Brown Couch
"All hail!"
From 7 March, Imperial College will become a self-governing state. Brown Couch now looks at the political build-up to this decision and anticipates its consequences for students.
There has been a long campaign headed by Sir Richard Sykes to increase the financial resources available to Imperial. The Rector has given his continued support to top-up fees as well as overseeing an on-going increase in the number of foreign students. Foreign students pay higher levels of fees than those from the UK so the more foreign students attending Imperial, the more money being brought in.
The Rector has long been at the front of the campaign to increase tuition fees for UK students. The UK Government has already agreed to introduce top-up fees, but not to the full amount called for by Sykes.
The Rector's frustration with the UK Government has found resolution in his new declaration of state sovereignty. Imperial will become an autonomous nation at 12 midnight on 7th of March 2006. This move will enable all college students to be classed as foreign, thus allowing them to be charged the full cost of tuition. Additionally, the Rector, as head of state, will have the powers to decide what that cost should be. Such complete freedom in legislation is hoped to solve Imperial's financial problems.
The government of Imperial will be a dictatorship led by Sykes. Condemned as "merely throwing us a bone", its name will be chosen in a competition for IC students. The shape of things to come presents a horrible picture when compared with the current utopia.
Imperial's democratic institutions, such as the Union Council, will be forced to become "talkingshops" with all their powers cut down by severe bureaucracy. Also, the student papers will be forced to dumb down their content. Intelligent, sensible articles will be censored and replaced by nonsense. All the papers will carry Page 3 style nudity to "keep the proles subdued".
Despite the Rector's assurance that "it is a minor change", the students, who have not been consulted, see it rather differently. A physics student, who did not want to be identified, told us "I don't think Sir Richard should have done it. At the very least, he should have asked the students." Pressed upon this point, he further elucidated that "It's such a big change! I've never even been abroad before but at midnight on the 7th - snap - I'll be yearning for Blighty."
The official handover will occur in a nighttime ceremony on the 7th March. Fireworks will accompany the IC Windband playing the "Imperial March" and huge banners depicting "Sykes the Magnificent" will be unfurled down the Queen's Town. The coronation of "King Sykes" will be attended by heads of state from around the world, keen to congratulate the leader of the new smallest country. Representatives from the Vatican City will not be in attendance.
The administration of the new state has already been extensively planned. A new defence department will conscript an army from the rugby teams and extend the current weapons research being carried out in all departments. Foreign office duties will be split in two. The major diplomatic work will be done at Wye campus dealing with the UK authorities. International ambassadors will be dealt with in the small security hut near physics, chosen because of its close proximity to other embassies in the area.
In the final analysis, Brown Couch, ever one to keep in step with the times, can now only encourage our readers to shout from the rooftops "All Hail Sykes!".
