Council Report for Lent 2017

Posted on Apr 7, 2017 by Robin Stanley Taylor

On Wednesday I made my penultimate appearance before the college corporation to present a report on what the council had done since Christmas. When I do this for the sixth and final time in July, my Wilberforce days will effectively be finished.

We only had one normal meeting in January – the most memorable business being a question about Panini provision in the canteens – the other three were given over to outsiders. One week we were given a lesson on British values, and asked about what we considered to be integral to national identity. In the next we were given safeguard training – our assistant principal Ben Wallis took us through the college’s security procedures and taught us how to identify signs of radicalisation. The month was closed out by a visit from representatives of the University of Hull, who wanted a focus group to review their latest prospectus.

In February Mr Wallis returned to brief us on the Area-Based Review (this I learned at the previous corporation meeting in December but certain information was still classified). Having rejected the incentives offered by the government to convert to academy status, Wilberforce will instead be teaming up with Franklin, Wyke and John Leggott colleges to form a new federation (though I am told there is still a dispute about the name). We also began planning for a fundraising event for Comic Relief.

At the beginning of March the Council assisted with a voter registration presentation – handing out leaflets instructing students on how to join the electoral rolls. Our major triumph of this term was Red Nose Day, on which our sweet stall and archery competition raised just over a hundred pounds.

Aside from this, the persistent topic of debate during our weekly meetings was the problem of littering and vandalism on campus. In the previous year the litter problem had been far worse – certain communal areas being continually strewn with food waste and discarded packaging – but although the staff had taken measures this year to tackle the problem – repeated offenders being made to clean the college in high-visibility jackets – there were still frequent complaints from students who struggled to find tables not strewn with filth, and some of the boys’ toilets have been closed for months due to heavy damage. Sitting in on one Council meeting, the senior management told us that hand dryers were being kicked off walls, mirrors smashed, pipes bent and drains blocked with severe financial consequences for the college.

I confessed that we could not find any viable solutions beyond what had already been tried. Some councillors suggested greater use of closed circuit television and card scanners on toilet doors, but this was rejected on the grounds of expense (personally I also found the idea rather Orwellian in its implications). What staff (and governors) suggested to us was that students themselves needed to collectively enact a culture shift, and to act quickly when they saw their peers misbehaving. Doubts about this system were immediately apparent: Fundamentally the problem lies with the way that a sixth-form college is constituted in comparison with a school – the “ethos” as my old headmaster would say. Whereas a school environment is highly structured and controlled, with clearly defined boundaries of acceptability and an obvious presence of authority, a sixth-form college is by nature more open and decentralised. The lack of form groups or assemblies means that the didactic approach is unavailable (indeed, distributing any information to the whole student body usually proves an unreliable and cumbersome endeavour), and the resulting lack of any close-knit community, amplified by the high turnover of students from one year to the next as a course only runs for 2-4 years rather than 5-7, means that establishing any values in the collective student consciousness will always be an uphill struggle. The only remaining idea was to have lectures given by the learning progress mentors in the style of those on British values, though we cannot guarantee that sessions would be attended and attention paid.

Following my presentation, I was addressed by another governor, Diana Palmer, with a notice about Brain Tumour Research. She expressed a hope that the council could organise an event at some point in the Trinity term to raise money for this charity. I agreed to move the item at our next meeting – which was yesterday. In our twelfth and final plenary of the Lent term we agreed to stage “Wear A Hat Day” on Friday 12th May.

Our council now prorogues for the Easter holiday, to sit next on Thursday 27th April. Most likely our sessions from then on will be for another end of year event.

Not long left now!

Applicant Experience Day in Hull

Posted on Apr 3, 2017 by Robin Stanley Taylor

Dear Elliot

With just one month to go before the UCAS deadline for university choices, I find myself hurriedly scrambling around for chances to visit all of the places to which I have applied. Having visited Leeds in November, then interviewed (unsuccessfully) for Cambridge in December, I still needed to look around Bristol and Hull, both of which were happy to give me offers before Christmas without any further demands. Durham, in case you had wondered, rejected me in February, so there will be no visit to log here.

A far cry from the rampant road rage through Leeds and the tumultuous train journey to Cambridge, this university sits just five miles from Wilberforce, so today’s events could be booked at just a few days notice and accessed with a fairly short commute. It was also the least novel of the lot, given that I had already visited the campus for a UCAS fair last June, as well as attending the Top of the Bench competition twice and doing five days work experience at the Department of Chemistry in July 2013.

At the end of the winding concrete path from the car park I found myself at a brightly coloured tent where organisers in red hoodies scanned my ticket and gave me a transparent plastic folder containing a several leaflets and a branded pen. I was then essentially left to my own devices for the rest of the day – there were multiple activities on offer but I was never actively ushered from one to another. This meant I could find time to reacquaint myself with the environment.

My first visit was, naturally, to the Brynmor Jones library. When last looked it was undergoing a major refurbishment, with the result that scaffolding and dust sheets were visible on several floors while others were closed off entirely (the lift doors would open to reveal just a blank white wall barring one’s disembarkation. Four years on the work had been concluded and the library resembled the lovechild of a business-class departure lounge and a luxury hotel. There were even moulded metal water fountains just beyond each set of lifts.

Having finished browsing the collection I went back outside to join a guided walking tour of the campus. Our guide avoided covering many specific details, preferring instead to point out generic landmarks and walking routes that could apply to the majority of students. I then went to the Middleton Hall for a lecture about the student experience. In the tall chamber of curved wood and distant spotlights (perhaps resembling a cinema more than a lecture hall), we were shown a film about the weekly routine of an average student, narrated by a recent graduate. He was keen to emphasise the wide range of sporting activities and social venues available, as well as highlighting Hull’s City of Culture status this year.

The lecture finished just before midday, so I headed to the Chemistry block for the start of the course-specific afternoon events. Whereas four years ago one could simply press a contact button on the exterior door to alert the receptionists and have it opened, I now find that it is accessible only by card. The students conducting the afternoon events (themselves stranded on the doorstep) explained that the reception had been relocated to another building, and indeed I saw that the reception office had seemingly disappeared altogether.

After an extensive buffet lunch (featuring the triangular sandwiches, loose crisps, large jugs of juice and trays of flapjacks which only ever seem to appear in this specific situation) we were given a tour of the complex – our guide (Dr Mike Hird) explaining that the really dangerous experiments were kept on the top floor – and shown the £300,000 Nuclear Magnetic Resonance scanner. At a smaller lecture hall downstairs another faculty member (Dr John R Williams) talked us through the timetabling and content of the course, as well as his techniques for retaining information.

Our last activity was molecular modelling, guided by one of the PhD. I have dealt with model kits before, but these were different, coming out of small plastic bags and being generally more fiddly. We were asked to make the most complicated hydrocarbon we could manage (I ended up with 2,3-dimethylbutane.), then to model glucose and fructose (I ran out of oxygen atoms, and had to cannibalise the alkanes for hydrogen.), then to react them together as if for a dehydration.

When all this had finished we returned to the entrance hall for a formal goodbye from the faculty. Dr Williams wished me well in my studies – a somewhat paradoxical encouragement given that he knew Hull would most likely be my insurance choice – and I made my departure.

Four down, one to go.

Yours, Robin.

Meeting Michael Foale CBE

Posted on Mar 1, 2017 by Robin Stanley Taylor

Do my teeth look okay?

During the eighteen months during which I have been a Wilberforce Student, I have met many notable figures. By last Christmas the college had hosted two MPs, an MEP, a baron and a bishop. Today, though, we had an astronaut.

Colin Michael Foale CBE PhD has experience of six shuttle missions, and holds the record for the most time spent in space by any UK citizen. Today he gave a presentation about his career path to being an astronaut. He originally believed that only pilots could have gone onto space missions, but instead found his way in as a scientist.

He attended Queens’ College, Cambridge, attaining a first class degree in Natural Sciences and later a doctorate in Laboratory Astrophysics.Twice he unsuccessfully applied to NASA. Dr Foale showed us footage of the Challenger disaster in 1986, when a shuttle blew up barely a minute after launch and killed all seven occupants. After the disaster, Foale told us, enthusiasm for space only grew. He told us that for his third application essay he abandoned talk of his lifelong dreams and instead focused on the difficulties that the administration then faced, particularly relating to the crash. He was accepted in 1987.

He may have fixed a space station, but can he master Power Point?

During his tenure Foale suffered catastrophes of his own. He gave a graphic account the time in 1997 when the Progress M-34 supply craft collided with the Mir station. Ordinarily the Progress ships used the Kurs radio telemetry system to facilitate its docking procedures. This was manufactured by the Kiev Radio Factory, and following the dissolution of the Soviet Union it fell under the jurisdiction of the independent Ukraine, whereas most other things relating to space flight were inherited by the Russian Federation. The Russian Federal Space Agency was at the time facing severe budget cutbacks due to economic troubles and resented having to pay its former constituent republic vast sums of money for the use of Kurs, and so wanted to examine the option of going without. This particular docking attempt was therefore done under the TORU system – meaning that the ship was controlled manually with a camera and two joysticks.

In his presentation, Dr Foale told us (with the aid of his own amateur footage) that the pilot had misjudged the angle of approach, with the result that M-34 damaged Mir‘s solar panels and punched a hole in the Spektr module. Foale was sent into the Soyuz escape craft with the expectation that Mir would be abandoned. He recalled the sensation of his ears popping as the interior began to de-pressurise. Instead they stayed on board to insert a hatch over Spektr’s entrance to seal of the other modules. This stemmed the air leak, but getting it into position required the uncoupling of several cables, with the result that the station lost power. It was also tumbling in space, its orbit having been disrupted by the collision. Foale used his scientific education to analyse the movement of the stars past his window, and from that worked out how to stabilise the station using Soyuz‘s rockets. Eventually power returned when Mir drifted back into sunlight.

Spektr damaged by the collision

We were also shown some of the comparatively mundane realities of living in space. Videos were shown of Foale exercising with bungee straps in lieu of gravity, and of drinking water from a floating sphere. The students also saw a fly-through tour of another space station, showing crew at work and internal walls lined with sacks of spare underwear.

When the presentation proper concluded, Dr Foale took questions from his audience. I asked him what he saw in the future of manned space travel, and he told me to look out for inflatable hotels arriving next year. He also said that things would really kick off when valuable materials could be mined from other planets.

After about ten minutes of questions and answers, the fire alarm went off. In contrast to the instant evacuations which that noise would normally trigger, staff went out to investigate before confirming that we had to leave. The presentation informally concluded in the car park, where Dr Foale took some more questions from passers-by and stopped for some group photographs. Following the all-clear, our guest went back indoors for an interview with BBC Radio Humberside. I and three other students followed him so that we could be interviewed as well.

That evening our visitor did another presentation, though for paying external guests rather than Wilberforce students. Throughout the day we also had a planetarium, lent to us by the University of Hull, set up in the atrium, and visiting pupils from other schools in the area.

Dr Foale was accompanied in his visit by Chris Barber of the International Space School Educational Trust. He advised us that if ever we set up an organisation we should look for a more memorable name. He also remarked that the demolition of two of his former residences showed the degree to which Hull honoured his legacy.

FURTHER READING

Dear Elliot

Aside

Dear Elliot

I failed.

Public Domain Day 2017

Posted on Jan 1, 2017 by Robin Stanley Taylor

Monochrome, a suited man with a moustache holds a book.

Wells in 1890.

In most of Europe, a work that is published within the creator’s lifetime remains under copyright for seventy years after their death. As 2016 ends, the works of people who died in 1946 become freely available to all. Such people include…

Helen Bannerman

Helen was born in Edinburgh, but after marrying an officer from the Indian Medical Service she moved to Madras for thirty years. She wrote several children’s books about the Indian people, most famously The Story of Little Black Sambo, in which a small child is chased around a tree by tigers. Bannerman was also the grandmother of Professor Sir Tom Kibble.

The Lord Keynes

Perhaps history’s most famous economist, John Maynard Keynes is the founder of the Keynesian school of economic thought which held that the state should intervene to buffer against depressions and recessions. He has a long list of publications over the course of thirty-six years, but his most notable is A Treatise on Money, where he said that a recession would occur where saving exceeded investment, and that a nation’s wealth should be measured by national income rather than possession of gold.

Paul Nash

Primarily an artist rather than an author, Nash was posted to the Western Front with the Hampshire Regiment where he made sketches of life in the trenches. When sent back to London with a broken rib, he completed a series of twenty images which went on exhibition twice. He was later commissioned as an official war artist. In his next outing to the front he made “fifty drawings of muddy places” which eventually formed another collection. In World War Two he was made an artist for the Royal Air Force where he produced paintings of aeroplanes and the Battle of Britain.

Herbert George Wells

Dubbed by some as the father of science fiction, Wells’s bibliography spans more than fifty years. As well as the obvious classics – The Time Machine, The Island of Doctor Moreau, The Invisible Man and The War of the Worlds – he also did non-fiction work such as Text-Book of Biology and a great many political publications such as War and the Future, The Way the World is Going and In Search of Hot Water and instruction books such as Little Wars which set out the rules for toy soldiers.

Further Reading:

2017 in Public Domain

Interview at Selwyn College

Posted on Dec 15, 2016 by Robin Stanley Taylor

A bush-lined path with a black sign bearing the words "Selwyn College Beware Cyclists"

For Elliot.

Applying to the University of Cambridge was never going to be an easy undertaking. Already I had to submit my UCAS application several months before everyone else, then send of a long series of forms, then sit an entrance examination. Finally (for this year at least) I had to travel to Cambridge in person to attend three interviews with the faculty.

It would not have been feasible to make the journey there and back in a single day, so I left home on Tuesday 13th December and headed for Hull Paragon. I took the 11:23 to Doncaster where, according to my ticket receipt, I was supposed to catch a connection to Stevenage. The timetable, however, was thrown off by a failure some way down the line so I was ushered onto a different service (actually a much earlier train which had already been stuck at Doncaster for about an hour) and told to get off at Peterborough instead. Naturally all of my other connections were lost and so wound up taking the scenic route through Ely before finally arriving in Cambridge at 16:30. My hopes of arriving in daylight had been dashed.

Undeterred I left the station and headed for Selwyn College. This did not go to plan so some time later I returned to the station and got a taxi instead. That journey was much faster (owing to the driver’s unconventional interpretation of both speed limits and the road-pavement divide) and I was able to receive my room key from the porter’s lodge. My accommodation did not have an en suite bathroom – this was shared with the neighbouring room – but it did have a piano, which is not found in most hotel rooms. I was also given six meal vouchers to be used in the dining hall.

The Dining Hall

Selwyn’s campus has a split identity: I was housed in Old Court (which you see on most publicity shots), filled with nineteenth-century Gothic revivalism. Behind this, though, you will find a series of strikingly modern buildings for the actual teaching. There is also Ann’s Court, which seems mostly to be of Palladian design.

My first interview was with Doctor Rosie Bolton and Professor Bill Clegg. Bolton showed me a photograph of a walking lawn sprinkler and had me calculate the rate of water flow, the pressure and various other quantities. Clegg then showed me a molecular diagram of a large solid and asked me about the science of driving a wedge through it.

My second interview was with M Smith and Doctor James Keeler. Smith asked me to differentiate and integrate the graphs of trigonometric functions, then Keeler quizzed me on electrophilic addition.

The last session was the general interview. Doctor Daniel Beauregard pondered my career interests beyond university and wanted to know about my extra-curricular interests (such as the internet company and the tower). He also asked for copies of my modular examination certificates. The formal business of my visit was thus concluded. In an excursion spread over three days, the interviews themselves had comprised little more than an hour.

The train station on the morning I left.

After the second night I departed Selwyn and walked back to the railway station. The return journey was far easier as the station was regularly signposted whereas the university was not, though while walking through a large leafy park I did wonder if I had gone astray, and at least one street sign appeared to have been rotated from its proper orientation. The trains back to Hull were all on schedule so I did not need to deviate from my planned route (coincidentally the planned route for the return was the same as the makeshift one for the original journey).

The application process is now out of my hands. I await the post on 11 January for the college’s decision.

Council Report for Michaelmas 2016

Posted on Dec 8, 2016 by Robin Stanley Taylor

The meeting didn’t last that long, did it?

Today was my last day at college for this year. Next week I shall be in Cambridge, giving an interview of Selwyn College, and after that the Christmas holiday begins. I may not see Wilberforce until January.

This term began for me exactly three months ago on Thursday 8th September. As the student council had dissolved several weeks prior, I had the odd experience of reverting to nothingness for the first few days. This state of affairs, though, was short-lived: I had already been asked to return as Secretary for my second year and my reappointment had near-immediate effect.

Last year the council had a slow start as our convener, Katherine Oldershaw, held an introductory session first and then launched the presidential elections. Only after Thomas Gill had been declared victorious (with Miss Alice Longton as his Vice-President) did the council finally begin on the 10th November. This time, per our requests, we had our first meeting on 22nd September. The fact that we had changed the order of events meant that the council was headless for the first four meetings. Katherine essentially made me the acting leader, including making provisional portfolio appointments and chairing once in her absence. The new members (there were only three continuing presences) were eager to make suggestions for improving the college, in particular putting forth a proposal for a so-called “Holistic Pamper Day” to ease the stress of examinations.

Our first major event was on 6th October, when councillors ran a stall at the college’s Freshers’ fair. This aimed to get more people involved in the council, as well as advertising the presidential election and selling cards for the National Union of Students. The election itself was done by email, with polls open from 17th to 21st October. The winner was Mr Sohaib Muhammad, while the runner up (who then became Vice-President) was Miss Reham Bela.

On 4th November, The Lord Norton of Louth gave his speech. My report on the event made its way to Gina Page, Assistant Private Secretary at the Lord Speaker’s Office, who seemed rather impressed.

On 10th November the council’s scheduled meeting was replaced by a session with Tim Blackburn, who wished to advertise to us the Seeds of Change programme. He suggested that students form a company (his preferred form was the worker co-operative, and he gave us pamphlets to this effect) to sell the produce grown on college grounds, in particular concentrating on pizzas with college-grown toppings. He also showed us the kinds of things which could have been bought with the profits, such as outdoor shelters or new furniture.

I was not present for the Children in Need events of 18th November, but reports said that the council had collectively raised £70 for its part. At our meeting on 1st December we debated whether to go ahead or not with the Seeds of Change proposal. Ultimately we decided to put out a student survey on the matter to gauge the general level of interest. A councillor also requested a survey on how to deal with lunchtime queueing (this issue has been a perpetual bug). It was at this meeting that I and the president were formally invited to the meeting of the corporation.

This was to be Muhammad’s first such meeting and my fourth, though it was my first time as a full member. The corporation (which might as well be called the board of governors) contains two student members. The President of the Student Council is automatically one of these, with the other post being open for any councillor to take. All members of the council are additionally allowed to attend corporation meetings as observer status, as I did (the second governorship having gone to Vice-President Longton, though she never actually attended).

The meeting lasted from 16:30 to 19:00. Ordinarily the Student Council section was done first, and the students were not obligated to remain afterwards (indeed I have several times seen other governors disappear midway through sessions). This time, however, our presentation was buried deep in the agenda. A knock-on effect of this was that our gubernatorial appointments did not formally take place until about an hour into the meeting, which also meant that we were not actually allowed to read some of the key documentation for the first stretch. The report was well appreciated, and the governors offered to publish it on-line with the rest of the minutes.

The next day I minuted my final plenary of this term. It was mostly centred around Christmas celebrations, though we also had some notices from the Hull Student Forum (which we largely rejected as spam) and from the United Kingdom Youth Parliament. We also, naturally, recounted a summary of the preceding day’s corporation meeting. On unusual development was that Katherine presented me with an information pack from the House of Lords, containing six booklets and a mouse-pad. Apparently, it was sent following their reception of my report on Professor Norton’s visit. I am still unsure as to how I should respond to this, except with the realisation that the council has no policy on official gifts.

Since I shall be absent for the meeting next week (if, indeed, there is one at all) I shall have to temporarily appoint an under-secretary to whom to discharge my responsibilities. The show, after all, must go on, and someone must ensure it is properly transcribed.

UCAS Day in Leeds

Posted on Nov 25, 2016 by Robin Stanley Taylor

As my secondary education undergoes its final phase, the planning for the tertiary is well underway. Some weeks ago I submitted my application with the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS). As I had applied to study Chemistry at the University of Leeds, I received a letter on 18th October inviting me to their School of Chemistry to be interviewed by one of their staff.

I had visited the same university eleven months prior as part of the Inspire programme, but on this occasion I attended in a personal capacity using private transport. Despite leaving home at 7 am, it was not until past 10 that we finally managed to find the arranged parking space, having lapped Leeds city centre at least once.

The funeral venue of Professor Charles Read.

My father drove me as he had his own business in the city: Last year he had become acquainted with Charles Read, with whom he shared an interest in sailing, and who had spent several hours of the early summer going through my Decision Mathematics papers – the mutual benefit being that I needed to pass my AS-Level examinations and he needed to practise the topics his future students would be using. Fifteen months ago Charles suddenly dropped dead while on a research visit in Winnipeg. Today my father needed to go to Leeds in order to collect some boat components from the late professor’s cousin. His most recent prior experience with the city had been to attend Charles’s funeral at the Emmanuel Centre across the road.

Arriving at last at the School of Chemistry, I and the other candidates were assembled in the uncharacteristically glamorous Chaston Chapman Lounge where Dr Warriner formally greeted us and then took us to a student-led presentation on the content of the degree and the opportunities it afforded. Particular attention was given to the industrial advantages of such a qualification, as well as to the potential for trips abroad (all for research purposes, of course).

A large white room with wooden chairs and green leather tubes across one wall.

The Chaston Chapman Lounge did not much resemble the rest of the School of Chemistry.

The next stage of proceedings was to take the applicants on a tour around the campus and the undergraduate accommodation. Much of the scenery felt oddly familiar from my visit last December – right down to the Christmas decorations. We were provided with a free lunch with the students before a second tour, this time of the School of Chemistry in particular. This section of the excursion was perhaps the most important, as though I have been sent on many university visits before it is relatively rare that I have actually seen inside the working areas. Here I was greeted with vast halls of laboratories, with pairs of undergraduates hunched over wooden desks in each alcove. Fume cupboards lined practically every wall. We also saw inside a more generic space – the lecture theatre.

The penultimate experience was that of a practical demonstration by Dr Bruce Turnbull. He explained how machines are used to arrange vast arrays of small chemical samples, allowing hundreds of experiments to be carried out simultaneously. To prove his point he had the device produce a map of the British Isles in the form of coloured solutions.

Dr Turnbull's automated laboratory assistant.

Doctor Turnbull’s automated laboratory assistant.

The final part of the event was the one on one interview with a member of the faculty. In my case that was Dmitry Shalashilin, Professor of Computational Chemistry. He had, in his own words, been destined for academia his whole life, having emigrated from the Soviet Union where his father had been active in the space race. After the boilerplate questions of what made me choose the course or study the sciences generally, he gave me some mathematical puzzles and then we hurried back to the lounge for the wrap-up.

I was assured by the current undergraduates that anyone who turned up to the interview was more-or-less guaranteed an offer. Three down, two to go.

First Time Meeting Philip Norton

Posted on Nov 4, 2016 by Robin Stanley Taylor

A modern library - a bald man stands before a crowd of adolescents.

Our visitor before his crowd.

So far in my time at Wilberforce College I have met two Labour MPs (Diana Johnson and Alan Johnson), one UKIP MEP (Mike Hookem) and an archbishop (Dr John Sentamu). Today the college welcomed Professor Philip Norton, who was both the first Lord Temporal and the first Conservative.

When told at a council meeting two weeks ago of his pending visit I imagined it would be a round-table discussion in the conference room similar to that with Mrs Johnson. Instead his lordship’s appearance bore more in common with that of Sentamu eight months prior, as a hoard of student delegations from various classes (I recall Sociology and Law being singled out) filled out the library to watch his presentation. Whereas for the archbishop’s visit I had been at the edge of the front row, on this occasion I was almost directly in front of our guest, and indeed may have caught some of his saliva at various points in the speech.

His lordship began by asking us all “What Is Politics?” and taking shows of hands from the audience on various contentious political issues. There were majorities in favour of same-sex marriage, assisted dying, and EVEL. Prison suffrage was rather less popular. That done, Norton moved on to explain the role of Parliament in making laws and regulating Her Majesty’s Government. He told us of the work done by the House of Lords in reviewing legislation at great length and in fine detail which the Commons would not have had the capability to manage. He also talked of the value brought to the chamber by the ennoblement of certain surgeons and medical professionals (he brought up The Lord Winston as an example he hoped we would recognize*) and recounted the tale of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology debate in 2007, during which The Lord Brennan collapsed shortly after giving his speech. Norton said that this was the best time and place to do so, as there were numerous leading medical professionals (including the minister leading the debate, The Lord Darzi of Denham) able to rush to his aid.

Once the formal presentation had concluded, Professor Norton held a brief question and answer session. One of my ex-classmates from the history department asked if it was a source of frustration to know that a measure not to his liking was going to pass through parliament. The peer replied that it was a natural part of a parliamentary career, but it at least was not as bad as in the Commons where a member not of the majority party is practically powerless in terms of major legislation. I then asked if, in light of the recent High Court ruling, he believed there was a strong chance of his noble friends and colleagues ultimately blocking Britain’s exit from the European Union. He replied that although the house would certainly subject the decision to a heavy level of scrutiny and criticism, there was little chance of them blocking the move outright. The professor went so far as to suggest that the House of Commons might even resort to the use of the Parliament Acts to ensure that the result of the referendum was implemented.

A bald man in a suit with a poppy and lanyard smiles while crossing his arms.

Sadly my camera found more light in the background than on his lordship’s face.

As the meeting drew to a close and students filed out of the library, I convinced his lordship to pose for a photograph, so that his Wikipedia page could have a profile picture – which it and many others currently lack due to the difficulty of finding public domain images. Now that I have obtained such an image, I can ensure that today’s meeting will have some significance in Norton’s public image.

*I had previously seen Professor Winston at GCSE Science Live in January 2013, but I hesitate to claim I met him given that the enormous lecture hall allowed a substantial chasm between his podium and my upper-gallery seat.

UPDATE (December 2016)

Katherine Oldershaw, the staff member in charge of the student council, requested that I write a report on Norton’s visit in my capacity as secretary. That report was later published in the college’s internal magazine. Through a chain of emails (with so many forwards and replies that it resembled an archaeological dig) I learned that Katherine had passed it on to business liaison manager Clare Shaw, who in turn sent it to Gina Page, assistant private secretary at the Lord Speaker’s office. Miss Page arranged for me to be sent a stack of information booklets from the Palace of Westminster. I wonder what I’d have to write to get a free Bertie sent to me?

UPDATE (April 2018)

My photograph has been made redundant as the Parliamentary Digital Service has released several hundred new free-licence portraits of members of the House of Lords by Chris McAndrew, who did the same for MPs just after the 2017 general election. As of posting, my illustration of the noble lord’s shield of arms is still there.

UPDATE (December 2019)

I have changed the post title from “Meeting Philip Norton FRSA” to “First Time Meeting Philip Norton” and added the tag “Norton of Louth”. When I originally made this post I expected that the presentation would be a one-off event. Since I matriculated at the University of Hull I have found myself attending quite a few events involving the professor and thus have decided that, in retrospect, this post is better viewed as the prelude to a series instead of a standalone occasion.

A Brief History of By-elections

Posted on Sep 15, 2016 by Robin Stanley Taylor

David Cameron, formerly the right honourable member for Witney

This morning the proceedings in the chamber of the House of Commons began with the following exchange:

The Right Honourable John Bercow (Speaker of the House and member for Buckingham): Order, order, Dame Rosie Winterton.

The Right Honourable Dame Rosie Winterton (Opposition Chief Whip and member for Doncaster Central): I beg to move that Mr Speaker do issue his warrant to the Clerk of the Crown, to make out a new writ for the electing of a member to serve in this present parliament for the borough constituency of Batley & Spen, in the room of Helen Joanne Cox, deceased.

John Bercow: The question is that I do issue my warrant to the Clerk of the Crown to make out a new writ for the electing of a member to serve in this present parliament for the constituency of Batley & Spen, in the room of Helen Joanne Cox, deceased. As many as are of that opinion will say “Aye”.

Honourable members: Aye!

John Bercow: …of the contrary “No”.

Honourable members: –

John Bercow: The ayes have it, the ayes have it. Order, order, Mr Gavin Williamson.

The Right Honourable Gavin Williamson (Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury and member for South Staffordshire): I beg to move that Mr Speaker do issue his warrant to the Clerk of the Crown to make out a new writ for the electing of a member to serve in this present parliament for the county constituency of Witney, in the room of the Right Honourable David William Donald Cameron, who since his election has been appointed to the office of Steward & Bailiff of Her Majesty’s manor of Northstead in the county of York.

John Bercow: Thank you. The question is that I do issue my warrant to the Clerk of the Crown to make out a new writ for the electing of a member to serve in this present parliament for the county constituency of Witney, in the room of the Right Honourable David William Donald Cameron, who since his election has been appointed to the office of Steward & Bailiff of Her Majesty’s manor of Northstead in the county of York. As many as are of that opinion will say “Aye”.

Honourable members: Aye!

John Bercow: …of the contrary “No”.

Honourable members: –

John Bercow: I think the ayes have it, the ayes have it.

The above prose records “moving the writ” – the first component of a parliamentary by-election. The House of Commons is elected at large once every few years following the dissolution of its predecessor, with all six hundred and fifty constituencies being contested simultaneously. On occasion, however, an individual seat will be vacated during the course of a parliament, requiring the electoral process to be repeated in that constituency alone so that a new member can represent that constituency in the same legislature (rather than waiting for the whole new parliament to arrive). Sometimes there will be more than one vacancy overlapping, so multiple by-elections will be held simultaneously.

Since the general election of 2015 there have so far been five by-elections (not counting the two just initiated). The first was in Oldham West & Royton, following the death of Michael Meacher. Alongside “Super Thursday” in May there were two more – Sheffield Brightside & Hillsborough (for Harry Harpham, who had died in January) and Ogmore (for Huw Irranca-Davies who had resigned to contest the same seat for the National Assembly). That same day saw London elect as its mayor The Right Honourable Sadiq Khan, who promptly vacated the constituency of Tooting. All of these elections were Labour holds.

The most recent pair, however, have a different story. On the day of the Tooting by-election (16th June) there was a shooting attack against Jo Cox MP. She died a few hours later. Campaigning for the EU referendum seven days later was briefly suspended and parliament recalled from its short recess to pay tributes. The timing was unfortunate not just because of its proximity to the referendum but also because of its proximity to the summer recess. By-elections take approximately four weeks between the moving of the writ and the polling day, but for a deceased member the writ is delayed until after the funeral. In Jo Cox’s case this meant there was no time left before the summer and so the election will wind up happening more than four months after the vacancy opened.

Witney is a different story. Its vacancy opened on 12 September when the aforementioned Mr Cameron received his aforementioned appointment. In a bizarre case of the patron becoming the client, he was given the job after writing to the Chancellor of the Exchequer whom he had so recently employed at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office. The Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead, alongside that of the Three Hundreds of Chiltern, is an office of profit under the crown. They are mere sinecures (the manor house collapsed in the 1600s and the hundreds were taken over by other officials still earlier) which have since the mid-eighteenth century been used for the sole purpose of allowing a member of the commons to step down.

In the old kingdom of England the role of parliamentarian was a rather taxing one – pay was only nominal and attendance at Westminster deprived many of life in their constituencies. Many were elected reluctantly or even against their will. It was in this situation that a resolution was passed in 1624 banning members from resigning their seats. Decades later, though, a loophole was created by the Act of Settlement. Being desirous of reducing the influence that royal patronage held over the legislature, parliament enacted an early form of separation of powers – any MP who was appointed to an office of profit under the crown (this term then included ministerial posts) would be disqualified from his seat, but a person was allowed to be elected to the house without vacating such a position which they held already. This began a very long tradition whereby a newly-appointed minister would begin his tenure by immediately fighting a by-election to renew their mandate. As time went on and ministers of the crown became more numerous such elections became a severe nuisance with each cabinet reshuffle demanding multiple writs and a general election which resulted in a change of government would then see the new set of ministers have to contest their constituencies for a second time in rapid succession.

Changes were enacted in 1867 for the shuffling of existing ministers to be exempted. In the First World War there were acts to temporarily suspend the procedure and finally in 1926 the concept was abolished altogether. Sinecures such as the Chiltern Hundreds were the exception, surviving purely as a means of allowing a member to quit in the course of a parliament. To “take the Chiltern Hundreds” is a long-standing euphemism for resignation.

FURTHER READING

Wikipedia:

Resignation from the British House of Commons

The Act of Settlement

Ministerial by-election

Parliament: