I wonder why the government doesn't take the NUS seriously

Oh, I know why! It's because it has members on its National Executive Committee (NEC) which advocate breaking the law. I'm referring to NEC member Sofie Buckland who is part of the "Education Not For Sale" bloc.

In the Education Not for Sale "briefing" on ultra vires (compare the NUS briefing on ultra vires) they quite directly advocate ignoring the fact the ultra vires law exists and make the donation anyway, because chances are, you won't get caught, and even if you do, all that will occur is the organisation will have to pay the money back to the students' union(!) It then goes on to the traditional rant that ultra vires is some kind of anti-trade union law (and therefore must be smashed) rather than a sensible law designed to prevent abuse of someone else's money by unscrupulous minority interest groups.

Our supposed representatives on the NEC should realise the reason the government doesn't care about what we students think of tuition fees is because whenever the government announces something, the NEC's gut reaction is to hurl a brick through a window rather than contact its members and get them to write letters complaining to their local MP.

Remember: the ballot box comes before ammo box!