Good morning sports fans! This blog is coming to you on my journey from Manchester to Durham. Life for a UJS campaigns officers is never dull! In Manchester the campaigns team has been attending the Conservative Party Conference. Carly went to the Labour conference last week. We has seen many of the Shadow Cabinet, met some very good people and attended some through provoking fringe events. Stand out of them all, and of most interest to many of you out there, will be the very well attended Conservative Friends of Israel event we all went to on Tuesday. His Excellency Ron Prosnor addressed the room and Liam Fox gave a thumping speech on the threat from Iran. Another interesting fringe was the debate we went to on the respective rights and wrongs of faith schools. I'm not a radical on either side of the argument but I must declare an interests. I went to an inclusive Christian school and found the values that they tried to teach me, on the whole, were beneficial. The discipline, social responsibility and work ethic that I was taught are by no means exclusive to my school or faith schools, but I wonder if regular state schools have the necessary character to supplant 'good' values in order to make 'good' citizens. I think it's a fascinating debate and I'd be interested to hear more of a student voice.

I'm on the train to Durham now. Exciting times. It seems Emily and Susie have got it covered but I'll be there to give an ever UJS-present helping hand. Elana went there on Tuesday and having spoken to her my expectations are very high for today!

Last Thursday I went to Leeds for a campaigns day extravaganza. We started out with a really great campaigns meeting. Amy is a terrific leader and has got all her troops were she wants them. She is also very keen on social action and interfaith projects which is  healthy and refreshing. Following the meeting (where I provided some great food from London if I do say so myself) we went onto campus where the Union was hosting an open mic debate entitled 'Should we invite the BNP on campus?' There are many different things to consider here and the freedom of speech card is not the end of the debate. I won't tire you with the debate itself by Joe and I both spoke from the JSoc-UJS perspective of keeping them no platformed because of a plethora of different issues and needless to say that the room was with us in the final vote.

Then we had another event in the evening, this time entitled 'Israel-Palestine: what's all the fuss about?' There was the standard child-like behaviour from the other side with heckling, chanting, shouting and people storming out the room after they heard something they didn't like. Robin from the Israeli Embassy did a great job. For me his best line was, 'Israelis aren't like Jedis, they can't dodge rockets.' This was a reference to the low Israeli death count as a result of some 12,000 rockets being fired into Israel from Gaza in the last 8 years due to Israel creating a network of bunkers. The Jsoc remained cool, calm and collected. They kept their dignity and respect in the face of some vitriolic and outrageous behaviour from those who were not interested in any genuine debate.

Funny thing- as luck would have it I was seated next to the representative of the Council for Arab-British Understanding on the train home. Nice guy, but a long 2 and a half hours!

Make a comment esp. on faith schools, Be in touch.

Ben