Talk:Federation of Conservative Students

£14,000

What evidence does anyone have for the £14,000 figure? I was at that conference, and the only damage that any of us know about was two broken doors, one discharged fire extinguisher and a number of vomit-in-the-bed incidents The FCS Treasurer at the time told the delegates from Leeds University Union that he was required by the University to forfeit £1400 of the deposit to pay for damages - could this figure have been inflated? chrisboote 10:58, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

There's actually plenty of evidence, which is more authoritative than some Tory making unsubstantiated claims like you are.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.131.117.115 (talk • contribs)

First, sign in. Second, cite it. JASpencer 19:45, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I've signed my question, but yes please, can someone cite a substantiation for that figure? Thanx chrisboote 10:58, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I was actually responding to this comment by this user. Sorry for the confusion. JASpencer 21:47, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Unsourced slogans

"Execute Arthur Scargill" and "Smash the NHS" removed as they really should have a source. Hilariously "Smash the NHS" was a slogan associated with the young dynamic Tory politician Alan B'Stard. JASpencer 22:36, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

How about 'Hang Nelson Mandela'? That was a slogan adopted by some FCS leaders and displayed on badges and posters. Nice people these FCS types.

Please sign yourself in next time. Hang Nelson Mandela is already in there, although there should be a citation.

Lloyd Beat

'Lloyd Beat hanging himself'

'Married, dad-of-two Lloyd Beat, 36, hung himself after he was accused of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy. He left a suicide note to Scottish Tory leader David McLetchie. Beat contested Sir David Steel in his Borders constituency.'

That's what the Scottish Media Monitor has to say about it. Beat portrayed himself as a ladies' man, whilst all the while he might have been a paedo. Here's the link;

http://www.scottishmediamonitor.com/articles2.cfm?ID=73

if anyone wants to add it to the article.

I asked for a citation on Lloyd Beat being a leading FCS activist about two months ago, but nothing arrived. Leading would mean holding high office in the FCS. I'm now removing the following text:

Another former leading FCS activist{{fact}}, Lloyd Beat, committed suicide whilst being investigated for alleged paedophile offences.<ref name="beat">"Married, dad-of-two Lloyd Beat, 36, hung himself after he was accused of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy. He left a suicide note to Scottish Tory leader David McLetchie." [http://www.scottishmediamonitor.com/articles2.cfm?ID=73 Scottish Media Monitoring] from ScotsGay</ref>

Now removed.

JASpencer 19:58, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Why did you remove that from the article text? It is cited.

He wasn't cited as a leading FCS activist. I've removed the text again until there's a citation for Lloyd beat as a "leading FCS activist". JASpencer 16:44, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and please sign yourself in. JASpencer 16:45, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

I've removed this again. The problem is not that Lloyd Beat killed himself, it's just not clear whether he was in the FCS. JASpencer 18:03, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Yet again removed. If you want to restore it then please cite something that says that Lloyd Beat was influential in the FCS. If you can't cite it then please don't enter in the infomration. JASpencer 22:38, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

What do you think gives you the right to censor this article? Give me one good reason why I shouldn't report you as a vandal.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.122.108.189 (talk • contribs) .

Because there's no citation of him being a vice chairman of the Scottish FCS. Provide that and you're in the clear. JASpencer 21:43, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Authoritarian Faction

This text was removed by User:Aaron Brenneman for being unsourced. I'm not criticising this but the role of the Authoritarian faction was still fairly important and should be expanded with sourced information:

There was an alleged but unproved crossover between the membership of the authoritarian faction and the membership of both the [[British National Party]] and the [[British National Front|National Front]]. These originated from the links between the authoritarian faction and the [[Monday Club]] and the short-lived membership of prominent authoritarian, [[Stuart Millson]], in the BNP. Others have argued that the 'authoritarian' faction was the only grouping in the FCS that had any such tendency and represented less than a third of the Federation.

The authoritarian faction was often seen as a kingmaker in FCS contests, sometimes siding with the wet faction while at other times propping up the libertarian faction. It was probably the weaker of the three main factions, although its influence tended to be enhanced by its "swing" status.

Former leaders of the authoritarian faction, who do not share the all-round Americophilia of the libertarians and now tend to be highly sceptical of both [[United States|American]] cultural influences on the UK and the policies of [[George W. Bush]] (especially the "[[war on terror]]" and occupation of [[Iraq]]), have tended to promote [[nationalist]] ideas in right-wing groupings such as the [[Conservative Democratic Alliance]] and the [[UK Freedom Party]]. They are also highly influential on [[Right Now!]] magazine.

JASpencer 08:53, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

New Sources

Sunday Supplement on the Westminster Hour on the FCS: [1] JASpencer 21:41, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Dubious claims

I've asked for quotes for the following:

• At that conference many of the libertarian faction were elected officers.<ref>{{request quote}} Timothy Evans, ''Conservative Radicalism: A Sociology of Conservative Party Youth Structures and Libertarianism 1970-1992'' (Berghahn Books, 1996), p. 36.</ref>
• Members had rampaged through the dormitories, knocking down doors with fire extinguishers and shouting "Kill the wets".<ref>{{request quote}} Andrew Hosken, ''Nothing Like a Dame: The Scandals of Shirley Porter'' (Granta Books, 2006), pp. 228-9.</ref>
• Two members had a fight over a girl and her pet rabbit was gutted and nailed to a door.<ref>{{request quote}} Ibid.</ref>
• There were also reports that a discussion of Thatcherism in a Berlin bar led to the assault of a German student.<ref>{{request quote}} Ibid.</ref>
• After hearing of the media reports of these incidents, [[John Gummer]] immediately suspended the FCS's £30,000 annual grant.<ref>{{request quote}} Evans, p. 36.</ref>

I'll replace these with {{fact}} tags after a couple of days and then delete the text, again after a couple of days.

JASpencer 21:27, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

The Hosken claim on the conference has been removed as Tim Hames Radio 4 programme makes out that the claims were actually the "result of an astute spinning operation". JASpencer 21:38, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I've also removed the citations on the remaining claims and replaced them with fact tags as above. We really need quotes here (I've probably got the Evans book buried somewhere, but I haven't got Hoskens). I really should go by WP:BLP rules but as there are no names mentioned I will wait for a few days before deleting the unreferenced claims. JASpencer 21:41, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

BLP Removals.

I've removed the following two sentences:

Two members had a fight over a girl and her pet rabbit was gutted and nailed to a door.{{fact}} There were also reports that a discussion of Thatcherism in a Berlin bar led to the assault of a German student.{{fact}}

As these presumably involve living people, even if not directly mentioned, it's probably best to take these out. They were both backed by this citation:

<ref>Andrew Hosken, ''Nothing Like a Dame: The Scandals of Shirley Porter'' (Granta Books, 2006), pp. 228-9.</ref>

I have no idea whether this is a reliable source or not (in fact as a previous Hosken quote was removed as it had been directly contradicted by a more reliable source, I have some doubts), but at the least we need a quote from the book to judge the nature of the allegations, which was requested on 14 August - almost two weeks ago.

JASpencer 08:22, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Why BLP is relevant

Although this is not a biographical article a lot of the information about the FCS does tend to be biographical. As WP:BLP says "These principles also apply to biographical material about living persons in other articles." That's why I'm going to reinsert the BLP template.

JASpencer 22:08, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Reversion

I have no problem with the edits that have been made by the anonymous contributor, as long as they are sourced.

If there are any questions please put them here.

JASpencer 00:10, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm making a list of the information that came in from the three edits, if these can be sourced then they can be included:

• In the late seventies the libertarians and authoritarians were together in a "Thatcherite" faction.
• When controlling the FCS, the Moderates/left opposed Thatcher and systematically excluded the Right.
• The FCS was allied to the Communists when under the Moderates
• The right took control in 1980
• Many of the left faction went to join the SDP
• A Party faction arose which had no interest in ideology
• A large part of the Authoritarian faction (the 210 group) tactically supported the left to stop a libertarian takeover
• The left took back control for some time in 1983
• The Authoritarians were insignificant after 1983
• The Sound faction was not purely libertarian, and that this was an epiphet invented by their opponents
• The wets called themselves "Conservative Student Unionists"
• Thatcher sent a note of congratulations to a celebration dinner twenty years later

I don't have a problem with the information as such but it should be sourced. Especially in a grudge magnet like this article.

JASpencer 12:15, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I am the author of these amendments. Demanding that they should be sourced to citable references is too high a threshold because they are uncontroversial descriptive remarks that do not mention individuals. I am the source because I was an elected official of FCS through part of that time. Student leaflets, minutes etc are ephemera and to say that they must be found somewhere before uncontoversial empirical information can be reposited on Wikipedia would be massive disservice to learning. Please reinstate them. Without them the article was so glib it was considerably inaccurate.Cymro61

Welcome to Wikipedia! I'm sorry but WP:V is not really something that will bend on this. This is especially the case with the FCS page - as some people seem intent on defamation (see some of the edits above) - I'm certainly not including you on this.

Where are the particular cases of inaccuracy? We'll see if we can work on them.

JASpencer 11:03, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Aberystwyth and BLP

I'm going to leave the Aberystwyth allegations up for a couple of days because it does cite Private Eye. However I'd like to see a quote for this. Otherwise it should come down under WP:BLP. JASpencer 14:20, 1 April 2007 (UTC)