Rejoicing. High fives and selfies. This was the way that 52 migrants disembarking their vessel in the town of Kardamila on the Island of Chios celebrated the attainment of one basic human right: freedom. Next, they turned to secure another one: water. ‘Water, water, please’ in broken English was the phrase repeated by many. After being crammed, for eight hours, on a tiny nine metre boat floating in off the Mediterranean coastline awaiting rescue by the hopelessly understaffed Chian coastguard, it is no wonder that they are somewhat parched.

During a weekend break on the island of Chios for a family christening, the refugee or ‘immigration’ problem that many European governments have been trying to brush under the proverbial carpet hit home, and hit very hard.

When we arrived in the afternoon at our apartment 33km north of the island’s capital, Chios, we went down to the beach. This normally a pristine beach was littered with buoyancy aids, children’s armbands, deflated boats and rubber rings.

Waking up at 9 o’clock the next morning and looking out over the sea to the Turkish coast, visible on most days, we could see six inner tyre tubes floating by. Through further enquiry, we found that they came from a group of roughly 30 refugees who had landed an hour ago 2km further up the coast. Miraculously they had all arrived safely and were being taken to Kardamila, a town of 3,000 people, 27km north of Chios.

Intrigued, my mum and I hopped in the car and started towards the town. A couple of kilometres into our journey we hit a traffic jam, very uncommon for those of you not familiar with the more obscure Greek island roads. As we came to the front of this queue we saw that the cause was the group of refugees walking in single file, carrying, wheeling and pushing bags being escorted by a lone police officer in his jeep.

The walk is further 6km and the temperature that day hovered around 36°C. Additionally walking along a road in Greece, as many will be able to testify to, is one of the most dangerous things that can be done in the western world. It should also be mentioned that at this point they have had no access to water or sanitation, since leaving Turkey more than 10 hours earlier. Physically, this journey is an exhausting task for most fully-grown men, not to mention the elderly and the children who comprise around 40% of the refugees.

After seeing this, we raced to Karthamila to pick up some crates of bottled water. However, as we came into the town, we saw another boat come in at the end of the quay. As we got closer we noticed that it was packed with even more people. We stopped the car and got out. There were 3 other people on the quayside; the only bureaucratic –looking person was the harbourmaster. As the boat came ashore they scrambled to get off, giving each other high-fives and taking selfies once off it. After the final person had disembarked, fifty people stood on the quayside.

Immediately after rejoicing, they started asking for water and the toilet – neither of which was in available. The harbourmaster told them that they must remain on the quayside. Mum and I drove to the nearest shop, 500 meters away and bought twenty-four 1.5ltr bottles of water and, for the 10 or so children, some bread snacks. Whilst handing out the water some of the people initially rejected it, only accepting it after we insisted and left it for them.  

By the time we returned to where we had left the other group, they had left the main road. Going back to where we left the larger group, we found that they too had moved. By chance, we saw them walking up an old, steep road and, like the smaller group, dragging their possessions behind them. We ended our brief journey with them in the grounds of a remote church where they were being accounted for by two very informally dressed ‘authorities’. From meeting them at the port to leaving them at the church hour hours had passed. Four hours and still no prospect of a drink of water or private toilets.

Not including the ones who made it all the way to Chios town, 75 refugees made the journey over. Taking 100 per day as a conservative estimate, before the year is out, around 15,000 refugees will have arrived on Chios alone. On an island of no more than 40,000 people, clearly help is needed from the EU and other countries.

In closing, let me say this: there is no chance of the tide of refugees abating. As the summer draws to an end, there will be more urgency for those remaining in Turkey to attempt the trip over. The problem will only be exacerbated now that the summer holidays have ended and the populations of islands such as Kos and Chios more than half as Greeks return to their mainland homes and the tourists return to their respective countries.

The only form of help so far has come in the form of volunteers spending their own money on buying basic supplies; predominantly water for the refugees so that when they arrive after their 8-hour-plus journey they have another fundamental human right to add to that of freedom. A 1.5ltr bottle of water costs just €0.50 on Chios, but this quickly adds up when 100 or more refugees arrive every day. This load could easily be shared between many to make it an insignificant amount.

I’m not normally an outwardly overly compassionate person, but this is something impossible to ignore. Of course, I cannot claim to understand even an iota of what these people have been through, but one thing I do know is that they would not have made their decisions easily. These were not were not people speculatively embarking on a hazardous expedition for mere economic gain- as some in the media will have you believe- but rather a proud people wearing expressions of pure relief and gratitude at having escaped  the horrors of their home countries in the hope of living a life free from daily threats to their life. 

To donate to help the refugees’ cause go to: https://crowdfunding.justgiving.com/or-radway 

On a windy day in Scotland, our ageing Queen gave a speech to open the new Scottish Borders Railway. Arriving in a carriage of the antique ‘Union of South Africa’ steam train, the symbolism of her visit, on the day that she was set to become the longest reigning British monarch in history, was not lost on the teams of journalists that awaited her.  Sent to make a news headline of the Queen’s every footstep, there was a feeling that the worldwide press had once again fallen under the ‘spell’ of the British monarchy. 

The very scheduling of the Queen’s opening ceremony on this of all days was, no doubt, a well-designed attempt to portray the monarch as primarily our public servant. Her dedication to the public project of the Borders Railway on a day of supposed private success in her long reign was carefully staged to integrate ideas of the contemporary monarchy with contemporary civic society. As David Cameron put it to parliament that day, efforts were made to portray the Queen as ‘a golden thread running through three post-war generations’ – a tireless servant of the public good. In the 63 years and seven months that have witnessed the turbulence of the break-up of Britain’s empire, the decline of her industry, and the realisation that she is no longer a world power, it has been convenient to see the monarch as unchanging. The Queen has been set up as a false reminder of all that is supposedly ‘great’ in Great Britain.

The issue is that, whatever I and other students might think, this idealisation of the wise, dedicated monarch remains incredibly popular. Instead of writing the same old, tired student debates about the abolition of the monarchy, we need to ask ourselves why the Queen remains so popular, and what this means for us. We need to look beyond the clichés of the monarch and her new Elizabethans and begin to understand the gaps in contemporary British cultural experience that she is needed to fill.

One of the most common attractions of the Queen to the public is that she represents a supposed constant in British identity. The monarchy is commonly thought to be a historically stable institution from which we can take our bearings in an unsteady world. The problem with this fantasy is that, like everything else in British society over the last hundred years, the monarchy has in fact been forced to adjust to the changing needs of its public.

Historian, David Cannadine, in his 1983 essay on ‘The British Monarchy and the ‘Invention of Tradition’, c. 1820-1977’, broke intellectual ground by suggesting that, instead of analysing the monarchy in terms of timeless sociological structures, we should conceive of the rituals of the British royalty as responding to their cultural contexts. Time old traditions like the royal Christmas radio broadcast were invented to satisfy the changing needs of the monarch’s public. In terms of a ‘thick description’ of the changing layers of cultural meaning the monarchy inhabits, we understand how much changing ideas of the Queen reflect the changing aspirations of her public. Indeed, the idea of the monarchy as a link to Britain’s illustrious past is as much a reflection of the seeming lack of ‘glory’ we experience in the present. In an age of austerity, a ‘Great’ British monarchy with a ‘Great’ British pedigree is comforting to an otherwise disenfranchised public.

The royal family is, however, more than just a throwback to the past. People see the likes of Will and Kate as a pathway to a stable future. Superimposed on what could well be a normal young family is an image of the country’s regeneration. Just like Charles and Diana before them, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge attract the media’s attention because they provide a comforting, normative view of conservative family life. The stable image of this growing young royal family, unmoved by the threats of unemployment, housing and education that normal families face, provides an outlet for escapism in the national media. Baby pictures of Prince George and Princess Charlotte in glossy magazines are a welcome diversion for parents who know their children will never get that level of privilege. The young royals’ celebrity is based on the nation’s need to fantasise, to imagine that they too could provide that kind of unobtainable life for their children.

Perhaps most of all, the monarchy’s increasing popularity reflects Britain’s continued struggle to forge a new identity out of the turmoil of the twentieth century. At the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s wedding, a stable image of Great Britain as a land steeped in history was served up to the world, and the world gobbled it up.

This image, however, is increasingly out of touch with the realities of modern life. As ongoing debates over our membership of the EU and Scotland’s membership of the Union continue to tear the nation apart, the illusion of stability under our long serving Queen has been shown to be just that – an illusion. As the Queen’s reign eats its way into the record books, we need to ask ourselves why we seem to need the monarchy, and what that says about us.

At about 5.30 on Wednesday 9^th September Her Majesty the Queen became the longest serving monarch in English and British history. Surpassing her great-great grandmother Empress-Queen Victoria as the longest serving monarch, the Queen has now reigned for 63 years and seven months or 23, 226 days.

The Queen noted on this anniversary that “inevitably a long life can pass by many milestones,” and indeed her reign has seen fundamental changes envelop Oxford University. In many ways both the British monarchy and Oxford University have faced similar challenges; august institutions, steeped in tradition, confronted by modernity. The Queen’s defining achievement- the constant modernisation and refashioning of the monarchy for the late 20^th and 21^st century-is one shared with Oxford. As the outgoing Vice-Chancellor is fond of reminding undergraduates at matriculation ceremonies; do not be fooled by ancient surrounding of this University- it is very much a modern institution, equipped for the 21^st century.

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The course of the Queen’s reign has seen the fruition of a close and at times deeply personal relationship between the monarchy and Oxford University. The Queen’s first visit to the University was in 1949 when, as Princess Elizabeth, she was given a tour of the University. On that occasion the Queen lunched at Brasenose. Clearly something about the visit captured her attention for it was to be the first of many royal trips to Oxford.

The most well-known of the royal sojourns to Oxford is possibly the 1960 visit of the Queen and Prince Philip. No less than the serving Prime Minister and Balliol alumnus Harold Macmillan accompanied the royal couple around the town. On that one visit alone the Queen was taken to Christ Church to view its latest renovations, Lady Margaret Hall to enjoy its new library, the Clarendon building and ate supper at Trinity College. Vast crowds thronged the streets and had to be forcibly restrained by police officers. Most exciting of all, during the marathon visit the Queen stepped but feet away from the Cherwell offices as she entered the Oxford Town Hall.

It is testament to the longevity of the Queen’s reign that she even outlives a handful of Oxford colleges. In fact the the royal couple certainly made their mark during the 1960 visit, the Queen personally laying the foundation stone of St Catherine’s college. The monarch and Prince Philip then met the architect, Professor Arne Jocobsen, and saw the designs. Fortunate perhaps for Jacobsen that the Queen does not appear to hold the same forthright architectural predilections as her eldest son.

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The embrace of modernity and tolerance has been the zeitgeist of the reign of Elizabeth II. Take her May 1968 meeting with Zarina Bhatia at Sommerville, the University’s first and then only black female Ugandan student. Fittingly, on this occasion the Queen was introduced to Bhatia by New Zealander Susan Moller, then a student at University college, who would go on to become a renowned feminist and campaigner for multi-cultural feminism.

Fast forward to the present day and there is barely a major landmark in Oxford which has not at one stage or another been touched by the royal presence. Be it ex-prison, refurbished church or renovated college accommodation, the Queen has most likely been-there and cut the ribbon. The Queen returned to Brasenose College again on 2^ndDecember 2009 to commemorate the College’s quincentenary. Unfortunately Brasenose’s most famous current alumnus was apparently busy that day.

Royal Jubilees have been keenly celebrated by assorted Oxonians over the past few decades. Back in 2002 Oriel College, of which the Queen is visitor, commissioned the largest portrait of the monarch outside Windsor Castle for its hall. For the 2012 Diamond Jubilee the University combined old and new to pay its respects to the monarch. Oxford University sent a deputation to the Queen to make a ‘Loyal Address,’ just as had been done for Queen Victoria in 1897.

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In a reign characterised by relentless service and the promotion of communal and civic values, the Queen’s strong connection to Oxford University is indicative of her practical commitment to education, learning and renewal.

The reign of Elizabeth II has seen the hard power of empire give way to the softer hue of the collaboration and the Commonwealth;  the mighty manufacturing industries decline and a services economy rise and a Britain more internationalist abroad and multi-cultural at home. Oxford University, now a beacon of international learning and a centre in the UK’s knowledge economy, embodies this. 63 years may only be a fraction of Oxford University’s 900 year history but, like it or not, this bastion of higher education has become a lodestar of the new Elizabethan age.                                                                                

Footage of the Queen’s 1960 visit to Oxford may be viewed here: http://www.britishpathe.com/video/queen-and-duke-at-oxford

Apparently we can now add ‘students’ to the list of shy Tories out there. The latter part of the twentieth century is marked by political activism, much of it led by students. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament was a massive political phenomenon for decades. Now the symbol is worn by hipsters out clubbing.

The biggest student riot this century has seen was in protest against the tuition fees increase. Sure, when the Conservatives claimed a second term earlier this year some angry youths got out on the streets to protest ‘Tory austerity’. Yet how does this compare to the student-led protests against the Vietnam War in 1962, a movement that was part of a worldwide struggle that persisted into the late 1970s?

Where are the stoner badge-wearing students with newspaper cut-outs and posters of Che Guvara in their rooms in hall? Who even reads Sartre or Marx anymore?

I suppose they grew up, started a proper job, and decided they wanted to keep their money. It’s like the saying goes, if you’re not a communist when you’re young, you don’t have a heart, but if you’re not Tory when you’re older, you don’t have any sense.

Perhaps this new generation of students is simply more ‘sensible’ than their predecessors?

This absence of political action could reflect a lack interest in politics among young people. Studies show that students and young people are the most likely group of people to have open political discussion, but, rather ironically, they are the least likely to vote.

Perhaps students are simply losing the urge to be rebellious as they are increasingly aware of future employability. Now everyone gets a degree, what distinguishes us from the rest of job applicants? A tame record seems to be all that we can offer.

Now that university is no longer free and we’ll be coming out with around £50,000 debt, we want to know our future salary will be worth the hassle of three years of partying, hence our rather right-wing attitude to taxing high-earners.

So what does this whole ‘right wing’ business mean?

The Oxford University Conservative Association (OUCA) claims to be the largest political student society in Western Europe, and at 1300 members, together with 12000 life members, it is certainly a realistic claim.

Are these members of right-wing university societies all upper class money-grabbing white men the radicals paint them to be? Of course not.

Jan Vaclav Nedvidek, President of OUCA, told Cherwell, “We don’t exclude anyone just because they don’t toe the party line. Turnout at Port and Policy keeps growing precisely because we get people from across the political spectrum – some of the radical left leaders used to be regulars in my first year at Oxford, and we also get LibDems and Greens.

“Coming out as a Tory was often more difficult for me than coming out as gay, and the things I was called even by people in my college after the election were borderline hate speech.”

The increased popularity in right-wing policies may also be a reflection of the current government. Right-wing students attribute the UK’s GDP growth to George Osborne and his policies, and believe that left-wing politics would just damage the economy again.

So are students really more right-wing or are the lefties just better at shouting the other side down?

As Nedvidek put it, “Students are no different from everyone else. If you believe in more state regulation, you’ll be more likely to be left wing; if you believe people and the economy are best off when left alone, you’re more likely to be right wing. The fact that you happen to be a student doesn’t change that.”

Perhaps it’s not that students are becoming more right-wing, but rather that the left is losing support from young voters. Students who may have previously come under the ‘radical left-wing’ category are now simply uninterested.

The YouGov results that supposedly demonstrate that students are more right-wing than the public could be used to prove the exact opposite. When compared with the general public, students came out as more right-wing largely on wealth and economic issues. This does not mean that students are more right-wing, but rather that they are becoming aware of the cost of their degree and the implications for their financial future. Today, for most students, left-wing ideology is unrealistic.

On 26 July, footage leaked by the Sun showed Lord Sewel, a senior member of the House of Lords, spending his afternoon in a London flat in the company of sex workers and several lines of an unidentified white powder. Bare-chested, he complains about his reduced rent allowance and shares his assessment of colleagues as ‘right thieves, rogues and bastards’.  

The House of Lords, long an oddity in British politics, is becoming an absurdity. In order to bring the House up to date with reality, a major reform in 1999 removed all but 92 hereditary  peers and established the dominance of appointed life peers. Unfortunately, successive Prime Ministers have used their appointment powers in ways that were apparently not foreseen. First, they have sent ever more fellow party members rather than non-partisan experts to the House of Lords, in part to shift the balance of power there in their own favour. Second, they have established the House as a source of patronage, appealing to potential donors’ vanity with the implicit prospect of a title, even if any explicit promise is forbidden. Partly as a result, the House of Lords now counts more than 800 members, all entitled to a daily attendance fee of £300.

The latest evidence of this mechanism came on 27 August, when David Cameron elevated a further 45 persons to the Peerage. Among those selected were James Lupton, a banker who donated £2.8 million to the party, Douglas Hogg, a former MP who had to give up his seat in the parliamentary expenses scandal, and a dozen former Conservative politicians. Seven other nominations were reported to have been rejected by the House of Lords Appointment Commission – something which can only be done if there are concerns about financial improprieties.

The unsustainability of an upper chamber that is a byword for waste and nepotism is widely recognised. In the general election of May 2015, both the Labour and the Liberal Democrat manifestos called for the introduction of an elected House of Lords. Even the manifesto of the Conservatives stated that they would address ‘issues such as the size of the chamber and the retirement of peers.’

In the last Parliament, one of the coalition government’s pledges had been to ‘bring forward proposals for a wholly or mainly elected upper chamber on the basis of proportional representation’ by December 2010. However, when a bill was finally introduced in July 2012, it was scuppered by a minority of rebellious Conservative backbenchers. These same backbenchers now hold even more veto power as part of a slim parliamentary majority. With several internal divisions already emerging, notably over the referendum on Europe, David Cameron seems simply to have concluded that a further attempt at reforming the House of Lords would be a greater liability than leaving it untouched.
        
The strength of Britain’s parliamentary system is supposed to be that it fosters accountability and decisive government. The first-past-the-post system normally produces majority single-party governments that face few obstacles in shaping legislation. In theory, this should make it easier for the public to evaluate the actions of individual parties while in office, and compare them against those proposed by their competitors. The fact that, in practice, the current government is protecting a wildly unpopular House of Lords therefore highlights some of the system’s vulnerabilities.

First, the failure of House of Lords reform is an extreme example of the problem traditionally associated with first-past-the-post systems, namely, inefficient representation. The iniquity of the Conservatives’ gaining a seat majority on the basis of a vote share of 37 per cent is well known. However, there is the further issue of factions within that majority exerting disproportionate power. In effect, because the opposition almost always votes against a divided government, a determined group of backbenchers can hold up changes to the status quo. As it happens, the number of Conservative parliamentarians who opposed reform to House of Lords in 2012 was 91. Forming less than 15 per cent of the House of Commons, they managed to block a reform supported, according to a contemporary Ipsos poll, by 79 per cent of Britons.

Furthermore, the fact that the Prime Minister felt confident enough this August to engage in overt cronyism points to the downside of weak outside checks on his power. Normally, the absence in Britain of strong procedures enforcing transparency is supposed to be compensated by the existence of an effective opposition. However, the Conservative Party are in a position where much of the parliamentary resistance has simply melted away. The Liberal Democrats are still reeling from their election defeat and have only eight seats left. Labour, meanwhile, has just elected Jeremy Corbyn, sparking conflict within its parliamentary delegation and potentially ruining its ability to hold the government to account. In any case, both the Liberal Democrats and Labour have scarcely opposed the Prime Minister’s manoeuvre, in which they gained 11 and 8 Peerages of their own. This lends credence to outsider parties such as UKIP, the Greens and the SNP, who accuse them all of forming a self-serving cartel.

Ultimately, it is the legitimacy of the House of Lords that continues to be eroded. There is speculation that the appointment by David Cameron of so many dubious figures was intended to serve that purpose. The Conservatives are currently in a minority in the House of Lords, with 215 peers against the combined number of 313 for Labour and the Liberal Democrats. Although the House of Lords by convention does not reject legislation that is part of an election manifesto, it does frequently propose amendments to bills, which delays their passage and encourages reports in the press. Some of the Conservatives’ legislative proposals, most notably the scrapping of the Human Rights Act, are likely to incur its criticism. Unable to scrap or reform it, the government at the very least lacks the incentive to help the House of Lords fulfil its constitutional role.

This summer, much media attention was devoted to the lewdness of Lord Sewel. The great scandal of British politics, however, is not the conduct of individual members of the House of Lords. It is not even the £93.1 million the institution costs taxpayers annually. Rather, it is the contempt for Britain’s citizens shown by their elected politicians.