaplain's Office: MIDDAY PRAYER.	
BEAVER Monday 30 January 1984
Pagf Srzrn
Comparative Law, the University of Bordeaux I. Chairperson: Prof B C Roberts. Admission free without ticket.
LONDON STUDENT MOVEMENT
6pm-S175:
"The Necessity for Revolution in Britain"
WHAT ARE THE OBSTACLES TO REVOLUTION?
WEDNESDAY22 FEB
ACARF
lpm-A344:
REGULAR MEETING.
CHRISTIAN UNION
1pm - S017:
"MIRACLES DON'T HAPPEN ANY MORE".
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
2pm - E191:
REGULAR MEETING.
FEDERATION OF CONSERVATIVE STUDENTS
1pm- S306:
EXECUTIVE MEETING.
GOVERNMENT SOC
lpm-L109:
REGULAR MEETING.
MILLENNIUM
Iprn - IR Common Room: EDITORIAL BOARD MEETING. All welcome.
WOMEN'S OFFICER
1pm - E298:
REGULAR OPEN HOUR.
DRAMA SOC
6pm - C018:
WORKSHOP: improvisations, exercises, etc. A lot of fun -everyone welcome!
LSE SOCIOLOGY SOC and SOUTH AFRICA SCHOLARSHIP FUND
7pm - Old Theatre: Film, 'The Rifle, The Saracen & the Gallows'' - Speaker from the Apartheid Movement Music by AFRICAN DAWN Tickets £2.50 waged £1.50 unwaged from Union Shop.
THURSDAY23 FEB
BUNAC LSE
12:45 - Outside Old Theatre STALL: come and find out about working in the summer in the USA.
SOCIALIST WORKERS STUDENT SOCIETY (SWSS)
Morning - Outside Florries: BOOKSTALL.
ATHLETICS UNION
4pm - East Building Gym: REGULAR OPEN BASKETBALL HOUR.
FILM SOC
7pm - Old Theatre: "THE APARTMENT" (1960). With Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine. Directed by Billy Wilder. Classic comedy with the high standards we would expect from the old master Wilder. Witty, cynical and entertaining, the story of an ambitious clerk who rents out his apartment to philandering executives for their illicit meetings.
LSE ISLAMIC SOCIETY
6pm - S75:
"ISLAMIC SHARI A" (Islamic Law). Your questions will be entertained.
All Welcome.
LSE SUNTORY-TOYOTA LECTURE
5pm - Old Theatre: "THE IMPACT of the MODERN STATE on the BRITISH CHURCHES", by Dr. EDWARD NORMAN Dean of Peterhouse, Cambridge. Chairperson: Prof. Donald G. MacRae. Admission free without ticket.
RAG COMMITTEE
5pm — TV Room:
REGULAR MEETING. All welcome.
FRIDAY 24 FEB
CATHOLIC SOC
1.05pm - S67:
ROMAN CATHOLIC MASS.
LSE CHAPLAINCY
1.05pm-A612:
HOLY COMMUNION.
CHRISTIAN UNION
12pm- A506:
PRAYER and PRAISE.
COMMUNIST SOC
1pm - S53:
REGULAR MEETING.
ISLAMIC SOC
1:20pm - Basement of King's Chambers:
MIDDAY PRAYERS and MEETING.
SOCIALIST WORKERS STUDENT SOC
1pm - 5300:
"TROTSKY"? by LIONEL STARLING.
MONDAY27 FEB
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
1pm - S53:
REGULAR MEETING. All welcome.
LSE CHAPLAINCY
12.05pm - Chaplain's Office: MIDDAY PRAYER.
LSE CONSERVATIVES
1pm - S78:
REGULAR MEETING.
DANCE SOC
1pm- C018:
EXERCISE and DANCE CLASS with Evrol Evril, from Pineapple Dance Studios. Only 75p.
FEDERATION OF CONSERVATIVE STUDENTS
lpm-S421:
BUSINESS MEETING.
GAY SOC
lpm-E298:
REGULAR OPEN HOUR.
GRADUATE OFFICER
1pm- E197:
REGULAR OPEN HOUR.
LABOUR CLUB
lpm-A40:
REGULAR BUSINESS MEETING.
LSE LIBERALS
lpm-A282: REGULAR MEETING.
CONSERVATIVE PRE-ELECTION PARTY 6 - 8.30pm - Graham Wallace Room: £1 members £1.50 non-members All welcome.
TURF SOC Trip to Cheltenham Festival
Wednesday March 14
Please contact Martin Graham c/o Passfield Hall or Robert Wood if interested.
CYPRIOT SOCIETY MAIN EVENT/CYPRUS WEEK
"The Cyprus problem and
its recent developments Thursday 23 February 1984 NEW THEATRE (A171) at 5.00 pm
Among those present will be;
Lord Cazadon C. Townsend (MP) T. Cox (MP)
A film will be shown later.
m
New Daze Music Presents: SONS OF LOVERS Rock Garden MONDAY 27 FEBRUARY 10pm
- DRAMA, DRAMA, DRAMA -"The Importance of Being Ernest" by Oscar Wilde Mon 14, Tue 15, Wed 16 February - 7.30pm Special matinee Tue 15, 2pm Tickets 75p at the door
PAKISTAN EVENING _'A Great Success'_
There is a saying common to most Asian countries that whatever time a function is announced to start at, it will actually be one hour later. By that logic, the Pakistan Society Musical Evening of February 2nd, scheduled to commence at 7pm but actually beginning at 7.35, started early.
The function managed to draw some 360 people into the Old Theatre, of whom less than half were LSE students; the rest comprised of students ostensibly from other London colleges, especially SOAS and Imperial, and there was also a group of about ten students from Liverpool University. Although most of the audience were Asian, there were a few white faces to be seen (predictably, most were of the 'culture-vulture' variety).
The main attraction of the evening, apart from the food, was the musical group Saaz-O-Tarang who in the first half of their repertoire played traditional Gazals. After an hour of this, dinner was served in the Passmore-Edwardes Room, which consisted of nan, samosas, kebab, tandoori chicken, vegetable curry and a sweet. After this sumptuous meal, the concert recommenced; this time in a must more up-tempo style which excited the audience so much that at one point thirty people leapt to the front and burst into frenzic dance, and one woman took to the stage upon the invitation of sections of the audience and sang a song herself. The festivi-' ties were meant to end at 10pm, but
actually finished close to midnight after an extension was permitted by the porters.
The Pakistan Society has most definitely come into its own this year; last year it hardly existed, but this year a number of enthusiastic first years have helped to boost membership up to the three figure-mark. As a result of its very recent revival, those who organised the evening had negligible experience in coping with such a large task. At £2.50 a head for non members and with such a large initial outlay there were fears that costs would not be covered. On the night, though, a lot more tickets were sold and as a result not too great an indentation was made on their already low budget.
Abid Zuberi, General Secretary of the Pakistan Society, later said, "The evening was a great success, and we are grateful to all those who attended. We now have the confidence to carry out future events with renewed vigour."
Forthcoming attractions from the Pakistan Society include talks by Safdar Shah, ex Supreme Court Judge, and by Benazir Bhutto.
Iqbal Wahhab
MILLENIUM
Millennium is a student-run journal operating from an office in the International Relations Department. Each week, the all-student editorial board reviews submitted articles for possible publication in Millennium which is published three times a year. The editorial board consists
of both undergraduates and postgraduates, and meets every Wednesday at 2pm in the IR Common Room. These meetings are open to all interested students. Check agenda on I.R. Department Bulletin Board for details.
Page Bight
BEAVER Monday 30 January 1984
"Revival of the Raj
/f
1983 was definitely the year of India in Great Britain, and 1984 is following the pattern set by virtue of its discovery by the British film and television industry.
This latest fad began in 1982 when all the hopes and ambitions sowed by the Festival of India flowered in the following year. The result was a profusion of interest in India, in its food and films, in its people and traditions, music and folklore. Not since India's passage into freedom at the stroke of midnight on August 14, 1947 has India made such an impact on Britain.
The yearning for anything Indian has now grown so diverse that it is hard to identify its precise birthplace. Of course, in part it owes itself to the publicity and popularity of the Festival of India. But, more fundamentally, it has arisen from the growing nostalgia for India from a generation now in old age reliving its halcyon days and out of a curiosity and discovery of this generation's heirs who are flocking in increasing numbers to India.
The British have always been a prurient mob: this inquisitiveness is amplified when confronted by the mysteries of India, with the notion, preserved in E.M.Forster's 'A Passaj^e to India', that something exists beyond the grasp of mortal beings. Moreover, English people have an inherent love of institutions, and British India was a magnified institution representing ail aspects of its culture from the dubious 'high-class' whores of Bombay to the Gymkhana Club in New Delhi, countered by the exotic and ostensibly humble lifestyles of the native population. The cornucopia of pleasure presented partially explains the success of India in Britain.
The most colourful result of this has been the impact of India in the arena of avante-garde fashion. Haute couture designs have been inspired by the introduction of Indian fabrics. Even Vidal Sassoon has followed the trend by creating an Indian-inspired hair-style. And a new and profound interest has occurred in Indian food.
The curry has long been Britain's staple post-pub-crawl food. It is cheap, filling, and readily available. But if is also downmarket. During the past year, the local Bengali-owned dive has been supplemented by chic restaurants such as Shezan and the Bombay Brasserie (both in London). The latter revels amongst Deen Dayal photographs, carved wood chests, and ageing pukhas. Eating Indian is now fashionable, respectable, and most important, it's expensive. The television industry has tried to follow suit by twice showing actress Madhur Jaffrey going Indian in the kitchen. The predictable result of this febrile activ-
ity has led to the formation of a Curry Club which supplies its members with authentic herbs and spices and arranges SfHTciality tasting evenings where the new milieu enjoy their share of bhelpuri, and replenish their stock of nimboo ka achar. So chaps, it's not a question of just tandoori chicken and pilau.
However, the outcome of the yearning for India is not restricted to these activities. Indian influence has impregnated itself on the imagination of sculptor Andrew Logan, who recently had an exhibition entitled 'The Goddesses', displaying his interpretations of the women of India. It appears to b^ outrageous, proving that the British retain misconceptions about India, but, in the words of journalist Shyama Perera, "it's also wonderful, lovely, full of good fun, and strangely beautiful".
'Full of good fun' and possibly more wonderful has been the recent emergence of an outstanding writer in Indian literature. In 1982 Salman Rushdie won the Booker Prize with his brilliantly perceptive novel, Mid-nij^ht's Children. It was humourous and never failed to criticize, referring to Sanjay Gandhi as the man with labia-like lips. Shame, his newest novel is constantly entertaining and is presented in the style of an ancient tale from the Upanishads, portraying life on the continent on a grand scale.
If this were the extent of the interest the English have in India it would have been quite remarkable. But in fact it has gone considerably further. With a major boost from both television and the cinema, India has been catapulted from its flirtation with fashion and its romance with food to a more lasting relationship with millions in draw-ing-rooms and movie-halls.
The birth of Channel Four in November 1982 saw the Indian feature film established as a form of Sunday afternoon entertainment. Whilst tucking into their roast beef and Yorkshire pudding the British enjoyed golden oldies like Guide and Mother India, and the more demanding attractions of Benegal's Bhu-mika and M.Kaul's Duvidha. Not to be outdone, BBC hosted a series of
Merchant-Ivory films like The Householder (reviewed in Beaver in 1962) and Bombay Talkies. The showing of films varying from popular hits to the criKcally appraised art films has led to a greater knowledge and appreciation of India.
Television has continued in this vein. Channel 4 airs a fortnightly magazine programme. Eastern Eye, which presents features on India and also caters for the 1.5 milKon Asian community in Britain showing, for example, a national kabbadi competition from Coventry. However, the infatuation lies not so much with the Indian community in this country, as with its culture back home.
The impact of India on television has led to a spate of films making good money at the box-office. Gandhi is the most well-known, encapsulating all the traditional elements of a Hollywood great earning Richard Attenborough 10 Oscars; and James Bond was persuaded to continue his lascivious capers in the somewhat capricious Octopussy in Rajastham. But the most sensitive and aesthetic film to be seen so far is Heat and Dust. It captures the equivocal qualities of India - its wholesome earthi-ness and its spiritual mystery. Two further films, Kim and A Passage to India are to be released later this year.
1984 began with a showing on television of The Far Pavilions, ,a dramatization of the lengthy novel by Molly Kaye, who nostalgically recalls the splendid yet fading opulence of the Raj. However, it lacks any form of subtlety relying on a cowboy/western style production containing romance and Shane-style brawls. The jewel in the Crown, though, compensates for the disappointments and shortcoming of previous dramas on India. The T.V. series has quite brilliantly translated the complex Raj Quartet (by Paul Scott), illustrating the personal events in the individuals' lives against a constantly changing background. Tim Pigott-Smith's Merrick, frustrated and grammar-school educated, cleverly reveals the attitude of his class of Briton towards India; Daphne Manners is lost in the great and inpenetrable upheaval occuring irt British India; whilst the English public-school educated Hari Kumar is caught in the middle, unable to be fully accepted by either culture.
The Jewel in the Crown has captured the curiosit)' and nostalgia of the British and extended it into a lasting love affair with India. It contains the essential components of the British character - a longing for the past, romance, and nobility. The result: the new generation of Britons are getting to know and are learning to like India - whether they will come to understand its mythical and enigmatic qualities is something that no one can answer. Rajat Kohli
Look What We Found! - Beaver 20 Years Ago.
passing the buck'
THREE TUNS ROW
/^^mnAAntlnO on the
'the bar steward, Mr. Ron
Bixby has been given notice.
He was handed the letter of notice when he arrived to open the bar one evening this week. Within an hour he had handed over the keys and left.
"I want to know what this is all about," he said, "and that is about all that will bring me back. 1 certainl)^ won't work here again."
In a statement deputy president Geoff Fielding — who is responsible for the bar — said the decision was made unanimiously by both the bar management com.nittre ana
Council.	. .
"The decision was not arrived it easily but discussed at great length in several meetings. In fact tne decision has been recommended by bar management committees for the last two years but has b®en referred for various reasons.'
Mr. Bixby alleged wasn't making enough profit ana they are just passing the buck on to me."
"But if the Council will not run the bar in a commercial way, v^at can they expect? They sell some beer at give-away prices — ano there is so much going out at cost prices."
Commenting on the bar management committee he said they seemed younger than they used to be.
"In the past you had more experienced people who kner/ more what they were talking about^ The present bar management committee needs someone older on it.
"And people with more experience. I think there are	» couple of beer
reit drink orange squash, Mr. Bixby added.
"Council had better give g^ reasons - or else." said Neil wood, one of the students who works part-time behind the bar
Another one, Paul Ward, sad working behind the bar they could see Ron's point of view. It he has justifiable complaints and it looks as if there has been a breakdown in communication.
lOrwell Was Only Joking!|
Have you heard the one about the totalitarian state that takes thirty-five years to reach the punchline? According to Prof. Bernard Crick, neither Mrs. Thatcher nor Dr. Owen had, since both heralded the event of the new year by rejoicing in the fact that Orwell had got it all wrong. The internationally renowned socialist guru and soothsayer had failed to predict correctly what 1984 would bring. Neil Kinnock was not quoted, but perhaps Prof. Crick had already let him in on the secret that Orwell was only joking! Or perhaps the young Neil had never read the book, being too busy building his alphabet blocks into word mountains. I digress.
'George Orwell and his Socialism' was a delightful hour spent with Prof. Bernard Crick, academic and official biographer of George Orwell. Whilst 'Nineteen Eight-Four" dominated the early part of the talk it became evident as he recounted Orwell's travels, both geographic and literary, that Orwell possessed a rare journalistic talent. Did Orwell really witness the hanging of a criminal in Burma, or the shooting of an elephant? Crick asks, 'Does it really matter?' His vivid descriptions concerning the moral dilemmas involved and the indignity of death transcend the argument whether it is fact or fiction, but still leaves one believing he was there.
Orwell's globe-trotting took him to Spain and his experience of war, we are told, caused him to believe that the revolution would be brought about through the bombing of capitalist cities where from out of
the rubble the workers would emerge triumphant. History was to prove him wrong, but he clung to his beliefs in the working classes as the source and guardians of morality and humanitarianism but lacking leadership. He had hof)ed for such leadership coming in the form of the post-war Atlee government swept to power by the ranks of the returning forces, politically and morally hardened by combat.
Even Orwell's socialism never lay easy on him. Described as being at his best in his polemical writings, his attack on eccentric socialists in 'The Road to Wigan Pier", he was a self-styled critic from within and a believer that as a writer he could never be a 'loyal' member of a party. Among his doubts were his contradictory views on power, whether it was an end in itself or whether there was a moral legitimacy for seeking power - which brings us back to 1984. Black comedy or prophecy? Crick is a firm believer in the former, although for him '1984' is neither Orwell's best work nor an epitaph to a formidable literary career. Orwell himself did not apparently believe that '1984' could come about, his appendix on Newspeak outlines the difficulties of translating Shakespeare, Milton, Byron and Swift into the official language. Perhaps Orwell's own comment that the book would not have been so gloomy had it not been for his ill-health gives the clearest insight into his intentions. He was after ail joking - wasn't he?
Barry Vincent
Photo by Malcolm Lowe
Should We Laugh at 1984?
When a pig is called by the name Napoleon, like in Orwell's Animal Farm, we feel (appropriately) that Animal Farm may be called satire.
When, however, a rat is being prepared to eat somebody's face alive like in 1984 we equally appropriately may guess that 1984 is a grim tragedy rather than satire (unless we suffer "fuzzification" of the border between tragic and laughable).
If we do not suffer from "fuzzification", a political aspect emerges. The clue is that a great lot of people, especially those knowing well the social system in Rusia, read Animal Farm as v/ell as 1984 (without slightest doubts and vagueness) as brilliant descriptions (with many coded names) of the Soviet Union during the 'thirties and 'fourties.
Even if we adopt the absurd assumption that Orwell subjectively was not inspired by Russia but by something else - objectively his books mean Russia by their content not allowing for any other interpretation
(unless we bend back words).
If you say 'Good Morning', millions will understand it as a daily greeting in spite of the fact you may have been inspired by an evening to say it. The slaughters in Russia are a tragedy; Animal Farm is a satire and 1984 a semi-surrealistic fiction image of the tragic society. If we, however, distortingly call 1984 a 'satire', we smuggle into our minds the suggestion that the Russian reality is susceptible only (or mainly) to satirical description and that it is laughable rather than tragic. Orwell portrayed both faces of the Soviet story; the ridiculous and the grim.
1984 is the grim one and there is nothing funny in it. Per anology: is Shakespeare's Macbeth a satire on murder? Unless you are Macbeth's barrister if is not. Do you feel a slight lenience creeping into your mind for Macbeth after renaming the play 'satire'? If you do, you understand how newspeak works.
Leek Stanski
BEAVER Monday 30 jatiuary 1984
Pojfe Nine
Some Thoughts on the Education Campaign
STUDENTS UNION MANAGEMENT: A Remedy
If the article by former General Secretary Tony Donaldson in the last Beaver seemed particularly apposite in the ligjit of the recent managerial minefield of the Three Tuns, it must be remembered that it was written before the end of last term, andbefore the "troubles" arose around the Three Tuns. Tony Donaldson was writing about a chronic managerial disability that has been hampering the administration of our Students' Union for many years and which was simply highlighted by the wrangle that paralysed the Union's only bar for several days and cost the Union £750 in ongoing costs, let alone the loss of revenue.	proposal, and it may well be that Treasurer upon the appointment of a
It is worth noting that not only once they are safely out of Office this Union Manager could equally be
Tony Donaldson and Rick Young (former Senior Treasurer) are strong advocates of a Union Manager. The previous year's General Secretary Steve Pound made his position very clear in an outspoken but obscure article written last year: "a general manager should be appointed on a fixed term contract to have sole responsibility for the day-to-day running of the Union within f)oIicy guidelines laid down by the Union". The present Sabbaticals also recognised the need for radical steps to preserve the Union and drew attention to the need for a major administrative reorganisation. The way in which John Donkersley and Debbi Hindson have let the issue drop after their own solution, the Fouth Sabbatical, was rejected has been rather reminiscent of a conjurer who covers a watch with a handkerchief, smashes it with a hammer and then realises he has forgotten the second half of the trick. It is certainly true that prevailing opinion within the Labour Club itself has always been suspicious of the Union manager
year's Sabbaticals will, with all the wisdom of instant hindsight, join the growing lobby for a Union Manager.
Tony Donaldson very rightly pointed out that the job of Education and Representation Secretary (the proposed Fourth Sabbatical post) is one that should be done by the General Secretary, and would be if the General Secretary were released from the overbearing weight of staffing matters which they are invariably "not qualified to deal with." The establishment of a Union Manager has many other advantages. For too long the Union has lacked a cohesive, long-term strategy for the Services and for too long the fortunes of the Services have been disjointed by the cyclical flux that throws up a new and different administrator every March. The present turnover of the Services is almost equivalent to the whole Union budget; ordered, stable and proficient management could develop the enormous potential that this implies.
The time gained by the ^nior
used in improving the facilities and effective running of the Students' Union. Time devoted to boosting the advertising revenue from Beaver could yield quite substantial benefits for students as well as going a considerable way towards making Beaver self-financing. Similarly the Senior Treasurer could seek sjxjn-sorships for Intro Fair and the Union Handbook (and even the Alternative Prospectus, which the Sabbaticals would have time to produce; they haven't done so for many years).
Obviously it would be an oversimplification to claim that a Union Manager is a cure-all for the Union's ailments, but the potential to improve and extend the Services offered to LSE Students and to devote time and imagination to the small and mundane (but nonetheless crucial) elements of the Union are clearly there. Perhaps one day we will get Sabbaticals who are prepared to act on this in Office rather than bemoan it out of Office. Andrew Cooper Mike Moszynski
28p a day increase
Although regulations concerning next years grants are still to be framed the details are becoming quite clear. Home students will receive a 28p a day increase or £80 a year. Overseas students on an arts course will have an 8.6% rise in course fees and 'a 9.2% rise for science courses. This 4% increase in home students grants means that once again they will face a reduction in the standard of living as they continue to lose out against inflation. Since 1980/1982 the grant has fallen behind the retail price index, and even further behind the increase in students costs, such as accommodation and books.
On fop of all this the government plants to save £20 million in the 1984/85 financial year by halving the minimum a'vard to £205. It is esti-
The NUS has demanded a new deal for students in response to the latest Government proposals on grants. The Government intends to halve the minimum grant, and alter the parental contribution scales so that students whose parents earn over £9,60(T will be forced into increased dependence on their families. Individual claims for travel costs are also to be abolished, so that all students will receive the same amount regardless of the expense of their daily or termly journeys. Add to this a grant increase of only 4% and the picture for students looks increasingly bleak.
The NUS is demanding that the Government accepts and acts upon students' rights to independence, a decent standard of living, and choice of institution. Cutting grants will only make students more dependent on families who may be unable or unwilling to finance expensive education. Abolition of individual travel claims may prevent students from attending a college 'too far' from their homes. Because of the Government plans to abolish Metropolitan County Councils such as the GLC subsidised services will vanish. This will obviously affect the unemployed and poor, students included, who rely on cheap transport, and other local services. A nominal flat rate travel grant will not cover travel costs on a privatised London Transport. Subsidised services provided by colleges, such as catering, will be
mated that 40,000 award holders will be adversely affected, making savings of £8-9 million. A further £10 million will be saved by increasing the reliance of students on their parents for larger parental contribution where the residual income (i.e. gross income less certain allowances such as interest payments on a mortgage or some insurance policies) exceeds £9.700.
The pressure on student incomes will also increase from April 1984 when changes will be made in supplementary and housing benefits. At present a standard amount of £3.10 is added to the requirements of non-householders aged 18 and over as a contribution to the house they live in. This will be withdrawn from 18-20 year olds.
Jim McCallum
cut back as colleges reshuffle their decreasing budgets to attempt to maintain teaching standards.
With these increases in the cost of student life, the 4% proposed increase is hardly sufficient. The NUS is demanding that grants are increased by £6 per week, and that travel cost claims are still allowed; another demand is that the threshold for parental contributions is raised, paving the way to the abolition of the parental contribution and a £30 minimum a week for all students. NUS regards the existing 'deal', in which students accept a low standard of living in return for the promise of some kind of glittering career as both unacceptable and redundant. Students may 'suffer' while living in grant inflicted poverty, and then find that the promised future is not available at the end of it all. This old deal has collapsed and it is time for a new deal. Pushing more costs on to students while reducing the grant in their pockets is a cynical backdoor tax on students and their families. It is vital that students increase public awareness of the situation and make the Government take notice of their feelings: to this end the NUS campaign includes large scale demonstrations on February 23 and March 10. LSE students must support this campaign and protect their education andtheir future.
Carol Atack labour Club Secretary.
Student 'overstayed'
1.	An LSE Overseas student has recently found himself facing deportation because he had "overstayed" his passport entry visa. This situation, says the Home Office, often happens to overseas students. It is a particularly significant problem for the LSE with its large number of overseas students. The spokesman at Lunar House, the Home Office Immigration Department, said that many students overstay their visa without coming to the knowledge of the Home Office. The Home Office usually learn of an expired visa if a student becomes involved with the Police in a minor incident such as a traffic accident.
2.	When an individual has 'overstayed', he can face a fine of £200, and an Order to leave within 14 days without a right of appeal. However, the Home Office usually takes a sympathetic view of students who 'overstay' their visa. If students find themselves in this position, they should apply for an extension to their visa sending a letter from their College explaining that they are in fact in attendance. They should also send evidence of funds, and of having paid their College fees. If it receives this information, the Home Office is likely to renew out-of-date visas without query.
3.	The Home Office at Lunar House, East Croydon, has a department that deals with over-stayers and an office for callers. However, it must be stressed that although the Home Office will be sympathetic to student 'overstayers', all overseas LSE students should check the expiry date on their visas, to prevent unnecessary problems.
Day of Action
February 23 has been designated for the NUS local day of action in support of the New Deal. At LSE, it is hoped to rearrange classes from 11am onwards, a rally is being arranged, and entertainments for this time. The Director may also be invited to answer questions on LSE and the future.
At present a petition is being prepared about September resits and will be available at a stall in the Old Building. Also on the stall will be a draft letter for writing to MPs concerning education and further information on the education cuts. Tube stations will be leafletted.
The Campaign will culminate on March 10 with a National Youth Festival in London, organised by NUS.
Kevin Cooper NUS Officer.
The Union's 'Education Campaign' should be concerned with considered debate not empty sloganizing. So far, a divided and leaderless Labour Club has concentrated on the latter rather than the former. It is time to correct this imbalance. As the Education Secretary, Sir Keith Joseph, has invited wide-ranging debate on higher education and in particular the future funding of universities, he is entitled to a rational response based on argument not rhetoric. There are various points at issue in the debate as to what response LSE students should be giving him and the Government.
First, there is the question of what are the ideal means of funding the university sector. Sir Keith believes that the universities should become more independent of government in view of the widespread desire to keep public expenditure under control and to reduce the power of the state. He recently wrote: 'The higher the proportion of university income that comes from non-government sources, the greater their freedom of action and their capacity to survive fluctuations in the recurrent grant.' This is ^onomic madness bearing in mind the slow rate of growth of the British economy.
It is no use Labour advocating higher expenditure without stating clearly who would pay for it and how exactly it would lead to a better education system. To take the second point further, the failure of Labour's expensive comprehensi-vization program.me in the 1970's is just one example of more money not necessarily leading to better quality. Even Mr Neil Kinnock admitted as much when he said, at the 1980 Labour Party Conference: 'I can knock you up an extra £1 000 million bill and we will not have cure-d. . . all the weaknesses of our education system then'. As regards the repeated charges that Mrs Thatcher's government is cutting back unreasonably education spending, charges often made by Neil Kinnock, it is worth remembering the record of the 1974-79 Labour administration. In 1976, it cut just under £1 billion from the education budget; In 1978-9 it made education the largest single area for cuts. That record gives its recent promises to spend money freely a distinctly hollow ring.
The hypocrisy of Labour's stand on education as well as the necessity for some economies must be more fully brought out during the coming weeks. The true absurdity of John Donkersley's article for the last Beaver was illustrated by his cynical description of the way the &hool has sought to make LSE more independent from government. His statist mentality forbids him to acknowledge that a service can be provided without the all-embracing control of government and still be a good, perhaps a better, service. Far from being concerned for the value of the service the customer receives, Donkersley is more concerned with politicizing education in line with his discredited policy of politicizing the Union's budget.
In my view, the Conservative Government is right to seek further economies in higher education for the following 3 reasons:
a)	to help the Government achieve the reduction in public expenditure it was elected to secure,
b)	because after this year there will be a diminishing need for university places (by the mid-1990's, there will
be 30% fewer 18 year olds as compared with the mid-1980's) c) because scope exists for improving the efficiency and performance of our university system, high though its standards undoubtedly are.
During the LSE 'Education Campaign', we will be told, as we have been before by the Labour Club's political elite that 'Education is a right not a privilege'. Really? I would have thought that the 'right' to education is not absolute but is tempered by a fjerson's ability to benefit from one type of education as well as the cost to society of the blanket provision which socialists advocate. Consideration of education merely in terms of rights obscures the fundamental question of who will benefit from which type of education. The Labour Club and its parent party have no answer to such questions, for their obsessions with equality blinds them to reality. One of their proposals is that those without 'A' levels should have full access to higher education. Yet, how can anyone compare an 18 year old with no 'A' levels and one with 4 'A's and place them in the same institution and on similar courses?
The next point at issue in this 'Education Campaign' is students' standard of living. Undoubtedly, some students are going to lose out because of Government plans to halve the minimum grant and award travel costs on a flat-rate basis. And there is continuing controversy over the high level of overseas students' fees. These are areas in which the government may still be open to persuasion. However, the increase of 4% in the main grant seems if anything over-generous inview of the amount of money some students waste. Why should students be immune from the economies which other sections of society are being forced to make?
Apart from discussion of Government policy, the 'Education Campaign' appears highly likely to focus on student demands for a better deal from the LSE authorities on certain key issues. In spite of a 'cooling-off period' there has been no abatement in the absolute determination of the whole students Union to gain 'September Resits' for those who fail part 1 of the BScECON exam. Pressure for action on other issues is also growing. There is resentment at the fact that secret files are kept on every student, files which he or she may not have access to, even if only to check their factual accuracy. Changes in the way students are assessed are also being discussed. And the minor concession of students now being allowed to sit on the Academic Policy Committee has only made many students even more committed to gaining representation on the real decisionmaking body of the School, the Academic Board.
Governments will hardly be moved by the passing of motions at a Union meeting. But the School is highly sensitive to the mood of its students. If no concessions are made on student demands at the LSE on issues which affect them so directly, the mood may soon be one of anger. The 'Education Campaign' will stand or fall on which it achieves for those students who want radical change at the LSE. I would judge that those students are now in a majority and that they expect results.
Philip Groves Academic Affairs Officer.
Calling all students interested in human rights
You have probably been accosted on a Thursday, by members of LSE Amnesty International group, and asked to write a letter to secure the release of a "prisoner of conscience" before. But, students may not realise how effective their participation has been.
Of the cases undertaken in 1983, half the prisoners were released. Between eighty and 120 letters are sent out from students per week. This makes LSE one of the largest networks in London, possibly Britain. LSE Group's location means we can contact diplomats in London. We have visited embassies including those of EI Salvador, the USSR, Chile and Haiti - where we gained an audience with the Ambassador concerning two prisoners who were later released. LSE's reputation abroad means that our letters are taken more seriously then some might expect.
The organization behind these activities is time-consuming and is presently undertaken by people who leave LSE next year. We should be pleased to meet first and second years interested in being "trained" to take over.
We meet on Mondays 1 - 2p.m. in S.53.
Joyce Parker.
A new Deal NUS 84
Page Tm
BEAVER Monday 30 January J984
PEACE
THROUGH -
NATO
Today marks the beginning of a week-long "Peace and Freedom" camapign at LSE. Below are outlined some of the views of the organisers of this campaign
PEACE and FREEDOM WEEK at LSE
Peace and Freedom week at LSE is an attempt by a group of very concerned individuals to put the case for 'Peace with Freedom.' That is 'Peace through NATO.' Peace and Freedom week will see the launch of a major peace offensive at the LSE, by people who support the Atlantic alliance and believe that Peace is best maintained by deterrence and defence and not one-sided disarmament. The vast majority of people in this country, wish to remain full and active members of the NATO alliance and support the policies of NATO, outlined by Dr. Joseph Luns, the immedite past Secretary General of NATO.
"It is the essential purpose of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to search for a more stable relationship between East and West in which the fundamental political issues dividing them can be resolved
peacefully. As matters stand, we continue to be compelled to safeguard peace through our ability to deter aggression and to protect ourselves from political blackmail. But we also continue to seek ways of improving this situation. Deterrence and defence, together with arms control and disarmament, are integral parts of Alliance security policy. The Allies remain committed to vigorous efforts in all appropriate fora to achieve substantial, balanced and verifiable arms limitations and reductions. The object of this policy is a stable military balance, if possible at reduced levels of forces.-"
However NATO is not blind to the statements of world leaders particularly those in the Eastern bloc, who like Hitler, tell us their intentions. On April 23, 1982, in his Lenin day speech Yuri Andropov said this, "The name of Leonid Ilvich Breznev
is linked ... to the triumph of the magnificent cause: the victory of communism throughout the world." Breznev himself made even more outrageous statements, such as this one in Prague in 1973, "Trust us, comrades, for by 1985, as a consequence of what we are achieving by means of detente, we will have achieved most of our objectives in Western Europe ... a decisive shift in the correlation of forces will be such that by 1985, we will be able to exert our will whenever we need to."
I urge everyone at the LSE to come and listen to the talks arranged during week beginning 20th February, particularly Dr. Geoffrey Williams, a Labour Party Member, speaking on 21st February in room A85 from 12.00 - 1.00pm, on NATO and arms control.
FREEDOM - A Definition
NATO-WARSAW PACT FORCE COMPARISON
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'Rough Justice'
Let me begin by telling you a story. Well actually, it's not my story, but told by someone far more important than my humble self. I hope he will find it in his heart to forgive me for this dastardly plagiarism upon which I embark. This was a letter which Lord Denning, the then 'Master of the Rolls' (the presiding Judge in the Court of Appeal) received from the International Students House:
Dear Lord Denning,' ... I graduated in Mechanical Engineering in the University of London and uvjs awarded a Master of Science degree. I feel I have the necessary qualifications, motivation, energy, drive and personality to begin a successful career in the motor industry. I will remain grateful to you if you could kindly help ntc to begin my career with your company, the Rolls Royce Motor Company . . . '
Talk about Ihe 'ignorance of the law being no excuse'!
However, the point 1 wish to illustrate is that there is always some aspect of the law we are all ignorant of, and, as Godwin so aptly put it, 'It is a labyrinth without an end, a mass of contraditions that cannot be disentangled'. Hear, hear all ye future lawyers!
Onwards I go, hoping against hope that you are not entirely bored and in exasperation 1 contemplate a change of article.
A couple of years ago Ms. J. was convicted on three charges of theft. She appealed, not because she was convinced of her innocence, but because she was convinced that
there was a material irregularity in the way the trial was conducted. Well you see, a jury is composed of twelve persons, at least ten of which must confirm a guilty verdict before the accused is convicted. In this instance it seems the clerk of the court asked the foreman - the elected spokesman (I apologise: spokesperson, lest the feminists take objection) of the jury - how many agreed with the verdict. To which the foreman replied: "Ten, on all three counts."
The foreman of the jury had failed to state in open court the numer of dissenting juro;s, (obviously two) and hence the irregularity in the proceedings. The surprising thing is she won! Talk about 'fiat justitia ruat coleum', which, for us ignorant few who have not yet come to terms with the mastery of this esoteric language, is, 'let justice be done though the heavens should fall'.
William Temple once said, "1 can't say I know much about the law, having been far more interested in justice". The question is, was justice done here? The letter of the law was followed, but surely not the spirit.
Well you see, the law of England is a very strange one; it cannot compel anyone to tell the truth, but what it can do is give you seven years for not telling the truth. The law has its faults but dammit, it's all we've got for better and for worse, in hope and in despair.
^ch one of us comes into conflict with the law at one time or another. The secret is that it shouldn't be too
often. But then we at the LSE seem to get more than our fair share, what with our very own anti-nuclear demonstrators.
However, getting back to the point: is not the law a mere organ of the state? The latter, Marx pointed out, "Is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the bourgeoisie". Whether one is justified in holding this opinion is open to question: after all, "One who questions opinions is wise, but one who questions facts is a fool". But then, my dear reader, some may say it's a fact, and I'm not so sure that they are wrong.
As we near the end, I can literally hear you think, 'Oh, no, let us carry on'.
I will not take up Marx at this point. In fact 1 will quote Roche who once said:
"The net of law is spread so wide No sinner from its sweep may hide. Us meshes are so fine and strong They take in every child of wrong, O wonderous web of mystery Big fish alone escape from thee."
With all due respect to Lord Denning, 1 really wonder whether he is right when he says, 'Be you ever so high the law is above you.'
Finally, "I swear by Almighty God to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth". Beware all-you people with the urge to lie in Court, bearing in mind what happened to poor old Ruth Pierce when she declared, "May God strike me dead if 1 have told a lie." And God in his infinite wisdom did.
Percy F Marchant
If, as it is said, the 18th Century was the age of reason; the 19th century the age of enlightenment, the 20th century could well be labelled as the age of humbug. Politicians often use words such as 'liberty' and 'freedom', but seldom define them. What is meant by them? Searching for an acceptable definition brings forth Ernest Bevin's attempt at the end of the war - To go to Victoria station and buy a ticket to where in the hell I like." This was clearly understood, but hardly inspiring. Sir Winston Churchill did better. In a message at the end of a visit to Italy in 1944 and again in a speech to the Belgian Senate in 1945, he made the point:
"It has been said that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. The question arises, 'What is freedom'? "There are one or two quite simple, practical tests by which it can be known in the modern world in peace conditions, namely:
"Does the government in any country rest upon a free constitutional basis, assuring the people the right to vote according to their will? Is there the right of free expression of opinion, free support, free opposition, free advocacy and free criticism of the government of the day? Are the courts of justice free
from interference by the Executive or from threats of mob violence, and free from all association with particular political parties? Will these courts administer open and well established laws associated in the human mind with the broad principles of decency and justice? Will there be fair play for the poor as well as the rich, and for private persons as well as for government officials? Will the rights of the individual, subject to his duties to the state, be maintained, asserted, and exalted? In short, do the government own the people, or do the people own the government? Here are some of the more obvious tests by which political health and soundness of any community may be ascertained. Above all there must be tolerance, the recognition of the charm of variety, and the resfwct for the rights of minorities."
This is the freedom enjoyed by the unilateralists, the democracy they attack by their actions; something that a leading unilateralist might reflect upon when he again climbs onto the Communist Party conference platform and expresses his gratitude for the work of the Communists for CND.
NEUTRALITY
Britain, some argue, would be safer if there were no nuclear weapons on our soil, a situation achievable by becoming either neutral or a non-nuclear member of the NATO Alliance. But Britain's history and geography make it difficult to see the logic of either argument.
Neutrality is a concept which has never appealed to the British; it only works for Sweden, so often quoted as an example, because, as the^ Swedish Foreign Minister said in the 1960's, the Western powers have given it their guarantee. In any case, it has the highest per capita defence expenditure in the western world.
To remain in NATO and accept the cover given by the Alliance's 'nuclear umbrella' in the way that Canada, Norway and Denmark do, is another frequently used argument. However there is no reason to believe that non-nuclear members of NATO would be any less likely to be victims of nuclear attack than those with weapons on their soil; indeed
the opposite may well be the case. When Norway and Denmark joined NATO in 1949, it was accepted by all signatories that no nuclear weapons, or for that matter foreign troops, would be based in those countries because of their close proximity to the Soviet Union.
It is important to remember that both accept the overall defence strategy of NATO which is based on nuclear weapons and, in addition, both contribute their financial share of the infrastructure for housing and installing such weapons. Both also allow periodic NATO exercises on their soil.
Canada too, while foregoing the possession of nuclear weapons, also accepts the overall NATO defence strategy and, in addition, allows the USA to test some component parts of the Cruise missile on Canadian soil because the terrain in Alberta is similar to that of Eastern Europe and Russia.
Not American Treaty Organisation
When 1 left the United States six months ago I had a notion that NATO was more of a North American than a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. The reason for this was the constant news 1 encountered of European dismay concerning their only valid military defense system and the constant blame for these on the U.S.A.
This was a provocative concept to me as 1 knew that NATO was (or seemed to be) more European than American and that the members recognise a common enemy as an imminent threat to their freedoms.
During my time here, I realized that the impression I had of NATO was all wrong! The media make it seem as though all of the decisions made in NATO are forced by America, and yet this is in no way possible. There are hundreds of experienced men across Europe in 16 NATO countries who are devoted to the protection of freedom on their
soil, and it is these men who control the destiny of NATO.
They all recognise the enemy as the force which has persistently shown its aggressive intentions with Czechoslovakia in 1968, Afghanistan in 1979, and the shooting down of an unarmed airliner just last year. Yet, the only way that these men feel that they can secure our freedom is by convincing the Soviets that it would be impossible to use their weapons without an assured retaliation capable of making the Soviet Union as unlivable as the Soviets would make any city in Europe.
But . . . we must not forget the twin NATO policies of deterence and defence, coupled with arms control and disarmament talks and that is the very point which Doctor Geoffrey Williams will address himself to at a lunchtime meeting on the 21st February' at the LSE.
Hugh Clines
BEAVER Monday 30 fanuaiy 1984
Page Eleiru
The London Arts
HOT PRESS
MERRY CHRISTMAS
Human sexuality, in all its aspects, is crucial human existence. The fight to recognise one's sexuality is part of what growing up is all about and is a part of us all. Societies, be tbey Eastern or Western, tend to suppress sexuality; Chinese women who used to have their feet bound at birth or the position of children in Victorian England clearly show this. In Oshima's characters this repressed sexuality is like a volcano beneath'^ the surface, always ready to burst forth and engulf the character and forever being held back. For Oshima such taboos can only be broken through violence and savagely and Oshima shows in that such violence is veiy much a part of the essence of Japanese culture. It is when a rural culture is thrown against it that a clash will Inevitably occur; as is the case between Jack Celllers (David Bowie) and Captain Yonoi (Riyuichl Sakamoto). In Bowie we haiv a character who seems to be pure angel and indeed seems to he the complete antithesis of the violent Yonoi, yel even he is repressing some-
thing - like we all are to some degree -Celliers is running away from his past which haunts his every move in the present. Bowie's fight to come to terms with his own self-repressive nature in turn triggers off the volcano bubbling under the surface of Captain Yonoi. To paraphrase Lawrence himself (Tom Conti); 'it was as if on that day, Cellier's death planted something very deep in the soul of Captain Yonoi, something very deep which grew and grew and eventually engulfed him.' This was true as in Sir Lauren Van der Post's own words; 'It was an understanding enlarged, a suspicion of judgement and justice heightened and in seeing how important these values are, that there are other values that transcend these, understanding, compassion, mercy and forgiveness, and that a deeper understanding of such is necessary if we are to ever have a
CITY OF THE LOST SOULS
The inevitable synopsis. The location is Berlin. The scene; Angle Stardust's fast food joint. The characters: Angle herself, black and busty, a wild blues singer who also happens to be a man Judith and Tron who perform an erotic trapeze act. Lisa, pale and biting, a transvestite singer (payed by fringe punk singer Jayne, nee Wayne, County who with his/her "electric chairs" recorded the immortal anthem "Fuck off'). Gaiy. a black dancer who loves magic and believes his mother to be a witch and leads his followers In bouts of orgiastic fuiy and Tara O'Hara a hermaphrodite striptease artist. All the ingredients for a stimulating and bizarre film, you might think; sadly this is not so.
This film by Rosa von Pranhelm Trith its obvious roots in "Cabaret" and "The Rocky Horror Show" fails where they succeeded. In an attempt to outgross them In the tradition of "la grande Bouffe" and "Pink Flamingos", "The City of the Lost Souls" is more reminiscent of children giggling over dirty words than the sympathetic attempt to portray the brlttleness, vulnerability, warmth and kindness of this varied cross-
BASICALLY
section pf sexual society that it purports to be. This film lacks perceptive, intelligent and witty charcterisation of the "Rocky Horror" film or the intricate cross-reference of "Cabaret". Instead we get the occasional dialogue heavy handidly drawn into the plot in midstream. The director obviously preferred to cover bodies in cream cakes in the slapstick fashion which made such Jokes such as "Over the Top" so tedious to passing comment. Excess sadly is not always best especially when, as in the case of this film, it breaks no new ground at all. The chance to deal with the veiy real subject matter of the dilemmas faced by a sexual outcast in an aggressively heterosexual world Is baulked at.
Nevertheless as a cabaret the film does at least provide entertainment; there are plenty of gutsy songs and moderately good Jokes. It is Just that I feel that so much more could have been done here. Perhaps however nothing more was intended and where a person may see failure another may see success.
My Silent Love
O let my love for thee begin In silence at the start, So that tny love is heard within The beating of mine heart.
The more I find I love but thee
The less I have to say, For spoken words cannot decree What silence doth convey.
So let my love for thee but flower
Without a spoken word For love of thee doth overpower My voice that would be heard.
Yet though my tacit love began
In silence at the start. Now such a beat of music can Be heard within mine heart. © N. Racine-Jaques 1984.
brotherhood of man.'
This film is a work of art, Oshima is a Japanese director, directing a Western film in an Eastern style, which is very fast and compelling and could easily leave an audience behind, yet it still manages to make you think. Oshima is never explicit in anything he does; 'Merry Xmas Mr Lawrence' is a picture full of depth and meaning, yet is is unique and refreshingly unpatronising. It is clearly has something to say, yet in the process it touches on many other issues which deeply affect us all today. As befits the style of the dirctor, the audience is simply given an impression not an expression of an idea; the rest is up to you; Lawrence; (Tom Conti) 'You know, there are times when victory is so very hard to take.'
Steve Virgin.
LIFE AFTER PUNK
UD LORST, TSLLOW LORET/ THE SKBLBZAL fAMILT UPBBIAL OOLLEOE
About three years ago punk swallowed itself up and then proceeded to spew out a whole series of, on reflection, pretty worthless bands wallowing In whingeing, magick and dry Ice. The Old Guard remain inanely thrashing away, whilst the New Sex Gang Children and the Danse Society spring easily to mind.
However the Skeletal Family and Red Lorry, Yellow Lorry appear to have managed to scrape out of this abyss with their spikes still intact. The Skeletal Family are, of course, entirely derivative; Clare Grogan's vocal antics meets X-Mal's dirge guitars meets Bauhaus' drum effects. Their song titles confirm this impression; "Ritual JuJu", etc. But somehow all these various strings pulled together to create something really quite listenable.
Red Lony, Yellow Lony may be an extremely silly name for a band but again their ideas gelled into something impressive. They showed intelligence, perception and wit, all things distinctly thin on the ground in this neck of the woods. They played it fast and said it loud; "Beating My Head", "He's Read" etc.
The problem with a lot of this music Is that standing and watching often Just isn't enough. For it to be ei;)oyable It has to force your body into action. These bands made you move. Next month some of you will be going to see the hilarious March Violets and Dead Can Dance play the I£E. Dont let them put you off - believe me there is life after punk -for me, tonight proved it.
Jtmei Btilqr
GHOST DANCE
The European Community has a lot to answer for, if the resultant cultural impact that it has Is represented by such films as Ken McMuUen's Ghost Dance. This film nonsensically revohres around a central "philosophical theme" that memoiy is a form of the past that was never present. This concept repetitively hammered out throughout the "action" remains as unclear when the film ends as when It starts. Nevertheless it also seems to necessitate that the early stages of the film, shot in the inevitable black and white, suffer from lengthy sequences of dialogue featuring that household name and philosopher Jaques Derrida.
Eventually however the film got under way. Set in Paris and the equally romantic Kentish Tows it follows the timeless exploits of two women one English, one French exploring their surroundings in a hackneyed quest to distance themselves from the present. The purpose behind the trans-Channel theme that the movie purports to portray is, I'm afraid, quite lost upon me.
At this point Just as the philosophical content of the earlier stages of the film prevent it from taking a fluid form so later anthropological themes stilt its later stages. Perhaps students of sociology may wish to see films discussing the power of myths in our society ^d the inexorable pressure they exert upon our actions. Personally I would rather such matters were kept in the lecture theatre where they can be avoided or not at will and not be subjected to such trivial
COME HOME HIPPIES
BIQHT TO HEAD nUDAT 17 L8E
1984 got off to an ominous start for I£E Ents as they hosted a benefit for the 'Right To Read' campaign against the seizure of drugs-related literature and the censorship this has Imposed. Judging by the packed Old Theatre, the right to read about William Burroughs and the Freak Brothers means an awful lot to a pretty awful lot of people -never have I seen so many weekend hippies and homebrew socialists in one room.
On stage compere John Hegley treated us to his pseudo-inane poems - a true anti-comedian, he knows and exploits the value of silence. 1 think he's more fun with his Popticians; alone on stage tonight he seemed a little flat, but his pinprick cynicism found a place in the audience's hearts.
They liked madcap Mancunian John Dowie even more as he gleefully insulted their pretensions - 'correct' pronunciation of arty names, hessian wallpaper, videos. After an all-out onslaught on the boundaries of tastelessness - I didnt find his brand of sickness amusing - he refused to encore because "This is about the Right To Read, not showbusiness'. It's good to see such commitment in a performer (ha, ha).
Things got really radical when The Greatest Show on Legs (ex OTT) demonstrated their poster dance. I felt so liberated watching naked men prance about covered only with posters of Mrs.T. To the loudest applause of the evening, one was ritually incinerated. Very surprising.
With great relief the interval was announced. Escapng the overpowering and Illicit sweet stench of self-righteous hippie-dom, I realised it was impossible to return. On the bus home John Hegley assured me that Tony Allen, Sharon Landau and head-liner Beifjamin Zephaniah all put in excellent performances.
All credit to Dave Bull and the Ents team for their commitment to benefit gigs and for the impressive line-up. It's Just a pity that the crowd cant find a better issue to oppose the Government on than drugs, and even this is used as a guilt clause. Eveiy face radiated smug self-satisfaction. I made me feel sick.
Cindy Snidi
discussion. In fact, with its pocket book references to revolutionary theory, criminology and Freudian psychology this film manages unintentionally to create the impression of the mental set-up of an initiate let loose in the teaching collection for five minutes with the task of creating an intellectually questioning film plct and who consequentially reads a lot of inner sleeves without understanding any of them.
Its pretensions aside, this film does contain some interesting and vibrant fractured imagery, together with a film score whose forceful monotony Brian Eno would have been proud of Waves crash, photos of martyrs are cast upon the sea, the ghetto blaster... blasts, the man on the roof drums, as naked bodies squirm in the refuge of the decrepid canal, that sort of thing. Furthermore Mc Mullen in his impromptu direction and his inventive use of camera angles has managed to make his limited budget, a hindrance to many, one of the film's strengths.
The film will also hold the interest of thos numerous inhabitants of North London who can play "spot my local supermarket" as the action winds its way along the Regent's Canal through familiar turf. "Ghost Dance" is not a film I could honestly recommend. Nevertheless it might make an interesting movie to project on the wall at home or have idly playing on the video; as long as the volume knob is turned right off. Ony Wirrlngton.
THE HONORARY CONSUL
Graham Greene's work is well suited to the cinema and the latest film to be made from one of his books is currently doing the rounds of the West End. Set in an Argentinian border town, "The Honourary Consul' is about the accidental kidnapping of a British part-time diplomat by Paraguayan rebels and about the conflict which ensues between the Consul's friend Eduardo Piatt, the guerillas and government. Piatt is a doctor whose father was held in a Paraguayan Jail and who he thinks is still alive. He gets to know the drunken consul and then begins a relationship with his teenage ex-prostitute wife. Then the consul is mistaken for the American Ambassador and kidnapped by guerillas who Piatt had Initially helped. Then the problems start and Piatt sees his friend about to be killed by the guerillas among who number several of his childhood fMends.
Technically this film is very well made and camera work and locations are good. The script also works well and the dramatic excitement and frustration of the book are maintained successfully. However casting weakens the overall effect as Richard Gere looks and sounds too confident and makes Piatt a more heroic and less tortured character than he should be. Similarly the police chief is a little too Jovial. However Michael Caine Is superb as the drunken sweating expat who has at last found someone he loves. It is definitely one of Calne's best performances and to a veiy large extent he makes the film work.
Visually the effect is perhaps a bit too glossy and fails to create the atmosphere of dirt and depression which is essential to Greene's south American novels; the cars are a bit too new. the army uniforms a bit too pristine. Yet this does not do any severe damage. The main Impact of the film which is basically disturbing is that it shows a man trapped between the taxes of the state and the holds of his friends on him. Piatt is lured into a trap through fiiendship and from then on is doomed yet he does not realise it until he is virtually certain of a violent end. On the whole it is a good night's entertainment but if you have read the book you may find the film a bit shallow.
Ptt Hayes.
Page Fourtffn
BEAVER Monday 30 january 1984
-BEAVER --
SPORT
HOUGHTON STREET HARRY
(RACING)
Houghton Street Harry is unfortunately incapacitated, due to a recent fall from a horse. He is busy recovering, as well as gathering information from the stables at Lambourn.
Men's Hockey
LSE vs Royal School of Mines 1-0 Despite the absence of Andrew Taylor - LSE's top scorer of the season - LSE had all the pressure in the first half but all too often the final pass went astray. There were however some good efforts from Paul Lambert, Ron Cautley and Graeme Powell. The second half continued in much the same way until quarter an hour from the end, Paul Lambert picked up a loose ball, drove into the circle, and slipped it past the keeper. The last fifteen minutes saw some fine saves from Julian Bird as R.S.M. finally attacked. This result maintained LSE's position at the top of the league and virtually assures them of promotion.
LSE FOOTBALL FOURTH ELEVEN
Women's 1st XI HOCKEY
With just one game of their season to go, LSE IVth Eleven is poised to win league 4R and gain promotion. As one of LSE's lowlier teams, the 4ths have had considerable success this season due largely to tremendous loyalty from the players and some fine individual performances. Not only is the team LSE's most successful, but Andy Williams, the team's striker, is the club's leading goal scorer, with 23 goals in just eleven games. The success of the 4ths has been based on competitive hard football which has paid dividends. The team has lost only twice and
once with only ten men, and never by a margin greater than one goal. The team has also been blessed with several regular players who have been notable for their reliability. If the team does win its trial game and the 4ths do gain their first honours for some time it will certainly be well deserved, and it can only be good for the club when the lower clubs who are often just used as feeders by the higher levels gain success. 1 would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has played for us throughout the season.
Pat Hayes
Saturday 28lh January. LSE vs Guys Hospital 5-1
After a bad start we found ourselves 0-1 down at half time. A splendid comeback in the 2nd half, with sujjerb goals from Debbie Holgate, Caroline Shields, our captain Helen Taylor, Anna Renton, Daria Cali-guire, meant that we won the game convincingly 5-1.
Wednesday Ist February. LSE vs Wye College 2-fl.
A wet, cold day clearly marred our obviously superior skills, and even without the inspirational leadership of our captain Helen Taylor we were
admirably led from behind by Helen Bladen. Excellent goals from Debbie Holgate and Caroline Shields clinched the match.
Saturday 4th February. LSE vs Robinson College, Cambridge. — The team travelled to Cambridge for a key fixture. Unfortunately due to mismanagement by the supposedly superior Cambridge team the match had been cancelled by the time we arrived (it was Helen's fault really!). Instead we spent a profitable afternoon enjoying the cultural delights of Cambridge, some of them in the cinema!	Susannah Umbers
y4e ACten«Mtc(/ie
m
Scorpio (24 October - 22 November) You certainly know how to protect yourself. . . although you are adept at finding out what is going on in someone else's mind, you don't like showing your own feelings too much. Loyalty and realism are two of the virtues you possess, but you should try to soften your personality a fraction and appreciate the emotional needs of others a little more. Admil you don't like being told what to do, but remember no-one is invincible and most people need advice sometimes.
patience is a great attribute. But does life sometimes seem unfair? Do you sometimes wish you could have more fun? Having been singled out as the worker of the zodiac, you are willing to shut yourself off from the lighter side of life and creep into a shell. You must stop being so pessimistic and realize that you can work hard and enjoy life.
T

Sagittarius (23 November - 22 December)
Sagittarians can suffer setbacks which would send the rest of us reeling and still not lose their wonderful belief in life. Being the positive sign you arc, you benefit from having masses of optimism, an adverturous disposition and a sense of humour. It is not however being positive to be constantly moralizing to everyone else simply because they think differently to you. Beware of being tactless, inconsiderate and too independant.	,
Aquarius (20 January - 19 February) Being an idealist who believes firmly in truth, equality and fairness, you often find yourself rebelling with a cause. Sometimes however your ideas can be too futuristic and impracticable. Although you should be proud of being the humanitarian of the Zodiac; you should try to blend your idealism and inventiveness with a little more realism. Make sure also that you pay enough attention to your immediate family and those nearest to you.
Airies (22 March - 20 April)
Arians are resourceful and practical people, often successful in business and born leaders. If you want to improve your personality begin by writing "Patience is a virtue" on a card and displaying it prominently in your room. The popular image of the Arian is one of an impulsive, aggressive character - why not rise to the challenge of disproving this in your case and start by curbing your temper. Always remember to employ tact and diplomacy too -these are as valuable as enthusiasm and vitality.
able and yet sometimes almost selfish. You are both quick-witted, and popular because you are good company. Remember, if you have a sf)ecial talent you also have the ability to convince other people of it's existence and if you would just learn to channel all your energy in the right direction you will surprise some of those who may have accused you unfairly of unreliability and fickleness.
sibilities and less on your social life. Admiration is very important to you and you usually manage to obtain it.
TO
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a
H
vs
Capricorn (23 December - 19 January)
You don't usually mind how long it takes you to achieve your objectives as long as they are reached; your
Pisces (20 February - 21 March)
Just because you consider yourself a gentle water sign, it is neither necessary nor wise for you to allow yourself to drift aimlessly through life. It is time to sift the practical from the impractical, and see the world as it truly is. You can't afford illusions anymore. Life will become much easier if you think more about and are more careful in what you do. Try to develop talents which so far you have allowed to remain dormant.
Taurus (21 April - 21 May) You would never let anyone down if something is required of you, and your practical nature means you are always in demand. But are you fulfilled in your life? In order to become so, you should try to combat your fear of change; don't let the thought that your security might be jeopardized deter you from doing something in which you know deep down you can succeed. To be a happier character, shed some of your pessimism and obstinacy.
Cancer (23 June - 23 July)
Having the Moon as your ruler it would be impossible for you to be bright and outgoing all the time. You may not be able to avoid those moods which turn you into a misery but you should learn to control your incredibly sensitive nature if someone doesn't pay you the attention you feel you deserve. Don't cling too much to the past or let anyone accuse you of being too much like your symbol, the crab, by clinging to people when they may need Jo feel free.
Virgo (24 August - 23 September) You need a considerable challenge to make you realize your full potentia'.. Don't put yourself (and others) down so much; to err is human you know. Stop being such a hypochondriac and use your sense of humour more; thinking about problems all the time creates them - at least mentally. Relax more and stop taking on the worries of the world -remember you only have one pair of shoulders.

Gemini (22 May - 22 June) The duality embodied in your sign is reflected in the fact that you can be both exciting and infuriating, love-
Leo (24 July - 23 August)
Your pride is there for all to see, but remember pride comes before a fall. Perhaps some of your extrovert behaviour reflects a fear of appearing the least bit vulnerable - that is a ridulous fear because everyone is vulnerable. You are one of the most generous and warm of the signs, but should devote more time to respon-
Libra (24 September - 23 October) Your sign has always been thought of as well balanced because your symbol is "the scales". Yet you often need someone else to balance them. Why not try to make decisions all by yourself for once, resisting the urge-to ask for advice. Librans should strive not only to remedy their inde-dsiveness, but also another aspect of their character; they are often accused of laziness. Your sen.se of fair play is however a great attribute.
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CLUES Across:
1 'To be or I down, that is 25, 22 -to suffer the 28 of 10 fortune . . . ' (6,2,3,4)
9 Author of above (11)
10 See 1 across (10)
13	Bend in time with fever (4)
14	Gere's stage performance brings sweet gifts (6,4)
16 A crowd in church (4)
18	Team up for food (4)
19	Be on top, like a blade perhaps (4„4)
21	Mysterious writer brings boy back around the hospital (4)
22	See 1 across (7,3)
25 See 1 across (3,8)
28 See 1 across (6,3,6)
Down
1	See 1 across (3,2,2)
2	Hem in the east among the greatest (5)
3	Made tea awfully without noticing, first originated (8)
4	That is round about the rocks (3)
5	Knock mine back for a gratuity
(3)
6	Out before the morning for a test
(4)
7	How nice to be in Browning's
8 Those who repudiate the fineness of silk (7)
11	Humbug to be applied externally (3-4)
12	Tune gun up for ointment (7) 15 Food mixer - get this, pa! (9)
17	Deduce one or worse (8)
18	Dan gets confused in the muddle - it's insanity! (7)
20 Makes certain to put watch back and runs around inside (7)
23	Leave after beat dance (5)
24	Ask around right piece of 4 (4)
26	Girl runaway hid (3)
27	Spoken without one being upset (3)
SOLUTION FROM LAST ISSUE: Across; 1 Take the high road, 9 Naturists, 19 Ridge, 11 Taste, 12 Lease, 14 Pus, 15 Prestidigitator, 18 Private practice, 22 Ant, 23 Tarot, 25 Padua, 27 Desks, 29 Concourse, 30 Training Classes.
Down: 1 Tank-top, 2 Kites, 3 Torment, 4 Easel, 5 Its, 6 Harvest, 7 Odd, 8 Dresser, 13 Anger, 14 Patti, 16 Exist, 17 Drear, 18 Plaudit, 19 Artisan, 20 Coppola, 21 Erasers, 24 Tonic, 26 Darts, 28 Spa, 29 Can. MIKE HUTCHINSON.
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home thoughts (2,7)
First correct entry received by the editors wins a £10 book token from the Economists Bookshop
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