An Oxford University study conducted by two academics at the Saïd Business School has found that property values in the capital have benefitted for over 20 years as wealthy foreign buyers use property as a means to protect their money.

The study showed that the impact of the foreign buyers was separable from other factors that affect house prices, such as the government’s Help to Buy scheme.

 The two academics who conducted the study, Tarun Ramadorai and Cristian Badarinza, said, “This goes a long way towards explaining why London house prices have continued to rise at a disproportionate rate compared with those in the rest of the country, and can also shed light on the well-known fat that capital flows appear to flow ‘uphill’ from relatively poor to relatively rich countries.”

London has a status as a ‘safe haven’ due to the apparent tendency for properties there to retain or increase in value regardless of events in other parts of this world, making it an attractive city in which to invest in property. The research showed evidence for this effect in the countries studied, including southern Europe, Chine and the Middle East.

 Some students in Oxford are skeptical of the safety of investing in property in the UK. One PPE student from Oriel commented: “I think it ironic for the British housing market ever to be considered a safe haven.

 “The fact that the London market is dominated by foreign buyers is hardly new information. However it is interesting for such a link between political upheaval and economic trends, even between countries at opposite sides of the world, to be affirmed.”

 The methods used in the study to calculate the effects of ‘safe haven’ demand on house prices could also be applied to other assets, such as gold, and to other major cities. Millions of house price transactions spanning a 15 year period were analysed in the study.

The Halifax and Nationwide say that house prices rose around 8% last year, much of which can be attributed to rises in the south-east. The house prices in areas with a high proportion of residents from a particular country were almost 0.5% higher in the months following an increase in that country’s political uncertainty.

Oxford Scientists have warned that the sun’s activity is at its lowest in over a century.

This is despite it having reached its solar maximum, or the point in its eleven-year cycle when activity on the surface should be at its height. The sun should currently be covered with sunspots and spewing out solar flares, but the number of these has been falling in recent years.

Researchers believe that this solar lull could cause huge changes in the temperature on earth. “It’s an unusually rapid decline,” explained Prof Lockwood,  professor of space environment physics at the University of Reading. Speaking to the BBC he said, “We estimate that within about 40 years or so there is a 10% to 20% – nearer 20% – probability that we’ll be back in Maunder Minimum conditions.” This was a time in the 17th century when Londoners could enjoy frost fairs on the River Thames as it had frozen over due to a sharp drop in temperature thanks to the decline in activity. Winters across Europe became bitterly cold during that time.

‘Whatever measure you use, solar peaks are coming down,’ said Richard Harrison to the BBC. ‘I’ve been a solar physicist for 30 years, and I’ve never seen anything like this.’ An analysis of ice cores, which can be used as a record of solar activity on a much longer timespan than human memory suggest that this current decline is the fastest one in approximately 10,000 years.

However, skeptics shouldn’t be too quick to take this as evidence against global warming. While some have argued that natural fluctuations in the Sun’s activity are driving climate change and overriding the effect of greenhouse gas emissions, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change came to the conclusion that solar variation only makes a small contribution to the Earth’s climate. The scientists that compiled the report said that they were 95% certain that humans were the “dominant cause” of global warming since the 1950s, and if greenhouse gases continue to rise at their current rate, then the average world temperature could rise by up to 4.8 degrees Celsius.

Professor Harrison, of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire said, “This feels like a period where it’s very strange […] but also it stresses that we don’t really understand the star that we live with.”

Thomas Wilson, an historian from Exeter College said, “It sounds worrying but I’m sure whatever happens we’ll just have to deal with it. If we could deal with [the Maunder Minimum] back in the 17th century I’m sure we can deal with something similar now. We just may have to wrap up warm in the winter!” 

For a man who might be the most celebrated astronaut since Neil Armstrong, Chris Hadfield is exceptionally modest. When I speak to him at a signing for his new book, An Astronaut’s Guide to Life, he is amiable and approachable. Only his uncommonly firm handshake betrays the strength and control which he undoubtedly gained from thousands of hours of intense training.

“I’ve lived most people’s childhood dream. I’ve piloted 70 types of vehicle, gone on three separate space missions, and space walked twice. I’ve had so many of the richest and most rewarding experiences of life and I count myself as extremely fortunate.

“If I was to follow a life like this with regrets and concentrate on the things I missed out on, I think that would be a very sad way to go through life. It’s certainly not a way I’m going to do it.”

Like millions of others, Hadfield was inspired by the Apollo 11 moon landings, but he is among only several dozen to have risen to the rank of Commander of the International Space Station. I ask him what, besides plain determination, allowed him to become one of the very few to achieve such a lofty goal.

“If you have a great goal that you’re working towards, people tell you to visualise success, but the reality is actually the opposite. Instead imagine that everything goes as wrong as it possibly could at every step. Visualise and make plans based on the idea that everything is going to go wrong, so that when you come to execute your plans you’re ready for anything that can possibly be thrown at you. Make sure you have a rigorous attention to small details.

“We have a joke among us that there is no major problem in space that a good astronaut can’t make worse! When I first decided I wanted to become an astronaut, aged nine, Canada had no space program of any kind. So I prepared my high school, college and career as a military fighter pilot with that goal in mind.”

In 1983, when NASA first invited Canada to fly astronauts on the Space Shuttle as part of the Canadian Astronaut Program, his planning paid off, allowing him to be one of only four Canadian astronauts from a field of over 5000 candidates.

Hadfield stands out from other astronauts through his engagement with social media and attempts to humanize the experience for people back on Earth. He meticulously documented each and every detail about life in space, from the magnificent to the mundane. He credits his son Evan for introducing him to the possibilities social media provided to share his experiences. He used Twitter to provide over a million followers with awe-inspiring photos from the depths of outer space, and participated in two of the most popular ‘Ask Me Anything’ sessions in the history of Reddit. He also filmed the first ever music video in space, a cover of David Bowie’s Space Oddity, as well as interviewing the Canadian actor William Shatner from orbit.

“What you learn to understand about space is that, while the technical details are interesting and have their place, what people mostly care about is the human experiences and feelings, the minutiae of how different space is.”
His videos record everyday events made extraordinary by the otherworldliness of outer space; one is an explanation of how it feels to cry in space, where water coalesces in a pool over the eyes in the absence of gravity. His observations provide a captivating personal perspective on his travels into the unknown: the smell of space after a spacewalk is like gunpowder, to his mind, for instance. He also tells of how Australia is the most interesting looking country of them all from space.

Considering that he is well known for bridging the gap between scientific exploration and artistic endeavour, I ask him what particular works of art best replicates the feeling of space exploration. He calls Gravity, Alfonso Cuaron’s celebrated film, “visually stunning; I don’t know how they managed to capture the visual aspect of being in space so completely.” But, he adds, “it’s inaccurate on the technical details, although I don’t think that’s a problem.

Apollo 13 is the film that is easily the most accurate portrayal of all facets of spaceflight; the director went to significant lengths to give a historically and technically accurate portrayal, down to the individual pieces of dialogue.”
We move to discussing some of the more practical political issues surrounding space. When questioned by Reddit users, he described the privatisation of space as the, “right and natural way of the future.” I ask him what he thinks about the possibility of space travel being privatised in the future.

“Privatisation is the natural historical progression and I have no problem with that. If you take any comparable industry such as air travel or railroads they initially need a collective organisation to set up infrastructures and create frameworks for them to operate. They need an initial large investment by a government, but will slowly transition to a state where they are primarily the ground of private enterprise.

“We are at the cusp of the transition where most of the major advances in space are going to come from private enterprise. We’re starting to see it now with the SpaceX dragon and we’re going to see more of it soon with endeavours like Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic.”
I offer another commonly cited concern. As spaceflight gets cheaper and more accessible, is he worried about the weaponization of space by the Earth’s militaries? He tells me that is like asking whether we are worried about the militarisation of the sea. “The idea that space will somehow be treated differently to anywhere on Earth just isn’t realistic.

“There is a tendency to romanticize the idea of outer space. But the idea that space is some new beginning or blank slate is wishful thinking. We have never been peacefully united on the ground, and there isn’t a reason why being higher up will somehow make us behave differently. It’s just a little bit silly.”

Next, I question him about his emotional response to the isolation of being in space. “It’s not an experience comparable to anything most people experience, and, especially in the beginning of space flight, astronauts could have trouble dealing with their emotional responses.”

He mentions Buzz Aldrin, who wrote about falling into a deep depression for years upon returning to Earth after the first moon landing. This meant that it became important for Hadfield to try and connect his life aboard the space station much as possible with his life on Earth.

He explains that having the guitar he famously played Space Oddity on, or the laptop that he used to document his travels with, served a purpose beyond mere entertainment; they also became a way to reconnect with life back on Earth and defeat that supreme sense of isolation.

This is a man who, after such an exceptional career, manages to retain a great mix of humanism and pragmatism. He might have retired, but he continues to make his mark on this world by sharing with us what he has learned from the time he has spent outside it.

This desire to communicate the importance of space travel has defined Hadfield’s career. As he wrote shortly after the Challenger disaster, where the space shuttle broke apart just seconds into its flight, “As each of the fallen crew would tell you, exploration of the rest of Creation is fraught with complexity, challenge and risk, yet the benefit of understanding is infinitely worth the cost.”