Ms Martin, who was seen as the underdog candidate, described how being involved in dealing drugs taught her a host of important skills for the world of work such as business acumen, confidentiality, data protection, customer service and mathematics.
Clearly she has more transferable skills than most graduates.
The NUS is not set up as a democracy but models organisation along the same lines as other socialist neo-democracies with self serving interests masquerading as free choice.
The most irritating thing about the farce of the NUS and its leaders isn’t that most candidates are petty authoritarians — it’s that students do not even have a say on who the leaders are. One Man, One Vote (OMOV) doesn’t exist in the NUS; instead things are done on a very questionable delegates basis. Tomorrow, a vote will be held at NUS conference on implementing OMOV, but given that the NUS doesn’t even trust students to listen to controversial people or socialise as they see fit, I’m not holding my breath that it will allow us to elect NUS officials directly. And so the door remains open for more bonkers student politicians, more Malias.
Ultimately, if we are to reform the NUS then all students must have a vote at NUS conference. But most student politicians know they wouldn’t stand a chance of getting elected if they were accountable to normal students. So they stay in their own bubble, making up ever-more irritating and illiberal policies, still broken even now that Malia has gone.