York’s students tonight elected ex-Vanbrugh Chair Kallum Taylor as their new YUSU President.
Taylor fought off tough competition from Zahra Latif, who finished in second place with 1745 votes, and third-placed Nacho Hernando to claim an emotional victory.
Taylor took 2129 votes to gain victory, and spoke to Vision after his win:
“WOW WOW WOW, I can’t believe what happened, I could not have imagined it in my wildest dreams, we need to get York out of the back seat and into the front seat. The team put in so much effort.” He went on to say: “I did not worry about the other candidates. We’ll keep doing what we are doing, everyone has been great.”
The first policy Taylor wants to implement is regarding value for money. “In the climate we live in it’s crucial for York Students to get their own back,” he said. “I’m someone who is going to say when right is right and wrong is wrong. I want to get every representative of the Uni off the fence. If I have my way it won’t just be four or five students, it’ll be thousands.” He added: “I want to use the experience of Graeme and Bob to the max.”
Despite speaking of a heavy night out to follow, Taylor still claims he will be up at 10am on Friday morning to play football for Vanbrugh 5ths.
Current President Tim Ellis told Vision: “Kallum worked really hard at his campaign and deserves it. It’ll be a great year next year. Massive well done to all the presidential candidates, they all had great manifestos, including the moonbase guy!”
Taylor is joined by a new sabbatical team of Graeme Osborn as Academic Officer, Chris West as Student Activities Officer, Bob Hughes as Welfare Officer and Charlotte Winter as York Sport President – the only female member of this year’s team.
Both Osborn and Hughes held onto their respective positions while West defeated Hannah Brearley and Helen Marrison to claim victory, and Winter defeated Dong-Oh Shin.
Still hearing mumblings about complaints for Kallum’s campaign, including expenses.
I’m a Kallum supporter. YUSU’s Returning Officer OK’d his expenses, that should be enough. However, I’d like to see him come out and publicly state his expenses? Why not write something for Vision (or Nouse – lol) and outline all of his expenses, even if just as a web comment? Would just put this all to bed and we can go on with a fantastic YUSU President!
ALL HAIL OUR NEW GLORIOUS LEADER!
As an outsider who has watched quite a few of these campaigns over the years, I thought this year’s bunch of candidates (generally) did themselves proud. It’s great to see so much energy being oput into campaigns and in nearly all cases I think the Union would have been in safe hands. It was nice to candidates from without the usual cliques as well.
Personally I thought Kallum did really well and deserved it. He obviously wanted it given the amount of time he put in. I also think that for an ex-chair to carry their college so comprehensively is a real achievement and not simply a consequence of collegiate tribal mentality. Vanbrugh love him because he works hard. Simple.
My only cautious, tentative, concern about the elections is that yet again an incumbent (2 in fact) won. I can completely appreciate that people like Bob and George (and others before them) feel that there is work left to do and that they are the right people. Both seem nice guys and have obviously worked really hard this year. However, it is almost impossible for anyone to overturn an incumbent. Politics around the globe shows us that. YUSU history shows us that (when it has happened there have been obvious reasons). Again, I have nothing against George, but as the incumbent, who can simply take time off work to campaign should he wish, has such a head start. Of course they have earned it to a certain extent by winning the previous year and doing a good job, but still it seems a disproportionate advantage – especially with those students who are perhaps not as engaged as others.
I feel you get the representative you deserve and the students took part in great numbers and have a great team. But I feel a little sorry for Eppie in particular, who not only would have done a cracking job, but who I honestly believe in a straight first-time race with George would have stood a real chance of victory
Graeme. Sorry
@Jess
The Returning Officer didn’t ‘okay’ his expenses – He exceeded the maximum allowable spend. That late in the day though, the RO can either kick Kallum out, or not do so. He didn’t kick Kallum off the ballot, but that doesn’t mean Kallum didn’t do wrong. He seems a good guy, but I’m very sad to see him so regularly disregarding Union rules.
I was with Kallum when he was pulled up by the RO over his expenses. Kallum was given until 7.30pm to reply, but he did so much sooner. Within a few hours, after walking through his expenses with the RO (who then additionally called NUS headquarters to confirm) they were satisfied that Kallum did not break any rules. They had told Kallum that they would kick him out if they felt this had been breached, but nearly 5 hours before the results were announced, it had been confirmed that there were no problems.
The reason why Kallum won by 400-odd votes was through campaigning 7am-midnight everyday and showing the passion he has for this university. I personally cannot wait to see what he brings to the table next year.
How do you know that Oliver Blackburn?
Or are you just bullshitting?
Comment edited by moderator.
I have to take issue with your point about incumbents “Kevin Webster’s Moustache”. I can see why you might think that it’s better to have a fresh face every year and incumbents do certainly have an advantage in terms of name recognition, but your thought that they also have an advantage because they can just take time off work to campaign as they wish literally couldn’t be more wrong. Candidates do frequently miss most or all of their contact hours during an election but sabbs still have to go into work every day. There are meetings they cannot miss and things that simply have to get done. I know for a fact that Graeme was frustrated because he felt there was no way he could do as much campaigning as Eppie because he had commitments that he absolutely couldn’t get out of. And as Bob is also clearly committed to his job I’m fairly sure he wasn’t just slacking off work in order to campaign either. If anything incumbents are actually at a disadvantage in this respect. And knocking an incumbent off their seat can obviously be done; Bob did it last year.
Kallum, I find you very attractive.
Some say he invented the burger, and once, on his 3rd birthday, shot a 38 under par round a golf with 11 holes in one, and promptly retired from the sport. All we know is… he is our Dear Leader and Hero of The Democratic People’s Republic of the University of York, Kallum Taylor.