Digby Jacks was President of the UK's National Union of Students between 1971 and 1973 and was subsequently a trade union official for the Manufacturing, Science and Finance

Manufacturing, Science and Finance

Manufacturing, Science and Finance was a trade union in Britain...

 trade union.

A member of the Communist Party of Great Britain

Communist Party of Great Britain

The Communist Party of Great Britain was the largest communist party in Great Britain, although it never became a mass party like those in France and Italy. It existed from 1920 to 1991.-Formation:...

 when elected NUS President, he was the second candidate from the left - in this case the Radical Student Alliance, succeeding Jack Straw

Jack Straw

Jack Straw , British politician.Jack Straw may also refer to:* Jack Straw , English* "Jack Straw" , 1971 song by the Grateful Dead* Jack Straw by W...

, also elected on the RSA ticket, to win since the beginning of the Cold War

Cold War

The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

: national student politics having previously been dominated by an ant-Communist alliance.

After his term as NUS president he wrote the book Student Politics and Higher Education (ISBN 0853153264), which examines the broad left's political strategy in student politics. Retiring as a regional officer for the Amicus trade union in 2005, he was a Labour councillor in the London Borough of Hounslow until 2006 and secretary of the lobbying group Alliance for Finance.

He died in October 2011.