By the book

There's one book which Jim Murphy, president of the National Union of Students, has never got round to reading, although he says he has always meant to read it: the constitution of the NUS. "It's meant to be the bible of the union but I've never got past the first page," he said recently. Perhaps that explains the smooth running of last week's NUS annual meeting, with none of the usual cascade of procedural objections interrupting its flow.