Oxford's biggest student newspaper, produced by and for members of the University of Oxford, since 1991.
Rebecca Long-Bailey, MP for Salford since 2015, is one of four candidates currently vying for the position of leader of the Labour Party. I sat down with her prior to a speech she delivered in Blackbird Leys community centre on 27th January 2020, where we discussed her bid for leadership. I was keen to know […]
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Image description: Out-going leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn. With Jeremy Corbyn having announced his resignation as leader following the December 2019 election, the contest for his replacement is heating up. Of those who formerly expressed an interested, five have made it through to the next round: Keir Starmer, Rebecca Long Bailey, Lisa Nandy, […]
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The United Kingdom is breaking. That, I trust, is not controversial. Visit one of our underfunded, understaffed hospitals, which are managing the worst A&E waiting times on record, and tell me that our NHS is working. Talk to one of the more-than-a-million households who don’t receive their full Universal Credit entitlement, or the 4.1 million […]
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Labour Assembly Member Mark Drakeford is known for his unassuming style of leadership. I was, I confess, taken aback slightly by Drakeford’s candour: particularly gutsy was his open indifference towards Oxbridge (especially as the Welsh Government has put improving access firmly on the agenda, through programmes like the Seren Network). My overall impression, however, was […]
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For many on the left, private education is indisputably negative. Without question, the existence of private schools contradicts social justice. They afford some children access to better education by virtue of their parent’s income, bastions of privilege that work to perpetuate social inequality. As someone who is broadly leftwing, I do not wish to dispute […]
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Education, education, education (but only for the rich): Private schools creates a two-tier education system and must be abolished. It’s no secret that our education system is wholly unfair, and if nationalisation of private schools will cost us money in the long term, it’s a price worth paying. In September this year, the Labour Party […]
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Oxford University Labour Club has released a statement condemning the decision of Labour’s National Executive Committee to reinstate Chris Williamson as a member of the party. The Derby North MP was suspended from Labour in February this year, following the publication of footage of him saying Labour had been “too apologetic” regarding allegations of anti-Semitism. […]
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Image Description: Leicester town hall, one of the mayoralties contested in the election The 2019 UK local elections have presented voters, election-watchers and newspaper pundits with an interesting set of results to pore over: from over 248 councils electing councillors on Thursday, the Conservatives have lost over 1200 councillors, with the main beneficiaries being the […]
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Oxford City Council is to become the first UK local authority to establish a citizen’s assembly with the aim of helping address the issue of climate change, by considering the measures that should be taken in Oxford. This follows the unanimous declaration by Oxford City Council members of a ‘climate emergency’, in a decision that […]
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Image Description: Protesters demand a second referendum on Brexit in the People’s March in London, 23 March 2019 With the continued failure of government to deliver upon the 2016 referendum result and the rigid division of Parliament inhibiting any proposed deal, a second ‘People’s Vote’ has become ever-more attractive to many. After all, if our […]
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The Oxford University Labour Club has released a statement expressing dissatisfaction with the Labour Party’s decision to replace the provider of its antisemitism awareness training. The training was formerly provided by the Jewish Labour Movement. JLM has responded with criticism to reports that the Party have commissioned Birkbeck University to become the new provider of […]
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Oxford City Councillor and Deputy Lord Mayor of Oxford Sajjad Malik has been suspended from the Labour Party after becoming subject to a Domestic Protection Order. Initially elected as a Liberal Democrat before crossing the floor to Labour in 2007, Cllr. Malik has served as a councillor for Cowley Marsh ward since 2004. The Domestic […]
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Oxford University Labour Club set to disaffiliate from the National Organisation of Labour Students in response to the way in which the recent elections have been run. OULC voted unanimously not to reaffiliate in January next year, at the time when membership is usually reaffirmed. The decision comes following controversy as Labour clubs including Oxford […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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After a tense meeting on 5th February, the Oxford University Labour Club endorsed Anisha Faruk for President of the Oxford Student Union with 18 gender-weighted votes against 15 for competitor Ivy Manning. 1 vote was cast for Ellie Milne-Brown. The vote was closer than many expected, given that Anisha had served as co-chair of the […]
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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 […]
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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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Image Credit: Flikr (CC-BY-SA-2.0) Just before midnight on 18th October, Labour’s Damian Haywood was duly elected Oxfordshire County Councillor for Iffley Fields & St Mary’s after a tight contest with the Green candidate David Williams. The by-election was triggered by the resignation of Labour Councillor Helen Evans, who gained the district from the Greens in […]
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