News in Oxford
While it cannot be confirmed, it has been reported that inmates in Campsfield House are staging a hunger strike in protest at the government's refusal to close the home for asylum seekers.
Unconfirmed reports claim that as many as forty inmates could be participating in the protest. It has also been rumoured that one protester is threatening to continue the hunger strike to the point of starvation.
A candidate for the post of Treasurer in the recent Merton JCR elections came second despite a winning collection of policies.
The centrepiece of his campaign was the promise to "jizz all over the JCR accounts."
Staying with the theme of JCR elections, Balliol JCR has renamed one of its most high-powered posts after one of Oxford's most celebrated students.
The post of 'Food and Hospitality Rep' has been named after the outgoing rep, none other than Stephen Doody.
The post will henceforth be referred to as the 'Foody Rep'.
College parents in Hertford College are to have letters to their college children censored by the Bursar.
Next year's second years who last week chose spouses will not receive the addresses of their fresher children to send them letters during the vacation. Instead all communication with college children will have to be sent via the Bursar.
The measures have been imposed by the SCR, which normally gives the addresses of freshers to the JCR, in a draft of recent measures to prevent a non-payment campaign.
It appears that the SCR fears that parents will send their children propaganda extolling the virtues of non-payment.
The SCR also looks set to refuse to let people come up at the start of Michaelmas if they have not already paid their fees.
College parents complained that the SCR was treating them like children themselves and several said that, given it was the obvious intention of the college to open the letters, they would not write as the SCR was breaching their privacy.
The legality of the system is being looked into - one undergraduate lawyer suggested the Bursar could be prosecuted for tampering with private mail.