I am not your average student voter. In fact, I don’t think I even count as an average voter. My parents drilled into me from a very young age that voting – in any election – was a democratic right that millions of people fought and died for so that I could have it, so I should take it seriously. I have only had the chance to participate in two elections, but in both I went to great pains to sift through manifestos, policy statements and articles to the point of absurdity, all to give myself the best hope of making a good choice. Come the EU referendum I was there irritating those in my year who had yet to vote, pleading with them to do it on the way home, at lunch, at all. I do not think the same can be said for most people. Given all this, given my ardent belief that voting is more a duty than a right, I am genuinely considering not voting in the CUSU elections.

“I think my generation hates the politics of today, but is waiting for someone else to deal with it”

I think there are several reasons why I personally feel so indifferent towards CUSU in particular, and why on a wider scale student participation in political matters in general is so low. On average, we as a group are politically apathetic, uninspired and uninterested. But this isn’t necessarily completely the fault of politicians and the political class. It does seem that in the past few years (notably since the start of the latest Tory government) there haven’t been any positive or enticing national policies offered to young people, simply negative or re-hashed ideas. Or worse, in the case of Labour, seemingly no policies at all. While policies like gay marriage and a Scottish independence referendum invigorated young voters, all that remains now is cuts, austerity and cuts (and Brexit, of course). Austerity has become such a normalised part of our daily public life now that we are willing to just accept that our lives as young people are slowly being made harder.

The same goes for CUSU: flicking through recent editions of Varsity, the only policies I have seen from my student union consist of a boycott of something that seems another inevitable stain on our education system (I am referring to, of course, the NSS) and the arduous task of trying to untangle all of the various facets of the University from investment in fossil fuel. Neither of these policies make me want to get up in the morning. While my opinion of CUSU may largely consist of some fairly amusing memes, the rest of what is said about the students’ union seems utterly un-enticing.

I know the issues CUSU tends to deal with are serious ones, and at that ones that do affect us as students, but contrast CUSU with my college students’ union, which mixes genuine student concerns with chocolate fountains, free sweets and DJ sets in the bar. I’m not saying we should reduce CUSU to a series of crowd-pleasing frivolities, but we should be aiming for issues that students can be motivated to get behind.

I think other factors have created such a critical mass, perhaps not least of which how we as a generation engage with information. It seems that, thanks to the way we access news and content, unless something can be posed to us in a short paragraph or series of bullet points, the majority of us can’t be arsed to engage with it. Most notions concerning the governance of this country are far too complex and nuanced to be reduced to a stone tablet or “20 reasons to vote Tory”. As students who read for most of our waking hours, we should be more willing to read the literature, manifestos, policy statements, and challenge actively what we don’t agree with. I implore anyone who is considering voting in any future election, the upcoming CUSU ones included, to try and find time to be bored to death by what you are actually voting for.

Oxford’s ‘pronoun-gate’ is a wake up call for student politics

I remember as a child seeing students from my future secondary school protesting the war in Iraq, and later the protests against the government’s changes in the tuition fee rises. What we need again is to show more enthusiasm when it comes to politics and civil action, but we need the policy-makers in our institutions to bring new, original and innovative ideas of governance to the table to match. Despite the best efforts of some, many students have yet to assume political responsibility, instead relying on others to pick up the slack of their political apathy. I think my generation hates the politics of today, but is waiting for someone else to deal with it