Mizter T wrote:

Incidentally are there any student
unions in London unaffiliated to the NUS?

Yes - Imperial has a long history of being out (they were a founder
member
in 1922, left in 1923 and only came back for brief periods in the 1930s
and
1970s - the last was when their President was Trevor Philips). Currently
with the college pulling out of the University of London, some in the SU
are
looking towards NUS affiliation as a replacement for the loss of ULU.
Were I
a betting man I would not bet on them succeeding.

I didn't know about either Imperial's non-affiliation to the NUS, nor
it's imminent departure from the UoL. That seems like a big step, but
of course I know nothing of the background - apart from quickly reading
just now that it has gained degree awarding powers. One of my
neighbours is a Prof at Imperial, he's a quiet guy but I'll accost him
some day and ask him about it.

It's long and complicated but basically the current Imperial Rector has long
had a vision of Imperial as an independent entity, preferably charging huge
tuition fees, and being the London equivalent of MIT.

My ill-informed logic suggests that a London SU would do well to have
an affiliation with some umbrella entity. I guess the choice isn't that
great - ULU or NUS (or both). That said AFAICS it's even less of a
choice outside London - NUS or not NUS. Despite all it's faults I can't
help but feel that the benefits of affiliating with the NUS outweigh
the cons - esp. if the SU is out of London, as there's nowhere else to
turn. But I confess I know little about all these machinations.

Not totally. There's also the Aldwych Group, which is a collection of the
students' unions in the Russell Group. But there seems to be a running
debate within it about its purpose - some, mainly non NUS affiliates,
(Glasgow, Southampton, Imperial) seem to want it to do more and provide a
national voice as do some where the officers would like to leave NUS (e.g.
Bristol), whereas others seem to just want it as a body to lobby the Russell
Group.

The HE non affiliates are, off the top of my head, Glasgow, St. Andrew's,
Dundee (all of which are in the Coalition for Higher Education Students in
Scotland), Imperial, London Business School, possibly some other small UofL
specialist institutes, Open, Stranmillis, Buckingham, Sunderland and
Northampton. Of these at least two currently have ULU, three have CHESS and
two (Open, Buckingham) have a very specialised student base.

But say at SOAS whilst the SOAS SU isn't NUS affiliated it is
affiliated to ULU?

Erm sort of, although the exact nature of the relationship between College
SU and ULU is rather more complicated.

By the by I've just been most amused by reading the Wikipedia page on
ULU [1] - in particular the semi-coherent section on the handover
party, and what appears to be an arcane yet absurd dispute on when
exactly this should occur. Some of the stereotypes about student
politics are not that far off the mark!

Erm yes... But from my recollection it's usually Queen Mary (my own college)
which has the handover day. That entry looks like a typical product of the
ongoing debate between ULU and UCL.