Oxford's biggest student newspaper, produced by and for members of the University of Oxford, since 1991.
I’m a left-wing Labour member and I support Brexit. I write in the style of a confession piece because, throughout the UK and especially at Oxford, to make such a claim is to invite horror and disbelief. As recently as October, people marched in their thousands to campaign for a new referendum that would boil […]
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Late last year, the Japanese government’s chief spokesperson announced that the country will restart its commercial whaling program in July 2019, putting it at odds with a global moratorium on the practice. The news was met with widespread condemnation, and rightly so, but in a way, I support this announcement. To understand my position, we […]
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You’ve surely seen the adverts by now. The headlines have called them “controversial”, which is a rather kind way of saying that a few people from the army have said they’re great while everyone with a Twitter account reviles them. It would be quite fun to go against the grain and argue in their defence […]
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Is there a global turn to the far-right? To call this “global” is true, but the implication that this is inevitable for most established democracies throughout the world is not. What is “global” about this is that the conditions that must be met are largely the same: a lack of trust in public institutions, a […]
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If at first you don’t succeed, ask Daddy to pay for you to take easier exams. At least, this has been the case for several GCSE students at independent schools which are opting to take the easier IGCSEs over the more rigorous and difficult GCSEs which have been introduced during the Conservative government’s latest round […]
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Barely a day went by over the Christmas vacation when there wasn’t an Oxfess agonising over collections, asking whether they matter, what will happen if we fail, how we should prepare for them. Instead of Christmas being a time for rest and recuperation from a hectic Michaelmas, the vacation becomes a time for panic to […]
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It has recently emerged that early in 2018, Professor Nigel Biggar of Oxford University hosted a private, invite-only conference to discuss the legacies of colonialism. Professor Biggar first sparked widespread controversy when, in 2017, he defended a controversial article by American professor Bruce Gilley, entitled ‘The Case for Colonialism’, which explored the positive case for colonialism, […]
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If O2’s recent data failure showed us anything, it’s that we live in a time in which our reliance on connectivity is much like our reliance on a snow-free winter: any disturbance throws the nation into havoc. And much like a half inch of sleet, such instances may be easy to trivialise without considering the […]
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The widespread Gilets Jaunes, or “Yellow Vests” protests in France have entered their fifth week with no sign of ending. And with Macron’s approval rating having fallen to 18%, their success seems only to be accelerating. What started as a spontaneous appearance of protests by ordinary people across the country, furious about a regressive fuel […]
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For many commenting on George H.W. Bush’s passing, his life and legacy have been used as a tool for expressing their views on contemporary American politics. On the one hand are those who herald him as “the anti-Trump”, using his long career of service and respect for his office as a template for how a […]
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Image credit: Wikipedia (CC-BY-2.0) The Sutton Trust recently published a report which has since made waves on social media. The report finds that eight top British schools had as many Oxbridge acceptances as another 2894 schools and colleges put together between 2015 and 2017. This has brought to light the debate on where the fault and […]
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Image Credit: Jiahui Huang (CC-BY-SA-2.0) For those of us without a home to go back to over the vac, Oxford can be a lonely place. The estrangement report, undertaken by the SU this summer, has offered many people an insight into what life is like for people like me. This report pointed out some really important […]
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Image credit: Fibonacci Blue (Flickr) “A grand canyon has opened up in our world”: on one side is the alt-right, on the other, the “illiberal liberals”. This bold claim was made by Stephen Fry in his recent speech to the Festival of Dangerous Ideas, in which he pronounced the death of classical liberalism. On the surface, […]
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Image credit: neiljs (Flickr) In the last two years, over 100 public libraries across the UK have been forced to close down. A further 500 are now being run by all-volunteer workforces, often made up of retirees working for nothing to keep their local communities alive. Even in the best-case scenario, volunteer-run libraries lack oversight […]
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Image credit: Wikipedia (DFID) In August last year, 20,000 Rohingya Muslims were forced to flee Rahkine State, a western province in Myanmar. By October 2017, the United Nations estimated that 600,000 Rohingya had fled Myanmar. At the time, the United Nations and Amnesty International called the mass exodus of the Rohingya minority a “textbook example […]
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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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