Cambridge University Conservative Association

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The Cambridge University Conservative Association (CUCA) is a long-established political society going back to the 1920s, founded as a Conservative branch for students at Cambridge University. It is looked upon by the Conservative Party as a breeding-ground for future Tory politicians. It is currently the largest student party political group in Cambridge with a membership greater than CULC and CSLD combined.

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[edit] History and Activities

CUCA holds regular speaker meetings, as well as campaigning for the Conservatives in elections and holding policy discussions. It also focuses on the social agenda for Conservative sympathisers in Cambridge, hosting assorted social events and parties, such as the termly Chairman's Dinner. High turnouts at events, especially the popular Port Parties and Chairmans' Dinners, also point to an interested and active society membership.

The Association has long been intimately connected with the Cambridge Union debating society, with a heavy overlap of simultaneous officeholders in the two societies, one recent Chairman even holding the post at the same time as that of Union President, sparking frequent charges of endemic and undesirable involvement between the two. CUCA counters that many Union activists are not CUCA members and that CUCA is the only society to encourage activists to get involved in the Union as a political forum.

CUCA is reputed to have reached the apex of its influence in the 1960s, with the so-called 'Cambridge Mafia' of activists, mainly at Peterhouse, many of whom went on to cabinet careers in the Thatcher and Major governments.

[edit] Office Holders, Easter Term 2007

Office Office Holder College
Chairman Bezhan Salehy Selwyn
Vice-Chairman Mark Padley Gonville and Caius
Junior Treasurer Josh Sutton Christ's
Campaigns Officer Roland Valentine Stewart Gonville and Caius
Secretary James Wallis Gonville and Caius
Registrar Julia Beck Gonville and Caius
Committee Julian Arndts Trinity
Committee Freddy Simpson Christ's
Committee Laura Phelps Homerton
Committee Mischa Balen Pembroke
Committee Jim Bligh Darwin
Ex-Officio (former Chairman) Alexander Langley Gonville and Caius
Ex-Officio (former Chairman) Timothy Gardiner Gonville and Caius

[edit] Alumni

As a long-standing and well-connected society, CUCA has produced such notable alumni as:

[edit] Recent CUCA chairmen

  • Emma Hughes (Gonville and Caius, Easter 2006)
  • Julia Beck (Gonville and Caius, Michaelmas 2006)
  • Timothy Gardiner (Gonville and Caius, Lent 2007)

See also Former chairmen of Cambridge University Conservative Association

[edit] CUCA Controversies

It has not been without controversy over the years, with Tory leader-to-be Michael Howard resigning in protest at Kenneth Clarke's decision to invite former British Union of Fascists leader Oswald Mosley to speak to the association for the second year running in 1961[1]; a more recent visit by Enoch Powell in the 1990s provoked similar resignations.[citation needed]

The society has, in the past, occasionally hit the headlines of local papers over electoral disputes and allegations of malpractice. In early 1998, Varsity published a story alleging that "weeks of bitter in-fighting culminated in allegations of election-rigging and a move to censure the society's most senior members." [2]

This episode is typical of the politically motivated twists and turns that have sometimes characterised CUCA, and demonstrates that 'CUCA controversies' can be driven by internal political machinations rather than by any actual wrongdoing by those accused of it. For example, in this specific case, the episode is noticeable for the mudslinging between two internal CUCA factions in the article vying for power in the termly elections rather than for any firm evidence of wrongdoing that would have precipitated motions of censure. Varsity itself acknowledges this by noting that the motions of censure themselves had no reasons formally attached to them by their proposers and that some of those who had signed had no inkling why they were supporting them other than on the word of one of the factions involved.[3] Indeed, it has been claimed that the article is factually inaccurate in one respect, as the motions did not fail because of a technicality, but were actually withdrawn by their proposers - without a word of explanation - and without ever having been discussed or voted on in a meeting.[citation needed]

Indeed, 'Varsity' articles on CUCA elections have themselves come under fire. Following a 1999 article, 'Conservatives in corruption crisis' [4], the paper was forced to print a front-page 'Rectification' [1]. The original article included allegations of vote buying against the then-chairman. Both journalists writing the original article were prominent Cambridge University Liberal Democrats members, as was the accuser in the article. The practice of 'vote buying' has been even more high-profile in CUCA's Oxford counterpart, OUCA, where it has led to stories in national newspapers. As with OUCA, 'vote buying' led CUCA to have an abnormally large membership for a student political group.

In 1992 The Economist wrote that "competition to rise to the top of CUCA is good preparation for a political career in the Conservative Party, for several reasons. Ideology counts for nothing. What matters is knowing how to make friends and when to stab them in the back. If you cut your political teeth at CUCA, you are liable to end up sporting a sharp set of fangs." [5] whilst in 2005 The Telegraph described the society as "secretive, conspiratorial, overcomplicated, probably calculated to benefit some chum or other, so clever that it is stupid." [6]

Today CUCA is thriving and maintaining a substantial three-figure membership. Indeed currently the process of vote-buying appears to have subsided with membership increases broadly stable across the term, and thanks to changes in the constitution of the Society.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ 'Rectification', Varsity, Issue 523, 12 May 2000, page 1

[edit] External link

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