A recent survey suggests that only 4 out of 10 people in the UK believe in God. That is, however, considerably more people than believe in the utility of studying the concept of God. Theology is one of Oxford’s oldest degrees, the first course of lectures having been given over 800 years ago. It may be the original “ology”, but it’s long past time for it to make room for something more relevant.

There has never been any disaster in human history in which an anxious crowd has gratefully parted while a strong-jawed hero marched to the rescue saying “Make way – I’m a theologian”.  Abolishing theology would avoid the inevitable awkwardness when someone tells you they are studying theology, and you spend the rest of your conversation wondering “Do they really believe this sh*t or was this the only thing they could get in for?”

No doubt it once served a useful purpose.  When the second and subsequent sons of aristocratic families who lacked the requisite martial spirit for military service were packed into the Church of England, the degree gave them the necessary intellectual patina to bamboozle their peasant parishioners and keep the tithes rolling in.

But it seems that believing in God is not even necessary for a Church career any more. The Oxford University Theology and Religion Faculty website lists “the churches” (note that inclusive plural) at the end of a very long list of possible future careers, after consultancy, the police force and accountancy. The cosmological and ontological arguments for the production of an accurate balance sheet must be something to behold, and it is not clear what value an ailing business will derive from a consultant who tells you, “You need a miracle – and I can tell you what one is”.

It might be said that there are other degrees who find themselves stranded even further up the beach by the changing tides of intellectual fashion – Classics for example. But for so long as a knowledge of Greek and Latin etymology provides a surer basis for answering botany questions on University Challenge than actually studying the subject, Classics will have it place. So it is time to say farewell to Theology, and for the last theologians to ponder their own afterlife.

Under Charles Kennedy, the Lib Dems enjoyed more support among students than any other party, despite their being a distant third place party nationally. Indeed, Oxford West was a Lib Dem stronghold while Oxford East came to within 2% of containing a plurality for Kennedy’s party, two among dozens of student-heavy seats in which the Lib Dems enjoyed rapturous support at the time. So what was it about him that resonated so deeply with a huge number of students?

Charles Kennedy was an outsider. In a world of refined, polished and plastic politicians, Charles went his merry way into parliament unmoulded, honest and rogue. He treated endless meetings in parliament, and within his party, with the same disdain most of us would. Yet he was unequivocally and deeply a man whose focus was always on the bigger picture. How he managed to survive, let alone be adored, in parliament for so long with these qualities is a testament to his charm, likability and humanity. No one doubted for a second that Charles wasn’t doing something he didn’t absolutely believe in to be the right thing.

His mettle in sticking to his principles is perhaps best illustrated in what many believe to be his finest hour. I remember as an 8 year old, atop my father’s shoulders, being in Hyde Park at my first protest in 2003. Charles shared the exact same birthday as my dad, so I was encouraged to listen, and it was only years later that I understood the significance of what he was doing. It’s easy to forget how tough it was to oppose the war on Iraq, especially now history as made the wisdom of this decision clear. At the time, Charles was either despised as a Saddam-loving dictatorship facilitator, or a fuzzy, naïve pacifist who couldn’t cut it in the real world. Through it all and driven boldly by principle and what he believed in, he stood firmly against the war. While politicians around the world were busy keeping their political lives intact by supporting the war, Charles was making himself the face of the opposition, and by that doing what every politician should be seeking to do – giving a voice to the voiceless.

Consider the consequences of his bravery – as a result of his actions and him being proved right, this country will never rush to war again. We will always scrutinise and question – rightfully so – any move the leaders of this country want to make on our behalf internationally and in war. A truly outstanding achievement.

But Charles was never one to say ‘I told you so’. A deeply humble, never pompous, man he understood the need for humanity when serving his constituents and the people of the country, but equally he understood the need for humanity when talking to people (in parliament and outside) with whom he disagreed. He always conducted fair and open minded dialogue with his adversaries and was up for a conversation with anyone at a moment’s notice. He focused on convincing the other in an argument, rather than defeating or embarrassing them. Not only did this make him popular on all sides of the political spectrum, but it made everyone listen to every word he spoke. Many people claim and wish to be ‘above’ politics, Charles Kennedy was one of the few who might well have been.

I suppose the biggest reason for the endearment he enjoyed in Oxford and afar might be for the simplest- he was one of us. Upon his unexpected election victory in 1983, aged 23, Charles said:

“We have heard much […] about the iniquities of our electoral system. Under the present system many people are effectively disfranchised. However, voluntary disfranchisement is also taking place. During my campaign people of my age and younger said consistently that they would not vote because their votes simply no longer matter and because no Government or Member of Parliament cared a whit about their problems and their striving for employment. That is disturbing for all of the parties and all honarary Members. Those who will contribute most to British democracy in the future are extricating themselves from the system already because they believe that it is no longer relevant. Part of the solution to that is electoral reform, but even more urgent is the need for a more tolerant, caring and compassionate Government.”

After all, isn’t that what we all believe too?

Be careful who you share a flat with: you never know where it might lead. In the late 1970s, Charlie Falconer found himself sharing a flat with fellow trainee barrister Tony Blair. Thereafter their paths diverged, Falconer into law and Blair into politics. But Labour’s 1997 election victory brought Falconer into the heart of government initially as Solicitor-General; then Minister of State with responsibility for Millennium Dome (or “Dome Secretary”); next Minister of Housing, Planning and Regeneration in 2001; and in 2003 he joined the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs and Lord Chancellor. Then Secretary of State for Justice, Falconer stepped down when Gordon Brown became Prime Minister in 2007, but in May 2015 he was appointed to shadow the Justice portfolio.

Falconer remains proud of his 10 years as a Blair minister, believing Blair “fundamentally changed Britain by making it much, much fairer”, pointing to the minimum wage, the Human Rights Act, the Freedom of Information Act and the increase in the funding of NHS. He believes a key Blair achievement was a move from a philosophy of “hand out” to “hand up”. “We made the public sector, health and education, really allow people to transform their lives. Instead of it being a sort-of second-rate safety net it became instead a means of enabling people to change.”

Not surprisingly, he names the Iraq War as the Blair Government’s greatest disaster, “It was based on the proposition that [Saddam] had Weapons of Mass Destruction and he didn’t. And it has obviously had an effect on defining the government.” For all that, he thinks Blair, who he describes as a man who “achieved so much for the Labour Party and the country”, has been treated “incredibly unfairly”. He believes “history will be much kinder than the present view”.

Whatever else Labour now feels about the troubled Blair legacy, his election-wining abilities must be the envy of any current Labour politician.  Falconer attributes Labour’s 2015 defeat to the fact that “we didn’t convince the public we should be trusted with government again”.

“There’s a whole series of reasons for it but I think at bottom they trusted the Tories more than they trusted us on the economy”.

Although more guarded in his language than some, he seems to share the view of Liz Kendall and Chaka Umunna that Labour was insufficiently aspirational in its offering. “I believe that it’s really important for any political party, obviously Labour included, to convince the electorate that if you want to do well for yourself and your family then the environment the government is creating will allow that to happen. And if people think that a government is going to stand in the way people doing well and achieving then that government will have difficulty in attracting votes.”

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However Falconer has lent his backing in Labour’s leadership campaign not to a candidate like Liz Kendall who is fairly ostentatiously draping herself in Blairite clothes, but to Andy Burnham, seen as a more “old Labour” candidate. “I think he’s the best person to lead the Labour Party at this particular juncture,” Falconer says. “I think what Labour has got to do is convince people that it is connected to the hopes and fears of people … Andy Burnham is the best person to do that.”

Falconer worked closely with Burnham in connection with the campaign to re-open the inquests into the Hillsborough Stadium disaster, and was clearly impressed by Burnham’s tenacity, “Andy was under some considerable pressure from time to time to not persist and even though it was damaging for him in many respects he persisted and ultimately was able to deliver an inquiry… that revealed the truth. Andy has got really good values and when the test came he passed it with flying colours. He was a politician who was brave and did the right thing.”

In what in Labour Party terms is a very large tent, Burnham has attracted the support not only of a key Blairite such as Falconer, but also Len McCluskey, head of Britain’s largest Union, Unite. Falconer rejects the suggestion that Burnham risks being perceived as being in the Union’s pocket (a criticism made of Ed Miliband after Union votes delivered an unexpected leadership win over his brother David). “Anyone who knows Andy Burnham will knows he most certainly is not Len McCluskey’s man. He will, I’m absolutely sure, be able to convey that.”

Falconer is one of a very large number of Scots who have achieved prominence in UK Labour, a tradition stretching back to Keir Hardie and Ramsay MacDonald. He talks optimistically of Labour finding its way back from the catastrophic 40 seat loss in Scotland, “Our job for Labour now I believe is to explain the benefits for the whole of UK including Scotland of union and be a clear and well-regarded opposition to the SNP in Scotland. Scotland is not a one party state.”

A one party state it may not be, but the Scottish election disaster seems to evidence a shifting of the electoral tectonic plates of far greater significance than Falconer is prepared to recognise. His current view is that the Labour Party should remain “the only party that crosses the border effectively”, and that “we both need each other, the Scottish Labour Party and the English Labour party, we should stay together”. He rejects the suggestion that Labour faces an impossible conundrum, being insufficiently left-wing for voters in Scotland, and too left-wing for voters in England, “I do not accept that the Scottish or the English populations are in particularly different places. There’s a long road back but it’s a road we can go down and get to the end of.”

After stepping down from Ministerial Office in 2007, Falconer devoted much of his time in the House of Lords seeking to bring an Assisted Dying Bill onto the statute book. The bill would allow terminally ill but medically competent patients to request life-ending medication from a doctor. His interest in this cause originated in personal experience, “Like very, very many people I have experience in my own life of people’s death and I have become incredibly struck through that experience of how there wasn’t this choice, that subject to proper protection, that when people were dying they should have.” That experience was reinforced by the many people he met who had very similar experiences, including a number of people themselves suffering from terminal illness and their families. His bill reached the Committee Stage of the House of Lords before the general election. This interview took place the day before the House of Lords ballot for private member bills for the 2015 Parliamentary Session. Falconer was drawn 21^st on the list of 44 bills, and will re-introduce his bill on 4 June 2015.

However formidable obstacles remain before there is any prospect of it becoming law, including strong opposition in the Lords itself. Three senior legal figures in the House, Baroness Butler-Sloss, Lord Carlile QC and Lord Brennan QC said the proposed change would leave vulnerable people at risk of abuse and threaten “public safety”. Falconer trenchantly rejects these criticisms.

“They are completely wrong. I think they’ve been closed in their minds about the bill.” He points to the numerous safeguards the bill provides for – two doctors have to be satisfied that the person is suffering from a terminal illness, that it is the person’s firm and settled intention to commit suicide, that the person has the capacity, and that it is a voluntary decision. A judge then has to confirm the decision is indeed voluntary. “That is so much more protection than now where there are absolutely no safeguards”, Falconer says. “People go to clinics in Switzerland without anyone ever looking at what the position is.” He complains that “The people who can take own life [now] are those who have the where-with-all, financial and emotional, to go to Switzerland. So it’s something for a very small group of people and there are no safeguards in relation to those who go there.” He describes the current law, in which those who accompany a patient to a Dignitas clinic may face a five to six month police investigation to decide whether they should be prosecuted, as “an absolute nightmare” and says “I don’t think anybody sensible wants that to continue”.

In October 2014, newspapers were agog with the news that Falconer had managed to shed 5 stone in two years on a diet regime of one meal a day, supplemented by Diet Coke and apples. Private Eye greeted the story with the headline, “Shock: Lawyer Loses Pounds.” While Falconer resists both Diet Coke and apples during our interview, six empty cans of the slim line version of “The Real Thing” litter the office. Unlike that other famous dieting politician, Nigel Lawson, he has not been asked to write a book. “One literary agent rang me up and said `Tell me about your diet’ and I said it was Diet Cokes and apples and you could eat anything you like in the evening. `There’s not much of a book there’, they said.”

So dramatic was Falconer’s weight loss that when he introduced his Assisted Dying Bill into the Lords, a number of his colleagues thought he was doing so because he was suffering from a wasting illness himself. He says “when they were told that I wasn’t … they said `Well pretend that you are, so you get sympathy for your Assisted Dying Bill’. That was a joke. I think”.

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Although no longer the physical heavyweight he once was, Falconer looks set to be a key Labour figure in opposition. As Shadow Justice Minister, he will have the lead role in opposing Conservative plans to repeal the Human Rights Act in what looks to offer Labour its best prospect of defeating a Conservative manifesto commitment. He describes the Conservative policy as “appalling”, accusing them of “trying to fool people into believing that you can have only those Human Rights that the government want you to have … If that is the position then of course that’s no Human Rights at all”.

He accuses the Conservatives of telling “a series of lies”, including suggesting that the Strasbourg court determines UK law when it is the UK Supreme Court which is the final arbiter of compliance, and the UK Parliament which decides whether the law should be changed. There is clearly a strong personal desire to prevent the Conservatives dismantling what Falconer sees as a key part of the Blair legacy.

Supporters of the Act will hope the Diet Coke and apples provide Falconer with sufficient stomach for what will be a tough fight.

The busker’s voice is one of the most prominent and defining sounds of Oxford’s centre; their melodies have wafted down Cornmarket’s side roads and become engrained within its stone-walls. But this music is not simply a characteristic of the city, it is an intrinsic part of the musicians that produce it. This was made all too clear on Thursday afternoon last week, when a troupe of Oxford buskers, led by guitarist Jonny Walker, staged a musical protest against the city council’s proposals to make their life’s work a potential “criminal offence”.

According to the Oxford City Council’s Code of Practice, musicians should no longer be able to use a space for more than one hour, should not sell any merchandise or request money for their work, must not busk within 50metres of each other but should “Smile, enjoy yourself and entertain others” despite this.  Given the absurdity of certain guidelines, it is no wonder that buskers from around the city gathered to express their disappointment in the council’s unwillingness to work with, rather than against, the music of the streets.

Many people affected have commented on the recent questionable use of the authorities’ time, focusing on creating new types of ‘criminals’ and new fineable activities, at the expense of focusing on the prosecution of current wrongdoers. Not only busking, but sleeping rough, pavement art and even feeding pigeons have all at one point been considered under the Public Space Protection Order as causers of disturbance or discomfort for the public. Other UK cities have also secured a buskers code of conduct; however the criteria for intervention is specific to case – only in instances of legitimate public harassment and complaint will action be taken against an individual.

In Oxford, the laws will make it much easier to be ‘non-compliant’, leading to an unnecessarily large amount of buskers being robbed of what could be their only hope for making a living, being fined sums that are often not immediately available to them. This is not just a question of money, however; for those people relying on the safety and comfort of their regular ‘busking environment’, redefining the guidelines could mean forcing them into nomadism, exacerbating their already-too-strong sense of having no home. Although the proposals to criminalise sleeping rough have recently been withdrawn, buskers would still be officially prevented from “ Positioning themselves in such a way that could be deemed begging, e.g. sitting on or wrapped in a sleeping bag or blanket”, under the new code.

Implementation of these new rules has stemmed from an objection to “unsafe and unfair” practices of buskers in Oxford, not specified by the council. When asked whether she would reconsider the policy, and asked to clarify the reasoning behind the code’s initiation, Labour Councillor Dee Sinclair claimed to the police that she was being ‘harassed’, and refused to further negotiate on the issue. What seems most frustrating is the vague attitude adopted by the authorities in their responses, rebuffing any proposal to collaborate with the Musicians’ Union or the Keep Streets Live campaign.

The greatest fear expressed by these associations is of the potential deterioration of Oxford’s cultural identity as an artistically vibrant and embracive centre and the stigmatisation of an activity from which the council suggests the public need ‘protection’ which is meant in fact for their enjoyment.