Worlds apart
The Oxford University Conservative Association is not the only organisation in our little world to embroil itself in scandal with an impressive degree of regularity. And yet, it does seem to be able to do so with such total enthusiasm and absolute disregard for its reputation that its compatriots in for instance - the University Salsa Society - are rarely able to match.
As we report this week the current President of the Association, Simon Clarke, attempted to forge signatures on a bank mandate form. That the document was not subsequently processed clearly does not excuse this act. However, the real development in this case is undeniably its timing, following hot on the heels of the events of last week. We cannot predict the outcome of the currently ongoing investigation concerning Charlie Steel, nor should it be our position to do so.
However, it is presumably no co-incidence that another round of allegations of signature forgery have surfaced so shortly after the last batch. The Oxford Student has no wish to take sides in what has clearly become a bitter factional divide within the cloistered corridors of OUCA.
Nor do we pretend that this latest outbreak of scandal has the university transfixed, with rumours flying through college quadrangles and students looking up from their croquet, revision, punting and other assorted clichés to hear the latest news from the council chamber. However, in a small corner of a smaller world it is big news.
And the reason it is worth reporting is because, based on past precedent, there is a dangerous possibility that some of those currently fighting for their political reputations in Oxford may in a number of years be doing exactly the same thing in Westminster. Tweed clad twenty year olds gathering for Port and Policy and putting on affected public school drawls to hide provincial grammar school backgrounds is a bizarre enough spectacle as it is.
What is frankly alarming, especially in a week in which the actual, grown up government lurches from one crisis to another is that some of these OUCA types might end up doing it for real. Let us hope by then they have changed their stripes.
Of course, this is exactly what they will want to hear, as they curse the media for intruding into their fusty, anachronistic world, and it will bring a smile to their faces as they roll their freshly purchased Barbour jackets in the mud to avoid looking excessively nouveau. But who indeed can begrudge anyone their dreams of power, even if they are most likely to become accountants? Of course, it is important to keep a measure of perspective.
Every Oxford term brings its own share of triumphs and disasters, heroes and villains, and the lifespan of all of these things is ephemeral in the extreme. In a few weeks or months, this latest OUCA debauch will be catalogued with numerous past sins that have been long since forgotten. What we must remember though, as the events of last week have made abundantly clear, is that the Oxford bubble is not as far removed from the real world as it sometimes appears.
We should therefore regard both environments with the scepticism and judgement they deserve: a knife fight on the inside can spill into the real world (well, at least the Diary page of the Evening Standard) very quickly. But the real world itself is probably not all that different after all.
4th May 2006