The St Anne’s College JCR has declared war on St Hugh’s College. However, not even twenty-fours after the motion for war voted on by both JCRs, St Hugh’s had already reached a key objective: to steal St Anne’s College’s symbolic beaver.
Responding to a leaked war motion from the St Hugh’s JCR, the St Anne’s motion proclaimed that St Hugh’s, which they referred to as ‘Who’s’ College, was “the most irrelevant, ugly, pointless and far out college,” and that “the best thing to come out of the college is Theresa May and that says enough.”
Approximately six hours after the St Anne’s motion, the St Hugh’s JCR released its own formal declaration of war. Blaming “the black hand of St Anne’s Entz” for the “assassination of the [St Hugh’s] ball,” the motion proposed a series of economic and intersocial sanctions that included a ban on inter-college intimate relations and pizza sharing, as well as the construction of a large scale nuclear program. St Hugh’s JCR went on to say that St Anne’s is “an architectural, aesthetic, political, and spiritual affront to all five senses.”
What brought about wartime in OX2? In an interview with Cherwell, St Anne’s JCR domestic affairs rep Alfie explained that St Anne’s was planning to hold a bop on the same day as the proposed St Hugh’s ball. This led to the St Hugh’s ball not selling enough tickets, leading to its cancellation. According to the St Anne’s motion, the St Hugh’s Ball “would have been a failure anyway as their entz team is incapable of running a successful event, unlike the extremely popular, loved and successful St Anne’s entz.”
Alfie went on to explain exactly why St Hugh’s deserved to lose: “[St Hugh’s] is ugly. It’s disgusting. We all want it razed to the ground,” Alfie said. “And I don’t think anyone else in Oxford would really disagree.”
The war began in earnest the day after motions were released. In the morning hours of February 20th, the furniture in the Anne’s Danson Room was rearranged to represent phallic symbols, with the whiteboard smothered with mocking statements. And during the interview with Alfie, he received a message that a statue of the St Anne’s mascot, a beaver, had been stolen from the library. But it was clear that the war was only just beginning.
“We broke into [St Hugh’s] and rearranged the furniture and hung a banner,” claimed Alfie. “The plan is that we are going to take their cat.”
The war has had ripple effects in other colleges as well, as both St Hugh’s and St Anne’s have anointed themselves the ruler of the OX2 postcode, which is also shared by many other colleges. “I spoke to LMH as well and obviously they’re not happy,” Alfie said. Regarding the other colleges in OX2, such as Somerville and St Antony’s, Alfie deemed them irrelevant, saying that “no-one really cares [about them].”
St Hugh’s appears to have the upper hand right now, with one Entz rep and leader of the war effort quoting Coldplay’s ‘Yellow’, a victory song of the college: “Look at the stars, look how they shine for you.”
