25/05/2016
An article found in the Archives of E.B. Wilmot's Library on the day of Prime Minister Turnbull's Spill:
The UMSU ELECTION 2015 – the Whig Ascendancy
Every September we are faced with the daunting task of running the gauntlet from Alan Gilbert through South Lawn and the Baillieu to the Back Gate without being hassled by the UMSU apparatchiks who attempt to confuse, coerce and condemn you with their various coloured shirts and pamphlets to vote for them. According to official statistics that are never sourced only 5% of us vote for these junior career politicians, and only 3% of students care. With this in mind a week before the most splendid democratic endeavour the Union gives us, myself and a few other nobilitas of the college banded together, found a dusty copy of Lord Macauley’s History of England from the Ascension of James II, donned our yellow ties and set out to win the election. In this moment the MU Whigs were born. What is a Whig, many of you asked during our two weeks of inter-galactic rise to popularity and power. The Whigs were one of the founding political parties of the British Constitutional Parliament and believers in what we would describe as antiquated liberalism, a combination of aristocratic goodwill towards society and a belief in competent individualism. A party dominated by centrists, the MU Whig Shadow Cabinet of Montague Bodkin, Edward Bulstrode Wilmot and Honoria Glossop saw a market opening, a means in which to sideline the extremes of both the left and the right, challenge the student union’s political establishment of rallies and superfluous shouting and an apparatus to rejuvenate the student body in electing their student officials.
Calling on the Spirit of William III of Orange and the Glorious days of 1688 the Whigs took their champagne, cable-knit sweaters and RM’s to the Baillieu:
Day 1:
The evening was spent placing posters around the key areas of the University to attract even the most unassuming students to be won over to place our custom printed vote cards – no need for those plebeian printed UMSU endorsed how-to-vote cards – in the ballot box.
Day 2:
11:30AM Montague Bodkin and Edward Bulstrode Wilmot sauntered over to the Baillieu enticing voters with sensible policy (weekly cheese and wine parties, Saturnalias every fortnight) and outlandish style to make any Sloane Ranger envious.
12:30 AM After a bit of scuffle with the Trots, the MU Whigs retire back to College having won 7 voters and garnering 46 Facebook likes. After a good day’s work, the chaps decided a bit of work for the old man was in order – grooming the studs for the Meningoort Cup.
Day 3:
A haze of champagne, duelling and general banter atop the second floor balcony of Main Building.
Day 4:
1:00PM Montague Bodkin and – The Presidential Candidate and Wom*ns Officer: Vyner Brabazon-Plank are found running around the quad with Honoria’s underwear on their heads, espousing anti-papist sentiment, chanting page 14 of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations and taking pot-shots at the tower with their smooth-bore shotguns. Rumours are surfacing that the party is amidst a factional split, between the young Whigs and the old Whigs, the latter arguing in favour of giving the dissenters the vote and the former arguing in favour of the Georgist policy of land-taxation.
10:47PM Press Release from Cyril Fortheringay-Phipps the party Whip and Welfare officer, “there is no factional split, only that Emily Agrippina Worlesdon had forgone the party’s Courvoisier in favour of Handel’s complete works for the party picnic down the coast at Diamond Bay. Some of the cabinet thought this was not in line with party policy.” – Party reunites after Honoria’s old man lends the party his second Range Rover and the keys to the Chalet at Buller.
Day 5:
5:00PM With the election over, the MU Whigs opened the fourth bottle of Brut that afternoon and the second bottle of Sherry, declared victory without having left the second floor balcony.
6:03PM The Chaps now rather rubied and red-faced received communications from Create , declaring that they have foregone their liberal ideas and had surrendered the term to the MU Whigs. The Ascendancy was complete!
11:59PM Party victory celebrations made their way up Spring St to the State Parliament where Edward Bulstrode Wilmot was caught hanging a union-jack over the statute of a minor-colonial hero. Apprehended by the municipal constabulary the shadow cabinet ditched the Range Rover and the Flag; finding their way back to college by the Saturday morning, having lost the gendarmes at the hedonistic palace Revolver Upstairs.
Ad Consentio
The Scarlett Pimpernel
At Time of Writing: MU Whigs have raided their parents’ liquor cabinets, praised 1688, the Queen, Macaulay, TORMANC and William Pitt the Younger due to Malcolm Turnbull’s decision to contest the Liberal Party Leadership. The MU Whigs Moderates to the Hilt are in Full Support of the Hon. Mr Turnbull!
![1 hour left to Vote [1] Whigs!](https://img5.govserv.org/371/229/963988923712292.jpg)
![A sensible position for a sensible Student Union. Vote [1] Whigs!](https://img3.govserv.org/051/031/962675390510312.jpg)
