Blog Page 1252
Interview: Judge Rinder
“There’s a lovely phrase, and in Darlington, let me tell you, they think of nothing else: it’s called ‘Caveat Emptor’.”
With a quick quip, daytime television’s newest star disposes of another case. The star in question is Rob Rinder, who presents Judge Rinder on ITV. Twenty episodes were broadcast between August and September this year. After Rinder doubled the audience to 1.2 million viewers, he was quickly signed up for another series which will be broadcast in January.
The format of the TV judge deciding real cases has a long history in the USA, going back to Judge Wapner’s The People’s Court and now Judge Judy. While those cases featured retired judges in the title role, Rinder is young, irreverent and still in practice at the bar. The success of the show lies in his charismatic personality, and waspish tongue. He told a bride who was suing her wedding photographer for being drunk at her wedding, “If you’d been at the Last Supper, you’d have asked for ketchup.” “They get even funnier in the new series,” he promises.
The show has not escaped controversy. Comments about Rinder on the website Legal Cheek give an insight into the conflicting views on whether his show makes a mockery of the legal system. Whilst many are positive, others think that, “The show is a joke. It portrays a terrible picture of the English legal system and now many will base their impression on this drivel.” Scrolling through the comments, there is anxiety about the authenticity of the cases and whether justice is prey to the needs of entertainment.
I put some of these concerns to Rinder. Does he think the show damages the image of the law and of lawyers? “No, I definitely don’t. I have had some of that feedback and I understand why people are concerned but the bottom line in our show is that I wouldn’t have done it if there were any problems.” I also asked him if all the cases and claimants who appear on his show are real, after allegations were made against courtroom reality TV shows in the USA. Rinder stresses the stringency of external regulatory bodies for shows like his, “Everyone who comes on the show is absolutely real, the stories are real, and the people are real. About ten or twelve years ago there was a controversy about the authenticity of reality TV shows, particularly panel shows.”
Since then, “the regulatory framework has really tightened and it is a very serious breach of the regulations to contrive stories. The reason I feel I can do the show is because the policing and controlling of content is so stringent.” And the quality of the judgments? “I wouldn’t have done it if there was any suggestion that my decision would be interfered with in any way… integrity lies at the heart of the show, although obviously the entertainment value is important.”
Both parties agree to go on the show and be bound by his decision, with Rinder operating as a small claims court. Most of the cases are straightforward contractual or family disputes. I asked him about the selection criteria. “There has to be some ‘push back’, a legal dispute with a case on both sides, preferably a claim and a meaningful counter-claim. The subject matter also has to be authentic and sufficiently interesting, there’s undoubtedly a sense that it has to be interesting to watch, but there’s no hard and fast rule.”
He assures me that the claimants are not “cast” for entertainment value but admits that a lot of the show’s comedy comes from the ways in which the claimants conduct themselves. Rinder insists that he applies exactly the same principles of law as he would in any case, asking the same questions. “Is there a contract? Was there an intention to create legal relations? Was somebody lying? Who is to blame?” General opinion seems to agree with him. One QC who is a closet fan of the show said, “The legal analysis is very good. Anyone who suggests that the level of justice offered is somehow below that which the participants would have got, had they stayed in the small claims court, is wide of the mark. “As to whether the show trivializes the court process, or raises awareness of issues that affect us all, I’ll let you be the judge.”
I turn to how the show came about. Whilst working as a lead advocate on a major prosecution case, Rinder was working on scripts and television proposals in his spare time. He tried to sell one of his scripts and came into contact with Tom McLennan, the current producer of the show. He was looking to do a courtroom reality show and asked Rinder if he would be interested. The rest is history.
The allegation that the show trivialises law must be particularly annoying because Rinder is a very serious lawyer. He has appeared as a barrister in a number of high profile criminal cases, many of which had an international element. He describes his most fulfilling professional experiences as acting “as an advocate [for] people who are the poorest, or the ones that are the least able to communicate, or the ones with the most challenging issues. Standing between them and injustice is enormously fulfilling. That’s when cases really matter. You can really be a conduit to protect individual rights.” He also appeared in the trial of British servicemen accused of the manslaughter of Iraqi detainees. “It was enormously important, and challenged my preconceptions about the army, the challenging and difficult decisions that soldiers have to make every day.”
Rinder studied Politics and History at university, and humanities students stressing about getting a job after university may be interested in his views on whether those seeking a legal career are disadvantaged by not studying law. “Definitely not. I would say that the competition of the bar is so intense, the broader your education, the better. In terms of getting a pupillage at my chamber, which is one of the leading sets for international arbitration, we have between 350-750 applicants. In some years. we take two and occasion- ally only one … There is no preference given to a law degree or a conversion, it depends so much on other factors such as quality of degree or whether you have done a masters.”
Rinder is clearly passionate about the criminal bar, and about the challenges it faces from cuts in public funding. “People don’t really think about criminal justice until it affects them. Their instinct is to think, ‘Why should criminals have access to public funds?’ It has been significantly cut, which means that now there is a significant threat to the quality of defence counsel.” While he thinks that the state of affairs can continue in the short term, “in the long term it means that chambers like mine will increasingly start to turn away that kind of work. The result of that will be injustice, it’s as simple as that … It could lead to a horror scenario, which happens in certain states of America, where a public defender fresh out of law school has to fight a case against a seasoned prosecutor. How are they, despite their best endeavour and capacity, going to effectively defend their client?” Rinder also warns us not to be misled by politicians railing against “fat cat” lawyers. “For criminal lawyers, it is very challenging. To give you a sense of the decimation, the cases that I used to take when I was first qualified are now worth about a tenth of what they used to be.”
Rinder’s enthusiasm for the law inevitably prompts consideration of whether life will in due course imitate art. Does he hold secret ambitions to exchange the role of a TV judge for the real thing? “The jury’s still out.” A very judicious response. If that day ever comes, it will bring some much needed diversity and vitality to the bench. And some court hearings which really would be worth televising.
Interview: Ed Balls
“Very little actually. Surprisingly little. Except that was a pub. And there was a library there.”
That was the gist of the Shadow Chancellor’s response to me asking how much of Oxford had changed since his days as a PPE undergraduate at Keble, as we walked along fairly swiftly from the station into the centre of town and as I hastily jot down his words whilst trying to sort out the voice recording function on my phone. He seems to my eye, although he may just be good at pretending, to be pleased to be back in Oxford.
I quickly learn that the interview will be done whilst walking up towards Keble, and that I will have to compete for Balls’ time with a reporter from the Oxford Mail. The Shadow Chancellor is a busy man. But at least my phone is working
now.
I decide I want to know about his background first and so start off by asking him about his roots as a politician. Was being an MP something he’d always wanted or something he stumbled into? The answer, it seems, is that he came into the world of politics as a result of intellectual curiosity.
He tells me, “I think I started studying economics when I was 16 at A-level and then here at university in Oxford. It was at a time when, under the Thatcher government, unemployment was high and rising and in which poverty was getting worse.”
He goes on to add, “At that time, although many of the big challenges we faced were economic challenges, the only solutions were going to be solutions that came through political correction.
“We’ve got to change our politics to make it more representative.”
“And so being involved in the economy [was a start], but being involved in politics was the obvious way to try and change our country and try and change our world for the better.”
That explains an interest in politics, I think – but why the Labour party? Before I can ask him though, he explains, “And as it happened my Dad was already in the Labour party.” He pauses then adds, “and chair of the local branch. So that’s why I joined.”So I ask if his interest in politics is a result of his surroundings as he was growing up? Yes, “it started as a product of my era, the late 1970s, early 1980s, which was a very tough time”.
Balls’ past, especially his time at Oxford, has long been an interest of the national media. The Daily Mail and other tabloids have run stories criticising him for the fact that he was a member of both the Oxford University Labour Club and the Oxford University Conservative Association whilst he was a student. How many other Oxford students past and present have committed this ‘crime’, I wonder.
Undoubtedly a talented economist, he went on to finish his Oxford degree in the late 1980s, taking a higher first than David Cameron, who was at the University at the same time – although the two did not know each other. He then went on to work as a teaching fellow in the Department of Economics at Harvard for a year, before returning to the UK to work for the Financial Times. Balls was a lead economic writer at the paper. A former acquaintance of Balls, who I was coincidentally put in touch with shortly after conducting this interview, explained that, “Ed Balls was very popular at the FT. He got on well with senior writers and editors and impressed everyone with his bright mind – and famously got popular song lyrics into FT editorials.”
“People will really focus on the election choice in the final months as we get closer to polling day.“
In 1994, however, he was offered a job by Gordon Brown, then Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer. John Rentoul, in an article published in 2011, claims that Balls was advised against taking up the job by Martin Wolf, an Associate Editor at the FT at the time (and one of the most respected economic journalists in the UK), who thought Balls had a career at the paper to look forward to. But, the Economics Editor of The Observer, William Keegan, told him it would be a wise career move.
In the end, Balls did take up the job and was, by many accounts, a crucial component of the Brown political machine in the years that followed. Then in 2005, he was elected with over a 50% majority to the seat of Normanton, which was subsequently abolished in 2010. Following this he won election in the newly created Morley and Outwood seat in the last election. With this career path in mind, which never really deviated much outside the narrow worlds of academia, economics, or politics, I ask him about diversity in parliament.
I explain that I’m a white man from London studying at Oxford with an interest in politics, and so perhaps not in a position to ask without it being – at least on some level – slightly ironic, but does he think politics needs to be more diverse? Especially given that we have a political climate at the moment in which millions feel disaffected and unhappy with their current crop of representatives.
“I think that we need to [make parliament more diverse] and we’ve got to change our politics to make sure that it is more representative”, he responds assertively. He continues, “We need more people from public sectors as well as the private sectors, we need more trade unionists as well as lawyers, we need more people like me who come from the provinces as well as London. That’s a given.” I agree with him, and appreciate that at least he’s not from London, but what he says is indisputable.
It gets interesting though when he adds, “We do need to make our politics more representative but I think our party’s very committed to that and we’ve shown we can make change. On gender, things have been transformed; so let’s transform some other areas as well. We’ve got much more to do on ethnicity and some other areas as well.”
Do his ideas stack up, I wonder? A bit of research seems to show he’s talking some sense (there’s certainly more to do). Before 1987 women never made up more than 5% of MPs. Now they make up 22%, which is dramatically better but still poor. And he’s right when it comes to party divides – Labour’s (who operate all-women shortlist’s in many seats) percentage of women MPs is by some margin the highest of all the three main political parties. Labour leads the way in terms of ethnic minority members too they have the highest number of ethnic minority MPs and are the only party to have Muslim women represent them on the benches. But given that ethnic minorities still only make up 4% of MPs (yet 14% of the general population), we can only hope that Balls, who is aiming to play a major part in a future Labour government, will lead the transformation he’s calling for.
Balls’ household-name status is brought sharply to my attention as we walk past a group of people who I presume to be students and one of them goes, “Shit, that was Ed Balls”. Later on I see a tweet reading, “Just saw @edballsmp giving an interview walking down Lamb and Flag passage, talking about the economy where many before have chundered.”
My guess is that much of this fame is a result of his leadership challenge in 2010. Balls had the support of the union Unite, but lost out to Ed Miliband. He would nevertheless have been recognised in political circles beforehand, having previously also served as Economic Secretary to the Treasury and Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, meaning he has experience in ministerial positions. His current position, and indeed the one he will surely inherit if Labour get into a position of power following the next election, is the most influential role he has occupied. Being a Labour Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer must be an unforgiving job, especially given the narrative that ‘Labour broke the economy’ that the Tories fall back on when arguments run dry and that Labour has been unable to – in the eyes of the electorate anyway – prove wrong.
I think there’s a communication issue between Labour and the electorate, especially when you consider that polling suggests that Labour policy ideas are individually more popular than those of the Tories or the Lib Dems. I put this to Balls, and he responds with a comparison to the 1997 election, “I think that back in 1997 we didn’t actually come forward with our pledge-card or detailed policies until the final few months before the election and we’ve come out much earlier in this parliament, but you know there’s still a long way to go and people will really focus on the election choice in the final months as we get closer to polling day.”
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He hasn’t finished, “So we’ve definitely got a challenge to get our message out there and to communicate”, he says, “but I think we’ve got a good message and good policies at a time when everybody feels that they’re under pressure and some people say that, well maybe nothing can change, nobody can make a difference. Our biggest challenge is to persuade people that not only have we got the policies but we can deliver real change.” Part of that challenge will be overcome by campaigning he adds. He points out how it’s important in places like Oxford, but also for him personally. He is has the second slimmest majority in the Shadow Cabinet.
Between meeting him at the station, accompanying him to Keble and hearing him respond to questions at a talk, I’ve come to notice that Balls has answers. When there’s no pre-determined line, he pauses and articulates his views carefully.
Except I realise there was one question at the talk he couldn’t give an answer to: what was his take on Ed Balls Day? “It’s bizarre,” he says laughing. “I don’t understand it.”
Great Books, Good Looks
Earlier this week, I got hit with a bill to replace library books I have lost this term. One item was for £87. Fortunately, I have just been lazy and left it gathering dust in the corner of my room for 6 weeks so instead of forking out nearly a ton, I just have to make the short walk to the library, hand it over, and face the consequences of my book-stealing antics with a steely-eyed resolve — I’d take the cold disapproval of a librarian over a substantial hit on my bank balance any day.
But it was a reminder of a problem that an enormous number of students face on a regular basis: academic books are extortionately expensive. On an unsupported student budget, it is virtually impossible to buy, rather than borrow, and in cases where necessity provokes a purchase, the prices of Blackwell’s and Waterstones are almost enough to make you question how much you value your degree.
Despair not, for The Oxford Book Club may be able to help. Set up this term, and quickly gaining recognition within the student body, the Club hosts fortnightly second-hand book sales above Java and Co. on New Inn Hall Street, and the books sold are tailored towards the needs of students. I chatted to founder Rich O’Grady in his book-strewn bedroom ahead of the Club’s final sale this Saturday to ask him about the origins of the Club.
“I had the idea for the Club over the summer”, he tells me, mug of black tea in hand, “after I went to a friend of mine’s second-hand bookshop and saw all the great books he had at such low prices. I realised how useful it would be for students to have such a resource, and then thought, ‘Where better to sell a load of books than Oxford?’”
“I hand select pretty much every book we sell and make sure they’re geared towards people’s courses.” He digs into a box full of books and pulls out Edmund Gosse’s Father And Son. “I know, for example, that next term, loads of Modernist English freshers will be reading Gosse because I’ve seen it on their reading list.”
He pulls out another: Germaine Greer’s Sex and Destiny. “I know that not only will a lot of people be interested in reading that for the sake of it, but anyone doing a gender course in history, or in classics, will want to read it as well.”
A key facet of the Club’s functionality is the online catalogue, maintained through O’Grady’s enthusiasm and dedication.
“I catalogue every single book and put them on an online document so people can people can see what books are available and can even reserve some. It’s the price and charm of a second-hand book store with the accessibility of a high-street chain shop. I try to make it really, really easy for people to get the books they need.”
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“People who come and find us really enjoy it. I had someone up to me in Bridge at 1:30 in the morning, ask me if I was the person behind the Oxford Book Club, and tell me how much he loved it, which was nice.”
But The Oxford Book Club is not just about providing cheap alternatives to the eye-popping prices of first-hand books, or the strict regulations of the library, it also has a burgeoning social scene. At the heart of these are the fortnightly sales above Java and Co., which O’Grady tries to imbue with a relaxed, sociable vibe.
“We completely transform the upstairs room of Java and Co. We just inundate it with books, hang posters and postcards on the wall, and put on a really chilled-out playlist. I want people come and have a coffee, have a chat, bring their friends, browse the books, and just have a good time really.”
“I’d like to push the social side of things a lot more. We had an event at Freud’s earlier in the term that couldn’t have gone any better. There might be another one of them next term, and I’m thinking about establishing some kind of book group as well.”
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The Club is also heavily involved with charity work. Half of the money from every sale is donated to The Gatehouse, a charity providing food, shelter and company for Oxford’s homeless.
“The Gatehouse is a fantastic charity to be involved with”, O’Grady enthuses, “and I really want to forge strong bonds with them. I think they have a fantastic attitude towards helping the homeless.”
“What we do benefits everyone involved, because students get good quality books a lot cheaper than they would elsewhere, they are simultaneously donating to charity, and they get to enjoy some great coffee and some great company. Everyone leaves with a smile on their face, even if they don’t buy a book.”
So, if you need a particular set text to read over the Christmas vac, or if you just feel like indulging your cultural appetite, The Oxford Book Club may well be the answer to your prayers.
Now, where’s that fucking library book gone?
John’s forced to change XXXmas-themed bop
A JCR bop at St John’s which was originally given an ‘XXXmas’ theme has caused substantial controversy within the College.
The bop, held on Saturday 22 November 22, is reportedly an annual tradition at the College, with costumes usually “scantily-clad” but “festive themed”, as described by students. The theme was changed to ‘Xmas Bop’ just a few hours beforehand, after the College’s Junior Dean was forced to step in.
The controversy began when one student posted on the JCR Facebook page on Friday expressing dissatisfaction that the title unnecessarily endorsed an overtly sexual theme, which “would make some students feel uncomfortable”. Many of the student comments on the Facebook post expressed opposition to the said student’s suggestion of a name change.
In response to the suggestion, the college’s Junior Dean sent out an email on Saturday evening — the day of the bop — to announce that the bop title was to be changed to ‘Xmas Bop’, in light of the existing bop theme making people feel uncomfortable.
In the hours leading up to the bop, many St John’s students expressed dissatisfaction with the decision by posting on the JCR’s Facebook page, with some students sharing photos of themselves in “scantily clad” costumes in protest.
Mike Jennings, a second year medic, told Cherwell, “While I wish bops to be as inclusive as possible, it is also desirable that they be fun. Bops are usually given names that are designed to capture the imagination of the students, be it ‘hilarious’ puns or something a little bit provocative that’s designed to make people laugh or just smile and think, ‘Well done Entz, that’s a funny theme.’ Otherwise you’re just boozing tragically in a slightly awkward sweaty room.”
Jennings expressed “disappointment” with the decision to change the bop theme, saying, “I like to think that students particularly might be able to see the funny side of a so-titled event and I think it is unfortunate that some individuals took offence.
“I have never seen a more scantily clad bop. It seems the students voted with their bodies, in favour of bops being a laugh – as I think they should be.”
He addded, “It was a very funny night.”
A JCR meeting was called after the bop, which first year PPEist Zoe Carmichael described as “literally jam packed with people”.
Discussions in the meeting ranged from the hard-core pornographic implications of ‘XXX’ to the possibility of a committee to approve bop themes. Several St John’s students declined to comment on the issue, while the college could not be reached.
St John’s is not the only college JCR to have caused offence with its choice of bop themes. For many years, Jesus’ JCR held a ‘Slag and Drag’ themed Christmas event, which involved a similar style of costumes to the St John’s bop. Despite the name being dropped from the official term card last year, the bop was still colloquially known as ‘Slag and Drag’ throughout the college.
Jesus JCR Social Secretary Catriona Thomson insisted, “At our last JCR meeting, a discussion was facilitated over concerns that the colloquial name of the event is both degrading and puts pressure on people to dress-up in a certain way.
“The outcome of the discussion was to make it clear that the JCR has identified the problems with the previous theme, and to make it clear that although people are welcome to wear whatever they choose to the bar party, they are in no way obligated to dress in ‘slag and drag’.”
As Social Secretary, Thomson vowed to working with the rest of the JCR committee to create an officially themed event with a completely different Christmas theme.
Interview: Louise Chantal
Oxford University drama owes a lot to Louise Chantal. As a student at Lincoln in the late ‘80s, she helped create the Professorship of Contemporary Theatre at St Catz, and was influential in the conversion of the Burton Rooms, a rehearsal space on Gloucester Street, into the BT Studio of today. Having been president of OUDS, she became its first Drama Officer in 1990 and established the annual tour to Japan, before leaving to forge a career in professional theatre.
In September, Chantal was appointed Chief Executive of the Oxford Playhouse. I meet her in the theatre’s circle bar to ask about her triumphant return. She has a smile on her face as I ask her how it feels to be back in Oxford, over two decades after she graduated.
“It’s fantastic to be involved with Oxford’s cultural scene again,” she tells me. “I’ve always joked that Oxford would be a lovely place to return to, as long as everyone I knew had either died or left. Funnily enough, that’s almost exactly how it’s turned out.”
In 1987, financial difficulties forced the Playhouse’s doors to close. It was eventually reopened in 1991, but only after Chantal had flown the nest. I ask how this impacted on her experience of drama at Oxford.
“We were very aware that we didn’t have a big space to use for shows. We did a wonderful production of Thunderbirds at the Catholic Chapel on St Aldate’s because we had to do those big productions somewhere else.”
“Of course, that means I understand how important the Playhouse is from a student point of view, because it provides that opportunity to work in a large, professional space.”
The playhouse offers the main stage up to two student productions a term. This term it was the highly-acclaimed The Pillowman and Oxford University Classical Drama Society’s The Furies. In Hilary, it will be Sondheim’s West Side Story and Michael Frayn’s Noises Off. Enthusiastic about these productions though Chantal undeniably is, it is the prospect of staging a piece of new student writing on the main stage that especially excites her.
“People see the playhouse as this daunting 600-seat theatre, and they feel obligated to play it safe. I would love to open up the main stage to a new, original student production; we just don’t get any applications. Of course, you would have to convince the panel that it would sell tickets, and would bring in an audience that wasn’t just students, but if you did that…”
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Finding ways to draw in new audiences is an integral part of Chantal’s role as Chief Executive — it is evidently a chief concern with student productions — but she is unwilling to compromise the Playhouse’s niche in Oxford’s cultural scene to do so.
“We do, for want of a better phrase, ‘serious theatre’,” she tells me. “It’s a slight misnomer, this ‘theatre for everyone’ label, because it doesn’t mean every show is for everyone, and nor does it mean we produce end-of-the-pier, lowest-common-denominator stuff. But it behoves us, financially and culturally, to get more people through the door.”
“So we are concerned with bringing as many people in as possible, but at the same time, I’m really not interested in competing with other theatres in putting on musicals with people off the telly.”
I ask Chantal about her plans for the future. The coming season is the last assembled by her predecessors, so audiences will have to wait until the summer to appreciate Chantal’s vision.
“The programming team here are so brilliant and diligent that pretty much the whole of 2015 is already sorted. I want to do more of our own shows, but I won’t be able to until 2016, and that’s driving me mad. I want to do more international work as well; we’re getting involved with a lot of international co-productions.”
“Theatre was my life when I was an undergrad. It’s lovely to get involved again.”
Students respond to Wilson verdict
Oxford students have reacted to news that policeman Darren Wilson who shot Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, will not be charged.
OUSU’s WomCam Women of Colour Group released a statement online early on Wednesday stating that they stand “in solidarity” with the parents of Michael Brown and the protestors in Ferguson.
Riots have broken out across America after a grand jury voted not to hold criminal charges against Wilson, who, as put by WomCam, “shot the unarmed teenager six times and left him in a pool of his own blood for four hours”.
The Women of Colour Group’s statement began, “The criminal injustice system in America systematically fails black people. The system repeatedly allows white police officers to murder with impunity. It denies black people employment, decent housing and education, and criminalises and marginalises black lives. It is a system built on the back of black slavery that pushes black people into poverty and prisons. It is a system under which you will serve more time in jail for protesting than you will for the murder of a black person.
“Michael Brown’s murder is not an exceptional case. Police brutality against black bodies happens every day — to people of colour of all genders, of all ages, of all intersecting op- pressions. Time and time again, justice is denied. The criminal injustice system in America is founded on white supremacy.”
The statement was also used to promote a protest on Saturday at noon on Cornmarket with the title, ‘Oxford in Solidarity with Ferguson: Black Lives Matter’. The event currently has around 700 attendees on its Facebook page, which describes itself as a “symbolic gesture of allyship and solidarity with the activists and protesters in Ferguson and across the U.S.”
Protestors are standing “as allies, activists, and supporters of wider radical anti-racism movements and struggles for the rights of people of colour around the world against violence, injustice, and systemic oppression.”
WomCam’s statement added, “We will not be silent. We will not allow this injustice to continue. Our solidarity is with the protestors of Ferguson and elsewhere — people all over the world who are subject to America’s racist imperial violence — when they refuse to be bowed.”
Merton’s Georgiana Jackson-Callen, of The Women of Colour Group, told Cherwell, “It’s not even the fact that there were no criminal charges: that would entail that a trial had actually taken place. Centuries of injustice leaves the Black community expecting the worst in a trial situation, but there won’t even be one. ‘Justice’.
“I am sick at the hashtags and articles co-opting and derailing Black pain. I am wondering how many so-called “colourblind” deniers I will have to interact with who cannot and will not see where the injustice is, or where it comes from, and will think this an overreaction.”
She added, “I am unable to get the thought of the same thing happening to the Black men and women I know and love out of my head. I am exhausted from living at the painful junction of two oppressions; I am longing for a lasting peace and justice that no earthly power can provide.”
Jesus celebrates 40 years of women
Jesus is celebrating 40 years since it first admitted women to the College in what was known as the “Jesus experiment”, with three events for current students and alumni having been planned for this weekend.
Women from the JCR and MCR hosted a drinks reception to celebrate a donation of portraits of the college’s first female fellows on Thursday, while a bar party is planned for Friday and a panel discussion on Saturday.
Although the first women-only colleges, LMH and Somerville, opened in 1879, there were no co-ed colleges until Jesus, Brasenose, Wadham, Hertford and St Catherine’s opened their doors to women in 1974.
Organiser Ellie Armstrong told Cherwell, “Celebrating steps towards equality is always important, and this milestone allows us to look back at the advances that have been made through women’s admission and to look forward to see what we still have to do to get diversity and equality in the University.
“So many of us are grateful for the opportunity to study at Jesus College, Oxford University and the women of the community wanted to give something back. We also wanted to make sure that Jesus did something to commemorate the opportunity in the college, as Hertford and Keble have also done.”
The drinks reception on Thursday celebrated the donation of portraits of some of the first female fellows to the College. Taken by a female undergraduate photographer, Liberty King, in Jesus Fellows’ Library, it is hoped that the portraits will be hung in the Porters’ Lodge.
Armstrong explained, “Getting in touch with these fellows has been really inspiring as it’s shown how important their positions in Jesus were to their academic careers.”
The fellows had interesting stories to tell. One explained how, after dining at high table with the other fellows, she was initially expected not to join the men when they went for coffee in a separate room, much to her dismay. Meanwhile, Susan Ballard, who joined the college’s GCR in 1977, commented, “It was a shock to the college that we wanted irons and ironing boards and sewing machines!”
Friday’s bar party will involve creating a college-collage with memories and photographs about experiences of co-education for current Jesus students. With regard to costume theme, organisers have told students, “Take a great woman as your inspiration and get creative.”
The panel discussion, meanwhile, sees Ruth Saunders, a member of the 1974 matriculation class, and Susan Ward, one of the two fellows admitted in 1974, sitting on a panel with current fellow Patricia Daley, post-grad Rohini Giles, and undergrad Kathy Page. Armstrong explained, “We hope to discuss how College has changed over the intervening 40 years, how attitudes and expectations have been influenced by the presence of women at Jesus and how their memories and experiences have been shaped by attending Jesus.”
JCR President Leo Gebbie told Cherwell, “It’s fantastic to see Jesus students celebrating the contributions that women have made, both within and beyond our college, over the last 40 years. The events which have been organised are encouraging people to think of those women who have inspired them, and it’s great to see so many JCR members coming together to celebrate the achievements of our alumnae.”
Banerjee U-turn on resignation
Oxford Union President Mayank Banerjee appears to have backed down from threatening to resign his position after deciding that new electoral rules are in place for today’s (Friday) elections.
At the meeting of the Consultative Committee on Monday, Banerjee announced his intention to resign if the recently passed electoral changes were not in place.
The changes involved the introduction of a ‘Re-Open Nominations’ (RON) option, and the legalising of campaigning, including slates. The changes were approved by 92 per cent of member voters on Thursday November 13th, although the validity of that poll was questioned when Returning Officer (RO) Thomas Reynolds issued a rule interpretation on Saturday, declaring the electoral changes invalid.
The ballot papers for Friday were printed earlier this week without a RON option.
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However, after consulting an advisory board on Tuesday, and after the majority of election candidates signed a declaration saying they are standing by the rule change, the President declared that he would be ignoring the Returning Officer and running the election under the new rules. This, in his view, seems to have removed the need for his resignation — despite the fact that there is no RON option on the ballot paper.
Furthermore, when Cherwell requested the minutes of Monday’s Consultative Committee meeting in which Banerjee reportedly threatened to resign, the Chair of the Committee refused to hand them over — despite the rules stating that the minutes have to be available at least 72 hours after the meeting.
Banerjee told Cherwell on Wednes- day that, “On Monday, I considered resigning if the new electoral rules were not in place by Friday’s elections. This was because I believed they were being blocked undemocratically.
“Yesterday, an advisory board asserted that the new electoral rules were in place, and as such, Friday’s elections would be run as per the wishes of 92 per cent of the members who voted in the poll. I am glad that all of the candidates in this election have expressly recognised that the new set of rules is in place, and that they will campaign accordingly.
“I would like to thank the Returning Officer for all his hard work so far, and look forward to his administration of the new set of rules on Friday. I will do everything I can to help him to that end.”
If Banerjee is to resign, he would become only the fourth Oxford Union President ever to resign, and the first since 1972.
Banerjee also issued a ruling at the Union on Wednesday, stating, “On Sunday 23 November 2014, the RO issued a series of interpretations and a ruling reguarding the validity of the poll which occured on Thursday 13 November 2014.
“After consulting with an advisory board made up of the Senior Officers and a member of OLDUT (the Oxford Literary and Debating Union Trust, which owns the Union’s buildings), which has strongly asserted that the interpretations and ruling were outside of the RO’s jurisdiction, I rule that the interpretations and ruling were outside of the RO’s jurisdiction.
“This is the final ruling or interpretation on this matter until a Senior Disciplinary Committee rules otherwise.”
Hours later, though, Reynolds responded with another ruling; in its Preamble, he insisted, “I unambiguously have interpretative power over Rule 32(e), which describes my duty.
“In the same way that an SDC or a Tribunal has the power to over-rule both the President and me, I have the power to over-rule the President in matters pertaining to the conduct of the Election.
“The President is appealing to the authority of a so-called advisory board, comprised of a Member of OLDUT and the Senior Officers. This is clearly problematic for a variety of reasons. The most important of which is that this has no basis in the Rules.
“I am ultimately accountable for the conduct of the elections according to the Rules; I must run the election in accordance with my conscience and the Rules as they actually stand. I am accountable for my decisions to the Membership through the Electoral Tribunal and any Member who disagrees with my decision is entitled to bring a claim of Innocent Interference.”
The ruling itself was written “regarding the President’s ruling of Wednesday 26 November, my own previous interpretations and ruling, and, in general, this term’s Elections.” It reads, “On Sunday 23 November 2014, I issued a series of four interpretations and a ruling regarding the validity of the ‘poll’ that occured on Thursday 13 November 2014 and associated matters.
“The so-called advisory board that President has consulted has no authority under the Rules. In my judgment, which is authoritative under [the Rules], the interpretations and ruling were not outside of my jurisdiction. I therefore set aside the President’s Ruling, as my ruling and interpretations evidently have greater authority — this is clearly within the course of my duty.
“Therefore, I hereby rule that on the Election on Friday 28 November will indeed be run as per my previous Ruling on this matter, namely that the electoral Rules have not changed.”
It is understood that Reynolds is backed by the several ex-ROs. Meanwhile, the majority of the election candidates have signed a declaration backing the rule change. Describing themselves as the “people who seemingly benefit the most from the Returning Officer’s blocking of electoral reform,” as they wouldn’t have to face RON and are automatically elected, the candidates’ statement asserts, “We are still arguing that change is the right thing.
“Not only do the reforms make the elections much more open and transparent, it is ridiculous that the decision of 92 per cent of those who voted has been undemocratically overturned by one person.”
If candidates are caught breaking the rules against campaigning, as prescribed by the old rules, they may face a tribunal after the election. It is thought that the tribunal would ultimately decide whether or not the new rules were in place for the election.
The candidates’ statement continues, “The reason you have never seen a statement like this, written by candidates for an election, is that the old rules forbid it. The committee has worked extremely hard to introduce long-overdue reform to these outdated rules.
“We nominated for the election in the belief that we had finally succeeded in achieving this, but the recent undemocratic ruling makes it clear this is not the case. Nonetheless, we are committed to these reforms to make sure that this election, and all elections in the future, are run in the right way.”
Review: Carousel
★★☆☆☆
Two Stars
Carousel — also known as “that one show ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ is from” — is an odd musical. The costume and set design is elegant, the singing is wonderful, the acting (minus a few questionable American accents) is largely very good, but the question of whether this is enough to render a musical that pretty much endorses domestic violence as quality entertainment is a rather more dicey one.
The musical, with the music of Richard Rodgers and the lyrics of Oscar Hammerstein, was first performed in 1945, and tells the story of the doomed marriage between mill-worker Julie Jordan and carousel barker Billy Bigelow. Along the way we encounter outdated values, a totally unforeshadowed foray into the afterlife, and one of the more random incarnations of plot-twist suicide. Half the time the play seems so wholesome you feel defiled just for existing in the Twenty First Century, and the rest of the time you’re either disgusted with the whole institution of marriage or just overwhelmingly thankful you’re not obliged to farm out your uterus to the first guy who looks at you twice.
To say Carousel has aged badly would be an understatement. The idea that domestic violence is an expression of love isn’t so much implicit as half the point of the plot. There’s a particularly unbelievable moment when a girl asks her mother if a punch can ever feel like a kiss, which receives the reply, “It is possible dear, for someone to hit you, hit you hard, and it not hurt at all.”
Sexual assault is not only laughed off as hilarious, but being subjected to it is considered grounds enough for your fiancé break up with you. If this wasn’t enough, “What’s the use of wond’rin’?” — a paean to staying with your man in spite of ‘common sense,’ has been covered by Amanda Palmer as a character study in Battered Person Syndrome without needing to change a single one of the words, or any of the music. “You’re his girl, and he’s your fella, and all the rest is talk,” apparently, and if he’s hitting you, better suck it up and maintain that hollow façade of domestic bliss.
I do feel unkind for being so critical of what is ultimately a very well produced and acted amateur production, but at the same time, there are some huge question marks over the choice of this musical. Carousel is outdated, but its value system isn’t yet so far from our own to make it a mere historical curiosity; the attitudes expressed so overtly in the musical still lurk under the surface of our society.
The show finishes with the song it’s best known for — the aforementioned ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’. Even a song I have largely positive association with (an entire family of Liverpool fans, in case you were wondering) is, in its original context, rather unpleasant as it’s used to endorse the tired rhetoric of the American Dream. No matter how high the production values, I don’t think Carousel is a musical I would ever, or could ever, get on board with, and the association of ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ with half-time at Anfield Road is still an infinitely better one.