Oxford's biggest student newspaper, produced by and for members of the University of Oxford, since 1991.
Image credit: Facebook The 2012 Facebook event description of the St. Anthony’s annual HalloQueen bop read: “HalloQueen, the rules are simple: boys – dress like girls, girls – dress like boys.” It was the start of something of a tradition. Each year around Halloween, the St. Anthony’s bop attire encourages students to cross-dress. The title […]
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Image credit: Facebook Weidel’s cancellation is a missed opportunity – Kit O’Loughlin Harold Macmillan once called the Oxford Union “the last bastion of free speech in the Western world”. If you think that’s a compliment, as I do, you may find yourself in the minority. Recently, more than two-thirds of our representatives at the SU voted to […]
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Image Credit: Wikimedia The Oxford Union announced on Friday that Alice Weidel, parliamentary party leader of the AfD, will not speak on the 7th of November due to security concerns. This article is a contribution from members of the German community in Oxford and is intended to serve as an explanation of our reactions to […]
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Image credit: Pexels Whether you are a fresher or a battle-worn fourth-year, you may have heard whisperings of an event on the horizon. Yes, fifth week is well upon us, and it’s accompanied by a cloud of discontent – the legendary Fifth Week Blues. The legend goes that suddenly, the moment we enter the first week […]
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Image Credit: Brian Smithson Remembrance Day is always a contentious time of year. It’s not just the colonial legacy from its beginnings in the British Empire in 1919, with King George V hosting the first in the grounds of Buckingham Palace. This would then be adopted by Commonwealth nations the world over, as well as […]
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Image Credit: AMISOM Public Information Earlier this month, the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva passed a resolution to prolong the mandate of a UN inquiry into the worsening political, economic, and social crisis in Burundi. The message is clear: The Burundian government cannot go on denying that its security apparatus tolerates and indirectly sanctions […]
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Image Credit: David Holt Let us presume that Brexit will be disastrous for the country. Whether true or false, it is impossible to discuss the issue of a ‘People’s Vote’ unless starting from this premise. No consensus will ever be reached so long as the merits of leaving are in dispute – two years have […]
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Image Credit: Ninian Reid/APTOPIX On October 6th, almost a year after the #MeToo hashtag first started trending on Twitter, Brett Kavanaugh became an official justice of the US Supreme Court. Protests ensued. Angry Americans stormed the steps of the US Supreme Court in Washington D.C. Some women cried, then wrote long Facebook posts urging their friends […]
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Image credit: Voice of America Imagine a world in which the British government monitored your life, controlling whether you could purchase the home you desired, judging your behaviour and rewarding and punishing you as they saw fit. This goes far beyond the dystopian world created by Black Mirror, in which tyranny of the crowd created […]
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There is not much lightness in Jordan Peterson’s touch. He stands before his audiences slightly hunched, often with lowered eyes and a sullen expression on his face. His manner carries a brooding intensity which matches the solemn urgency of his speech: this is an unusual approach for someone who can be not unfairly described as […]
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The result of the Republic of Ireland’s referendum signalled a historic shift in the rights of women. After weeks of a hard-fought campaign, and years of activism by others, Ireland has finally allowed women to make their own decisions. Whilst we should rightly celebrate this momentous victory, the tragic fact remains that, in the North, […]
Continue ReadingPopular wisdom has it that on October 1517 an Augustinian monk nailed a series of propositions to a door of a church in Wittenberg (Germany). His name was Martin Luther, and he was presenting his ninety-five arguments against the presumed power of Catholic-sold indulgences to save unshriven souls from the pains of Purgatory, that ‘place’ […]
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Breaking out of the Oxford bubble I’ve lost count of the number of times these words, or a similar selection, were said to me during my final year at Oxford. “The world is your oyster, you can do whatever you want to do!” They were usually delivered to me by a well-meaning human, ranging […]
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Two of our writers go head to head on the Oxford Union’s debate “This house believes Britain should be ashamed of Churchill?” Yes, Upasna Saha As an American, I confess that I will never viscerally understand Britain’s veneration of Winston Churchill, although my home country similarly deifies divisive figures such as Thomas Jefferson and Theodore […]
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Surviving the Manchester Arena bombing, one year on At 22:31 on May 22nd, 2017, a terrorist detonated an explosive in the lobby of Manchester Arena, following an Ariana Grande concert. 22 victims lost their lives, with at least 64 injured – it was a moment that shook a nation. And, on a smaller scale, […]
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James Dellingpole recently wrote a horrible attack on Queen’s college for calmly pointing out their displeasure with professional troll Brendan O’Neill visiting their college. He refers to them as losers, toerags, illiterate, and hysterical, while failing to actually address the points in the letter. So, we all know what Delingpole is like, but this problem […]
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It has been over 13 years since the Hunting Act came into force in England and Wales, but the debate still continues to provoke strong reactions on both sides. However, few topics are so governed by emotion and hyperbole and not by reasoned, sensible debate on the facts. When the Conservatives included a free vote […]
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The media today is in a state of flux. The word media itself covers a broad spectrum – from social media to print journalism, television broadcasting to blog posts – and there is much uncertainty as to how we process information and data in a complex technological world. Underpinning every platform or device, however, is […]
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For our first debate feature of the term, two of our Comment team members recently attended a debate hosted by the pro Second Referendum Campaign Group “Our Future Our Choice” between Lord Adonis and David Goodhart. Here are their views on the question of whether or not we should hold another referendum. Yes, Angus […]
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