The Daily Novel

Sally Hunt has won the election for the first General Secretary of the new University and College Union. It was a close run battle. Hunt, who has been with the Association of University Teachers since 1995 and General Secretary since 2002, got 7,605. Roger Kline, a long standing NATFHE organiser was close behind with 6,151 votes. Peter Jones, another NATFHE man, who has worked in further as well as higher education, collected 2,494. That suggests a lot of members voted tribally since NATFHE had a bigger total membership.

But this interpretation is really only a guess because only 14 per cent of the 116,000 membership voted. Perhaps they were put off by the 164 pages of election statements. If they were it is shameful. If university teachers cannot take the trouble to read the material to inform their decisions, what hope for democracy.