Oxford's biggest student newspaper, produced by and for members of the University of Oxford, since 1991.
Image description: Rainbow flags waving at Pride. The decision of Parkfield Community School (in Alum Rock, Birmingham) to indefinitely suspend its teaching of the ‘No Outsiders’ programme––a part of the curriculum which teaches inclusion and diversity––is a saddening step back in the fight for equality. In capitulating to the protesters outside its gates, the school […]
Continue Reading
On February 27, 2019, US President Donald Trump and North Korean Chairman Kim Jung Un met at the Metropole Hotel in Hanoi, Vietnam. Although many hoped that the Vietnam summit would bring some sort of tangible agreement or accord between the two states, the summit was abruptly cut short on its second day- before the […]
Continue Reading
Image Description: Sajid Javid, UK Home Secretary. The decision to revoke Shamima Begum’s citizenship is deeply disappointing. First and foremost, we should not forget that she was only fifteen-years old when she left for ISIS. She is a victim of grooming by a violent and misogynistic cult, and has clearly been psychologically traumatised by her […]
Continue Reading
William Wilberforce once said, “You may choose to look the other way but you can never say again that you did not know”. Wilberforce vehemently opposed the Vagrancy Act of 1824, which criminalises the very existence of homeless people by making it an offence to sleep rough or beg. It is striking that a law […]
Continue Reading
Image description: sitting president Muhammadu Buhari Last week, millions of Nigerians made their way from across the country to vote in the election scheduled for Saturday 16th February, only to be informed, a mere five hours before the polls were set to open, that it has been postponed by a week. This is not the first […]
Continue Reading
Given the already saturated nature of the Democratic primaries, what really matters is to be able to stand out from the crowd. After all, that was what Donald Trump managed to do successfully in the 2016 Republican primaries, marking a break not just in his political positions – as far as they could be discerned […]
Continue Reading
Yesterday, seven Labour MPs — Chuka Umunna, Luciana Berger, Chris Leslie, Angela Smith, Mike Gapes, Gavin Shuker and Ann Coffey — announced their decision to resign from the party and sit together as a group of independent MPs, calling themselves “The Independent Group”. As of Wednesday, three Conservative MPs have also left to join the […]
Continue Reading
One thing must be said before any discussion of the 2020 US presidential election can be entered into: it is not just about defeating Trump. It is also about rebuilding a nation in decline. Given this, Democratic hopefuls for 2020 must not only prove they can defeat one of the most ineffective and unpopular presidents […]
Continue Reading
How can something like the possibility of a new centrist party in Britain, something which we are told again and again would be a doomed and counterproductive project, capture the political imagination (and perhaps the hope) of a segment of our MPs, and of the country at large? It is easy to rule out the […]
Continue Reading
Recently the UK government offered Nissan up to £80m to remain in the UK and continue to produce vehicles in their Sunderland plant, where it currently employs roughly 7,000 people. Government subsidies aren’t in themselves unusual – they ensure that significant amounts of innovation and production can take place in a number of sectors, or […]
Continue Reading
The World Economic Forum, held every year in Davos, Switzerland, usually passes without much notice as the world’s economic and political establishment goes about mingling together about how impactful their philanthropy really is and exactly how committed they are to “improving the state of the world” one of their many self-aggrandising mottoes. However, this year […]
Continue Reading
We’re all familiar with the usual discourse surrounding Oxbridge and state school admissions – Oxford needs to tackle its access problem urgently. Andrew Adonis, Labour peer and former Transport Secretary, has recently pitched a brand-new suggestion: opening new colleges aimed solely at applicants from state school backgrounds. In January, Adonis stated in The Guardian that […]
Continue Reading
Imagine the scene. The Oxford Union, 17th January, around 9pm. The motion to be debated: “This House believes that the Arab world has failed the Palestinian people”. A speaker for the opposition rises, argues we should reject it because it wrongly presupposes a moral obligation. The “problem” of the Palestinians was forced upon the Arab […]
Continue Reading
It is not hyperbole to say that Venezuela is in crisis. The country is in the grip of hyperinflation; a tenth of the population has emigrated; those remaining face chaos due to shortages of power, water, food and medicine. People are feeding themselves from rubbish, and parents are abandoning children they can no longer support. […]
Continue Reading
Recently, the University of Oxford suspended new donations and research grants from the telecoms giant Huawei. In these past tumultuous months, Huawei has been at the epicentre of a series of controversies, stemming from accusations that its technology could be used to conduct espionage. On 28th January, the US Justice Department filed 13 charges against […]
Continue Reading
Image Description: four female students from Lady Margaret Hall. Last year, the Joanna Randall MacIver junior research fellowship, which was established in the 1930s exclusively for women specialising in the humanities, was opened up to all genders. This decision was made by the senior committee of the university – the Oxford Council – in response […]
Continue Reading
The British railways have come to be one of the most blatantly obvious examples of where privatisation has failed. Commuters and tax payers are being ripped off by dividend collectors, while services deteriorate, prices climb much faster than wages, and incompetent Conservative ministers like Chris Grayling fumble around a problem they have no desire to […]
Continue Reading
Image Description: President Ali Bongo (left) with ex-president of France Francois Hollande (right). On January 15th, Gabon’s president, Ali Bongo, returned home after an extended period of absence. The victim of a stroke in October 2018, President Bongo left Gabon for medical services. Leaving Gabon in political turbulence, in part engendered by an ineffective government, […]
Continue Reading
The Democrats are in urgent need of a reality check. They did fairly well in last November’s mid-terms, but this guarantees nothing. With a crowded field of candidates seeking to receive the Democratic nomination for the presidency, the party must unify around a strong candidate. However, if they are not careful they could easily facilitate […]
Continue Reading