The economy is faltering, the poll ratings are plummeting, and the party seems to be in for a drubbing at the imminent local elections. But there has been one glimmer of optimism for the Labour Party this month, in the form of one Wes Streeting.

Mr Streeting is the first non-female and non-blonde president of the National Union of Students in six years, but more to the point, he is the only Labour president in four years (despite Labour dominating the presidency for the overwhelming majority of NUS’s illustrious history).

Fresh from victory, the president-elect has launched himself into a spot of good old Boris-bashing (all the while heralding Ken as a “student-friendly” saviour). In a blog post and Facebook note, Streeting urges students to avert what he describes as “the nightmare of our capital being run by Boris Johnson”. It is fair to say that NUS officers across the spectrum are getting in a spin about the looming prospect of Johnson as mayor, with Facebook groups, notes, profiles and statuses cropping up daily to alert students to what they see as London’s impending apocalypse.

While Labour Students, along with all manner of other left-leaning student groups, are vigorously united around the anti-Boris banner, one gets a sneaking suspicion that Tory students (or Conservative Future, to give them their proper name) are utterly chuffed that Boris is the Conservatives' man for mayor. After all, Boris has all too literally been a poster-boy for the group. He was the man chosen to adorn the rooms of students across the UK, when Conservative Future printed a set of what came to be highly-prized posters that made Conservative stalls at freshers’ fairs across the country the places to be.

It all started with “I heart Boris” badges that first popped up at 2006's NUS Conference and then re-appeared at the nation’s students’ unions along with those quite delightful pop-art posters: Boris Johnson reincarnated as Marilyn Monroe in one design; Lord Kitchener in another.

Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson may be a poster-boy for a generation of students, but you could be forgiven for assuming that he would want to get as far away from his own student days as he possibly could. Alas, not. For his part, Boris has been dredging up his good-old-student-days as if there were no (election) tomorrow.

“Have you ever seen his room?” one senior Conservative asked political aficionado Andrew Rawnsley, “before going on to describe in aghast detail how Boris's quarters at the Commons were a smelly anarchy of papers and old gym shoes”. “It's like the worst sort of student dig,” the MP revealed; the observation proving to be quite a dig itself, for a man who may well rather wish his student days were forgotten about, thanks to membership (along with David Cameron) of the infamous Bullingdon Club.

Then, it was those pesky drugs. Earlier this month, the press jumped on the “revelation” that Boris had taken cocaine as a 19-year old Oxford undergrad, as disclosed to Janet Street-Porter.

However, as any Boris/ Have I Got News For You fans will attest, this was far from news. In one of his numerous legendary stints as host, the MP for Henley revealed that he “tried to” snort cocaine once, “unsuccessfully, a long time ago.”

What exactly was unsuccessful about it?

“I sneezed, I, I, sneezed … it was only a very small quantity, it was a long, long time ago; I think it’s probably a totally disgusting and ridiculous thing to do and I’m very, very, very, very, very – wrong and bad”, he told the HIGNFY audience to hoots of laughter all round.

“I think you’re commendably honest actually Boris”, one of the panellists declared. But as usual, it is Boris himself who probably best sums up the situation: “I think recklessly honest is probably the right word”.

— Finding an issue to unite the disparate and warring student factions is as difficult as getting Ken Livingstone to apologise. But they seem to have found one. Student Round-up can reveal the one thing marginally worse for the fate of mankind than Boris Johnson: the British National Party. The message coming from all corners of the student movement is that every student in the country must use his or her vote for whoever, in order to thwart the BNP from claiming much-anticipated success in the upcoming elections.

The last time the BNP caused such a rumpus in student circles was only in November of last year when its leader, Nick Griffin was offered – along with holocaust-denier David Irving – the hallowed platform of the Oxford Union. It is clear that the Union has lost none of its fervour for provoking controversy, placing themselves in The Thick of It once again. This time it's Chris Langham, the BBC sitcom star convicted and jailed for 15 counts of downloading images of child abuse, who was invited to speak at the self-proclaimed “world's most prestigious debating society”.

Unlike Griffin and Irving, whose invitations were dishonourably honoured, Langham’s was quite swiftly withdrawn following unwanted press attention. "We probably should have realised the uproar it would cause but hindsight is a great thing, it was probably a mistake" said Ben Glazer, spokesman for the Oxford Union. So the massive and highly-publicised protests outside the Union in November, which resulted in some students even storming the building, weren’t enough to bring on such a realisation?

So Mr Langham was invited purely for his artistic achievement? Mr Glazer added: “We felt with the negative press and comments surrounding the debate it was over-shadowing the great term of speakers we have booked.”

By that, Mr Glazer must be referring to a glittering roster of speakers that will confirm the Union as a hotbed of high-brow academic discussion. This term's speakers include Jodie Marsh, Geri Halliwell, and Barry from Eastenders, no less.

If you know of a student story that you think should be featured in our news round-up, please contact Etan Smallman at etansmallman@gmail.com.

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