A second year student at New College was unknowingly entered for the JCR President elections by a friend last week.
A makeshift manifesto was submitted for Jonny Green, a physicist, by his roommate. The manifesto boasted credentials such as “I’m really clever – came sixth in the year in Prelims” and “I have experience in organising the Physics dinner”. It also promised to “take control in the bar and lower all drinks prices”.
Green told Cherwell that the manifesto was created and submitted whilst he was preparing for a night out. “My roommate and I were getting ready for the night ahead. I was in my room getting changed but had unwittingly left my laptop on. During that time he hijacked myGgmail and made a makeshift manifesto highlighting a few of my so-called qualities and ideas.
“Midway through the night, I received an email from the New College Returning Officer asking me about some sort of proposer thing, but at the time I thought nothing of it! The next morning students seemed to be grinning a lot when they saw me and it only occurred to my why when I read my emails and saw that I had been entered.”
Green’s roommate, Robert Hunt, explained that he had intended to keep the whole event secret and “to get Jonny really drunk and put him into hustings.”
The plan ultimately fell through as Hunt had forgotten to get the manifesto proposed before submitting it. The application was removed from the JCR, but not before it had been viewed by a large proportion of the student body.
Green said that he was relieved at not embarrassing himself any further, adding, “I definitely wasn’t considering the position.” When asked how his fellow students had reacted to the manifesto, he said, “They all found the whole thing brilliant and I think deep down, people are gutted that [Hunt] made that schoolboy error!”
Others however, were less amused by the prank. JCR President Oscar Lee told Cherwell, “Jonny was disqualified from running because he did not have someone to propose his nomination.
“The joke wasn’t funny and the audience was spared an hour of an excruciating husting which would have been enjoyed by about two people in the room.”
