Author: OxStu Comment Team

[yop_poll id=”9″]   Proposition – Andrew Laithwaite It’s pretty uncontroversial to say that people should be free to pursue whatever pastimes may take their fancy; whatever floats their metaphorical boat. Naturally however, such freedom must have its limits. It is the opinion that such limits are flouted where individuals take recreational drugs of the ‘Class […]

The weather is terrible, I know. It’s the wettest summer since JFK’s assassination/the Norman invasion/the extinction of the dinosaurs, it’s true. The irony of only having brought your summer clothes back up to Oxford with you has transcended ‘mildly amusing’ and reached ‘rage-inducingly ludicrous’. Yes, I know. We all do. And that’s the problem. The […]

There has been a great deal of debate in recent weeks across various Oxford colleges about the presence of The Sun and its bosom-clad third page within their common rooms. Arguments have been raging in JCR meetings about whether subs should continue to be used to pay for a daily copy of the paper. My […]

My name is Maryam, and I’m a Tory. Oof, that feels better. Yes, I am a massive Tory. A chronic Tory, if you will. A love of all things sky blue runs so deep in my veins that my first teenage crush wasn’t directed at some squeaky voiced, pre-pubescent boyband member. No. One rainy evening, […]

Is the collegiate system all it’s cracked up to be? It is certainly something which seems to be by and large immune from criticism, an institution we prize for all the wonderful things we are told about it in access workshops that for the most part are blindly accepted as fact. I certainly do not […]

John Lee talks to Chinese civil rights activist Chen Guangchen.

In April this year, 26 year old Lee Halpin was found dead in a derelict hostel. Halpin had been sleeping rough for three nights, and it is believed that he succumbed to hypothermia. However, it wasn’t just the news of a tragic death that caused this story to hit the national press. It transpired that […]

Those of you who share my on-going paranoid fear that something nasty is going to be said about Oxford in the tabloids may have caught David Dimbleby’s reminiscence of his time in the Bullingdon Club. It was, of course, nothing like the den of debauchery that we all know and love today.  They never “broke […]

In the beginning there was the Word. This Word cast a shadow upon the whole world. In the name of the Word, civilisations rose and fell; old animosities dissolved as new tensions boiled to the surface. The Word is now long dead. But I do not care for the Word and its worn-out connotations. For […]

Why the current demonstrations in Tukrey are bourgeois protests, not an extension of the Arab Spring.

[yop_poll id=”8″] Proposition – Felix Chow If there is one thing that Oxford students lack, it is the time to enjoy the many things the university has to offer. So why would students with essay crises and Prelims want to spend so much of their free time rowing? For those who choose to take up […]

Owen Bennet-Jones, formerly of the BBC and now working as a freelance journalist, has been working as an international reporter for over 20 years. I had the chance to interview him about his work last week, and came out a little surprised by his confidence in the old-school set-up, as well as his optimistic views […]

Why Europe’s reaction to Woolwich and the riots in Sweden is dangerous, and racist.

The Cherwell has published a list of the “40 most influential undergraduates at the University of Oxford”. In doing so, they pre-empted this paper’s tradition of a “Top 50”. These lists are the manifestation of the most ugly aspect of this university’s vibrant extra-curricular scene: the perpetuation of the pale, pygmy fame available in this […]

Today, I went to the shops, and I bought, amongst other things: lettuce, tomatoes, an aubergine and a cabbage. Why, you might ask, have you bothered to present your banal and rather oddball list of vegetables for publication? A fair question, I’m sure, but I’d ask you to reserve judgement for a moment. This shop […]

It’s safe to say that a thirty-minute trek to lectures in the pouring rain is not what comes to mind for most people when they envisage studying at Oxford. For the benighted denizens of such far-flung locales as Hilda’s, Anne’s and (whisper it) Hugh’s, however, such torment is a daily reality. Consigned to the outskirts […]

Last week this newspaper published an article on the actions of Christ Church students at their annual ‘Mister and Misses’ competition. It shouldn’t have. The Oxford Student has only one readership that matters- Oxford students. The same goes for The Cherwell. The article- and others like it- are not in the interest of that demographic. Stories […]

Andrew Adonis is out to fix Britain’s failing comprehensives. The former Minister for Education is Labour to the core, a champion of Teach First, and the driving force behind academy schools. He is, in short, the living embodiment of Tony Blair’s old mantra, “education, education, education.” Hardly surprising, given his own decidedly unconventional background. Adonis’ life story reads like […]

After the debacle of the Jesus-Somerville ball, we debate whether college balls are worth it.