Oxford's biggest student newspaper, produced by and for members of the University of Oxford, since 1991.
Image Description: a headshot of Siân Berry against the backdrop of a drawing of Oxford’s skyline and the text ‘Siân Berry: Alumni Series’ This week’s alumni is Siân Berry, a former Materials Science student at Trinity College who went on to become politically active within the Green Party. Since 2018 she has been co-leader of […]
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Image description: A Gavel on a black background. The Shamima Begum Supreme Court judgment is complicated. It covers a wide range of subjects over a number of appeals and cross-appeals, and there are elements heavily embedded in case-law and statute. This was not a mere political decision. The Supreme Court has unanimously supported the judgment […]
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Image Description: a headshot of Grace Blakeley against the backdrop of a drawing of Oxford’s skyline and the text ‘Grace Blakeley: Alumni Series’ To start off our Alumni series, I was very excited to speak to Grace Blakeley, a former PPE student at my own college, St Peter’s. A prominent figure on the left in […]
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Image Description: San Francisco 49ers kneel during the National Anthem Are politics and sport really that inseparable? Or should we view the sporting arena as a platform that inevitably and rightly is used to further social progress? After the US boycott of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Avery Brundage, the acting International Olympic Committee President during WWII, […]
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As the dust of the US presidential election settles and the clearing of the debris begins, it’s time we pay attention to the hundreds of other celebrations awaiting their turn. For Biden and Trump were far from the only candidates on the ballot. Following what has otherwise been a bleak and dark year, a record number of LGBTQ+ […]
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Image Description: Gina Martin in front of a blue background Trigger Warning: Discussion of upskirting, sexual assault and rape Next up in our ‘Womxn on the Move’ series is Gina Martin: campaigner, speaker and writer who took on the government to make upskirting (taking a sexually intrusive and non-consensual photograph up someone’s skirt) illegal in […]
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Image description: the painting Applications for Admission to a Casual Ward, a Victorian painting by Sir Luke Fildes. Impoverished men, women and children line up outside a police station to prove their eligibility to spend a night in a workhouse. Read Matteo’s last column: https://www.oxfordstudent.com/2020/10/24/the-scarcity-of-politics/ In my last column, I argued that we rarely acknowledge […]
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Image description: a dark hospital room. Morality has played a key role in the coronavirus crisis. Doctors were forced to choose who to save, public health officials were forced to weigh freedom against safety, whole societies were put on halt. All in the name of morality. After all, it would be criminal to stand aside […]
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Image description: screen on truck reads “Holocaust deniers harboured by Labour”. Edited over the top is Jeremy Corbyn’s outline, over which is placed a prohibition symbol, as well as Boris Johnson’s outline, over which is placed a question mark. CW: discussion of anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic tropes Finally, Labour has begun to tackle the anti-Semitism rife […]
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Read Matteo’s column from last week HERE Image description: Old drawing of British House of Commons engulfed by flames in the fire of 1834 In a 1993 lecture on the differences between political and economic decision making, the libertarian American economist Thomas Sowell famously quipped: “Scarcity is the first lesson of economics. The first lesson […]
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Image description: A close-up shot of Saint Basil’s Cathedral. In the latest installment of this year’s biblical succession of bad news, July began with an ‘all Russia vote’ (lacking the legal status of a referendum) on a bleak new package of constitutional amendments: a mishmash of national populism, cultural conservatism and centralist authoritarianism. Those who […]
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Image description: open book with fluttering pages on black background Oxford students from a variety of disciplines have called for departments to diversify curricula and reading lists over the past couple of weeks. Students studying Politics, History, English, Philosophy, Linguistics, and Music, amongst others, are pushing for better Black and minority ethnic representation on reading […]
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Image description: Stormzy at Glastonbury festival 2019, wearing a stab-proof vest designed by Banksy While re-watching the momentous Brit awards performance by South London Grime artist Stormzy, I was asked by a friend “I get what he’s saying, but why does he have to sound so angry?” Because he is, and because he has every […]
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Image description: men shaking hands through a window TW: death, racism For many people, it is impossible to ignore when travelling into the capital. The high-rise apartment block which dots the city’s skyline, an uncomfortable reminder of the stark inequality which exists amongst the wealth and opulence of central London. The first few times I […]
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Image description: protestor speaking into megaphone “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.” (Howard Beale, Network, 1975) Do not underestimate the power of events. What might look like a mere swell, may suddenly turn into a crashing wave. The protests in the United States are worse than any seen since […]
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I’ve always found the left-wing/right-wing distinction overly reductive. It seems absurd to me to map out an outstandingly wide-ranging set of policies across a one-dimensional axis. How can my views on education, health, foreign policy, ontology and ethics be captured in one category? The corona crisis has made this all the more evident. The unprecedented […]
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Image Description: Diane Abbott at the ‘Don’t Bomb Syria’ protest Diane Abbott’s treatment in the media in recent years has been nothing short of a public persecution. Whether it is in regards to her drinking a ‘tinnie’ on the London Overground last spring or her getting the numbers wrong when discussing Labour’s plans for more […]
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Image Description: soldiers standing in formation wearing medical face masks. From the terrifying images of packed intensive care units in Italy and Spain, or mass graves in the United States, it is clear that coronavirus has dealt a heavy blow to the world. In China, where people were already celebrating an apparent return to their […]
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Anneliese Dodds, the Labour MP for Oxford East has been appointed as shadow chancellor. Dodds, who has close ties to Sir Keir Starmer, the incoming Labour leader had long been tipped for the position if he were to win the leadership contest. Despite being well known to residents of Oxford, she is more obscure on […]
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