THE ENQUIRER COMETH
1ssue 178 · Wednesday, May 18th, 2005
IN
Event The
- 24 PAGE SPECIAL INSIDE
Free - Please Recycle
UEA’S AWARD-NOMINATED STUDENT NEWSPAPER
SHA’AP! WHY DO WE TALK LIKE TV? Page 5
&
DOWN ON THE FARM WITH MICHAEL EAVIS Page 7
WHO DID MARK LAWSON VOTE FOR? Page 4
WEDNESDAY 11TH PROVES UNLUCKY FOR SOME AS THE ELEMENTS CONSPIRE AGAINST UEA Helen Pike News Editor
Friday 13th came early to UEA as a series of unlucky events sprung up on campus. A fire broke out on Wednesday evening in a Common Room in Nelson Court, leaving substantial damage to the room and surrounding area. The room will now be totally out of action for a matter of weeks and an investigation has been carried out into the cause of the fire. Firefighters were called
to the scene at 7:53pm and the last of three fire engines in use that night left the university at 10pm the same evening. All of Nelson Court was evacuated from the moment the alarm was raised, yet according to sources a limited amount of security staff on duty at the time meant that students weren’t stopped when they went back into the building complaining of the cold weather. The cause of the blaze is thought to be an arson attack due to the rapidity in which the fire spread. A resident of Nelson Court said, “I was first alerted by the
alarm and the sheer stench of the fumes rising”. The investigation into the fire is now complete yet, according to Norwich fire station, the full results are still unknown as Concrete goes to press. A burst water pipe in the early hours of Thursday flooded the Hive bar, taking hours to fix. According to one of the workers at the Hive, this incident is just part of an ongoing problem with the pipe system. If you witnessed any suspicious activity close to Nelson Court on the night of the blaze, alert security staff in the Porter’s Lodge.
Firefighters had to break windows in Nelson Court to tackle the blaze last Wednesday night.
STUDENT REFUSED RIGHT TO VOTE IN GENERAL ELECTION IRISH NATIONAL STUDENT TURNED AWAY FROM UNIVERSITY POLLING STATION ON MAY 5TH Olly Haywood
Deputy News Editor A UEA student was refused permission to vote on the 5th May after controversy over Irish nationals’ right to have their say in UK parliamentary elections. Having received polling cards for both local and national elections, Aidan Burns of MTH expected to
cast his vote on the Thursday without problems, yet officials at the university polling station informed him that as an Irish national he was entitled to vote only in the local elections - even though he was born in the UK and has lived there all his life. Since permission to vote could not be granted by Norwich election officials, Mr Burns was forced to contact
the returning officer for the Norwich constituency who, it turned out, was not available. After several other phone calls, he eventually managed to talk to a helpline, who informed him that if he presented his British passport and birth certificate at the polling station he would be able to vote. After presenting all the required documents at the polling station, Aidan was
allowed to vote, but he felt that he “shouldn’t have had to go to all that trouble”. “My mother was born in the Republic of Ireland and my late father had Irish nationality and they always voted at elections in England” he added. According to Mr Burns, another Irish national was present at the polling station, who had been unable to contact anyone to gain per-
mission to vote, even though they were fully entitled to without further action. The government’s website states that to vote in parliamentary elections in the UK you must be a British citizen, a citizen of another Commonwealth country or of the Irish Republic, as well as being resident in the UK, aged 18 or over, included in the register of electors for the constituency and not
subject to any legal incapacity to vote. Mr Burns believes that officers at the university polling station were given the wrong information regarding the eligibility of Irish nationals to vote and has since attempted to contact the government’s helpdesk to inform them of the communication error. No-one has so far been available to comment.
GOOD LUCK WITH EXAMS AND ENJOY THE HOLIDAYS