SHEFFIELD HALLAM SEAT UP FOR GRABS AS STUDENTS LOOK TO KICK OUT CLEGG
- Joe Glave
- May 6, 2015
- 2 min read
After Nick Clegg’s tuition fee fibs five years ago the predominantly student Sheffield Hallam seat is now up for the taking.
With so many seats up and down the country almost guaranteed to either Labour or the Conservatives, the students of Sheffield now find themselves in a unique position to really shake up the outcome of the general election.
They may only make up 3% of the vote on a national scale but the Sheffield Hallam seat is one of ten across the country where students will determine the outcome.
With polls predicting another coalition, it seems that every single vote will matter come the outcome of the total count come May 8th, Sheffield Hallam University student president Emily Connor believes that the Sheffield Hallam seat is literally anyone’s.
“Well the Lib Dems will struggle with what happened in the last election, the greens do seem to be growing in popularity but this happens every year and they seem to flop come the time of the results and with Labour promising to lower tuition fees I think students don’t believe any politicians anymore when it comes to that topic.”
However with the well-known broken promises of Clegg last time out, will students actually vote or because of that have they now become disillusioned with politics?
We at the9amlecture posed the question around the Sheffield Hallam University campus this week.
And the big worry for Nick Clegg isn’t that there’s such a large proportion of students voting for the electoral seat, but 44% of the voters have a degree or have been in higher education at some point in their lives
Many employees at the city’s two universities, especially academics, live in the constituency. And in the east of the constituency is where the University of Sheffield’s main student village is, where a large amount of undergraduates live.
No one really knows how many students will vote but Emily Connor believes that students will be more determined to be involved in the outcome of the election after the tuition fee saga in 2010.
“If they don't go to the ballot station on May 7th then you're not heard at all, I think that because of what happened last time with the tuition fees students will feel obliged to vote and that's a good thing"
Whether Clegg remains at the helm or is jousted out by the students, for sure the Sheffield Hallam seat will be under the spotlight on May 8th.
Listen to what Nick Clegg had to say when SHUradio's Catherine Chris interviewed him just before the start of his election campaign:
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