Kat Fletcher

Kathryn Jane Fletcher (born December 20 1979, Sheffield) was president of the UK National Union of Students between 2004 and 2006, the first to be elected from a political slate clearly to the left of Labour Students, who had held the position for most of the previous twenty years.

Early life

Fletcher was formerly the president of Sheffield College's students' union, where she joined the Campaign for Free Education (CFE) and the Alliance for Workers' Liberty, a small Trotskyist group. She later attended the University of Leeds where she studied [http://www.sociology.leeds.ac.uk Social Policy] and was elected as the NUS Women's Officer, and subsequently to the NUS Block of Twelve part-time officers. She graduated in 2004, after having been the Women's Officer.

NUS President

She was elected president in 2004 in an extremely close election, which she won by only two votes, having lost the presidential election in 2003 by three votes. As a member of CFE, she ran on a leftist platform criticising the NUS proximity to Tony Blair's Labour government - though to some confusion, she was subsequently 'outed' as a member of the Labour party herself. After being elected she pushed through a process of NUS reform which she claimed was necessary to save the organisation from a looming financial crisis, and consequently broke with the united left slate on which she was originally elected. Towards the end of her term she was no longer a member of the AWL, and it and other left-wing activists such as the CFE's successor organisation Education Not for Sale came into sharp opposition to her.

In 2005 she stood for re-election without any description, winning by an overwhelming majority over the other candidates standing: Conservative Future's candidate Michael Champion and the Socialist Workers' Student Society candidate Suzie Wylie.

Career

She is currently [http://www.centreforexcellence.org.uk/default.aspx?Page=nomenuReadNews&id=263 works] for the [http://www.centreforexcellence.org.uk Centre for Excellence in Leadership] , a government quango in the Further Education sector.

References

External links

*imdb name|2210547
* [http://education.guardian.co.uk/pictures/image/0,8553,-10504889296,00.html "Guardian" short bio]
* [http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/katfletcher Her "Guardian" articles]