So he definitely denies the following from the Telegraph:

“In one email to the department’s officials, dated Oct 1, Mr Porter suggested that £800?million should be “deducted from the grants pot” over four years. That would cut total spending on grants by 61 per cent. Mr Porter also proposed the “introduction of a real rate of interest” for student loans.”

And his fellow officer definitely denies the following:

“In an email the following day, Graeme Wise, an NUS political officer, suggested that ministers seeking cuts should start with the “student support” package of grants and loans.

He wrote: “It would be better in our view to first mitigate the cuts to provision by seeing how student support can be better focused at lower cost.” Mr Wise also suggested that the cuts in support could be imposed on students currently at university.”

So have these email quotes been made up? Or misrepresented? And if so, how?

It’s a non-denial denial. “We proudly stand by our decision to do something non-contentious which wasn’t the thing we’ve been accused of. Now look over there…”

Classic. A bright future awaits.

To be fair I don’t think many of the protestors were under illusions about the NUS before. It’s hardly a shock-horror revelation in that sense.

The Telegraph published MP’s expenses in full…

Why are Telegraph not publishing the full emails?

They could simply do so – but they choose not to, just presenting their own case.

For instance what constitutes ‘urging’ someone to adopt a policy rather than just ‘outline all alternatives’?

I have no inside info, no axes to grind – but the Telegraph are hoist by their own petard of openness over MP’s expenses – they can’t put it back in the box

Telegraph must publish the full emails or shut up.

What’s stopping the NUS publishing their emails in full?

@Paul Perrin/Adrian Short: What Adrian says is the key point here; while the Telegraph’s failure to fully publish, or more extensively quote, the e-mails suggests that they are not as straightforward as the Telegraph story suggests, if Aaron Porter’s protestations (that the story is “utter nonsense”) were true he could kill the story dead by simply publishing the mails.

The fact neither has published them suggests that the truth lies somewhere between, and that is still extremely damaging to Porter’s already tarnished reputation (especially after the alleged e-mails which came out in connection with the UCL occupation) as well as to other, named NUS officials. By contrast, the Telegraph looks guilty of “business as usual” for a broadsheet – twisting the facts to fit their editorial agenda.

NUS is the big loser.

I think the left has been poorly served by the NUS. The NUS are the real liars, crooks and thieves of the picture. Publish the emails, stop your “useless dithering” (Porter’s own words).

@Matt Taylor (MTPT) – I really don’t think it is for Aaron to publish the email – he is the ‘defendant’ in this attack. To refute an ill defined allegation he’d need to publish everything he has ever exchanged with the Telegraph.

The Telegraph claim to have evidence against the NUS – they mention it at the 11gth hour, but they fail to publish it…

I am no fan of the NUS – bloody communists financed through a mandatory tax on students and the office of president has produced some of the most disgusting senior politicians this country has ever seen. But I support fair play.

@Paul: The allegations pretty specific; NUS only needs to publish two e-mails, to provide the context. They would only have to publish more if those e-mails themselves (when shown in full) appear to support the Telegraph claim – which would raise its own questions!

(Worth saying that the e-mails are between NUS and the Government (presumably, DfE), and not NUS and Telegraph.)

As to whether it’s for Porter/NUS to rebut the claims, the Telegraph has made a case, which Porter/NUS are already engaged in rebutting. The manner in which they’ve chosen to do that – not publishing the e-mails and being far from unequivocal about what they said – itself raises questions.

I agree with Alix, I thought the protesters were also anti NUS? That’s what I’ve been seeing twitter..

Adrain Short / Matt Taylor / Dmob: suppose I were to (falsely) claim that I’d seen emails in which you had supported policy X. How can you disprove this claim by publishing your own emails? I can always claim that you haven’t published the emails I’m talking about (which may not even exist).

It is often remarkably difficult to prove a negative, which is why the burden of proof traditionally rests with the party making the positive claim.

@Dunc

Exactly – and why *didnt* telegraph publish complete email? the obvious reason not to is that it doesn’t support their story as they would like.

@Dunc: What you say would have some force if the Telegraph hadn’t (a) directly quoted (albeit) from the e-mails; and (b) specifically identified multiple e-mails.

The straw man you offer is a patently false analogy because it lacks both elements.

@Paul Perrin: As I’ve already pointed out, that argument works *for both sides*, and leaves the truth somewhere between then (but, frankly, closer to the Telegraph, since they atleast quoted the e-mails.

@Matt Taylor (MTPT)

How about I say I’ve got a letter that says you are gay/straight (whichever you are not) – prove me wrong…

Truth somewhere in between? Don’t think so.

You may not accept it, but the accuser needs the proof – presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Paul,

If this was an outright lie such as your letter (I presume – do you have information about Matt’s sexuality, as it is clearly in the public interes… sorry, attack of tabloid journalism there), then the clear answer is to sue. Mr Porter has the option, but for some reason has not done so, and his comment so far has been some way from a denial.

So, since the Telegraph has two agenda, one of which is quite right-wing, but the over-riding one is to make money (and being sued for lying is a good way of minimising profits you know) and also still has some journalistic standards (quality might be a relative term, but it is still at the quality end of the market), I would be inclined to agree with Matt that there is a certain amount of truth in the story.

Incidentally, the Telegraph reported the expense claims first, then released the details – normal newspaper practice.

So Porter tacitly admits asking the government to cut spending in the most regressive way?

It’s bad enough that we’re voting against the results of our own review but unless we start distancing ourselves from clowns like this and start behaving like grown ups again we’re heading for the mother and father of all arse kickings come 2015

Aaron Porter: coming soon (via parachute) to a safe Labour seat (with which he has no connection) near you.

If we students do acheive anything it won’t be through the like of the NUS, I and many others have no faith in them to defend our interests.

@Paul: Leaving aside @Watchman’s interesting approach to public interest (@Watchman: I didn’t know you cared!), your analogy doesn’t fly.

As I noted at 13 above, the Telegraph has already directly quoted, and identified, specific e-mails. If we were to refurbish your analogy, you’d have to claim you have several letters or e-mails from me, and you’d need to quote parts of them.

It’s conceivable that you could deliberately misquote me. The Telegraph quoted Porter:

In one email to the department’s officials, dated Oct 1, Mr Porter suggested that £800?million should be “deducted from the grants pot” over four years. That would cut total spending on grants by 61 per cent. Mr Porter also proposed the “introduction of a real rate of interest” for student loans.

and it’s within the bounds of possibility that what Porter actually wrote was

Under no circumstances must large amounts of money, say £800 million, be saved by being deducted from the grants pot. Similarly, I will oppose any introduction of a real rate of interest on loans to students.

but that would be an incredible risk for the Telegraph to run, since Porter can simply publish his e-mail and discredit the Telegraph entirely.

This is why I say that the balance of convenience is with the NUS: if the e-mails support their position as strongly as Porter would clearly like us to believe, the benefits to publishing them are significant.

@Matt Taylor (MTPT)

Clearly we aren’t going to agree.

The NUS may be evil or they may be saintly – I don’t know. But the telegraph have failed to publish something that they may later rely on (the rest of the email) everyone must draw their own conclusions.