Thursday 26th June 2025
Blog Page 160

Sunak’s rollback on climate and the economy

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Rishi Sunak’s speech on Wednesday evening was the perfect representation of just about everything wrong with his government. Here was a political leader, hastily strong-armed into policy announcements by leaks, rolling back pledges key for both our climate and our economy all whilst preaching the values of ‘long-term decision making’. As the UN secretary-general called for developed countries to accelerate their race to net zero in New York, Sunak not only jeopardised Britain’s chances of doing so by 2050 but simultaneously sparked outrage in the business community. One thing that is accelerating is the rate at which the UK is quickly becoming the laughingstock of the West.

I feel like I should preface this piece by making it clear that I am far from a passionate climate campaigner. I have never attended a climate march, I’m not vegan, and the house I live in does not have a heat pump (more on that later). The key thing about ‘bringing people with you’, as the right wing of the Conservative Party like to say, is that this is about far more than our planet. Clearly, wildfires, flash floods, and other extreme weather events highlight the damage and potential disaster of missing climate targets. But even more pressing, especially for a Britain outside of the EU, is the economic argument. That is an economic argument that the government is very much losing.

Let us cast our eyes back to the coalition government of 2013 and the promise to ‘cut the green crap’, as David Cameron so eloquently put it. Back then, the cuts to spending on everything from wind subsidies to energy-saving improvements in homes were welcomed joyfully by much of the tabloid press. Now, with the spectre of energy security looming after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, those cuts are costing British households hundreds of pounds every year.   

Still, post COP 26 and Boris Johnson’s otherwise disastrous tenure in Downing Street, there was some hope that Britain could be at the forefront of a renewed ‘green revolution’. Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act set the standard, and although businesses have been calling for a more aggressive UK push, they have quietly been committing to British industry.  

This might be due to Britain’s ability to stand out from the EU, something that the very same Brexiteers cheering today never seem to stop reminding us of. Of course, Britain would have had all the freedom in the world to ban electric cars by 2030 if it were still inside the EU, but the bloc’s compulsory shift to 2035 had seen companies such as Stellantis and Volkswagen focus on UK markets.

Ford has already invested £430 million in upgrading UK plants to produce electric vehicles. Their UK chair, Lisa Brankin, said:  “Our business needs three things from the UK government: ambition, commitment, and consistency. A relaxation of 2030 would undermine all three.” Stellantis issued a statement saying that “clarity is required from governments”, and the head of the RAC noted that the policy change risked “slowing down the momentum the motor industry has built up in switching to electric”. The unanimous agreement of industry is striking: while they might normally be reluctant to directly criticise government policy, the automotive industry has been almost unified in its dismay.

Of course, petrol wasn’t all that Sunak wanted to talk about in his press conference. In fact, he fairly superbly set out the reasoning for a general election. A call for an ‘informed national debate’ was framed by an argument that governments shouldn’t be making such big decisions that haven’t been voted for. Of course, while Sunak himself has no mandate, the pledge to reach net zero by 2050 was in the Conservative manifesto during the last general election after Theresa May signed it into law in her dying days in office. It is also worth bearing in mind that in 2019 Boris Johnson declined to attend the Channel 4 ‘Climate Debate’. It may seem rich to some then that now the party complains there hasn’t been one on a national stage…

The Prime Minister also took the opportunity to throw in statements that came very close to utter fabrications. Sunak framed in his speech that he was ‘scrapping’ suggestions of a meat tax, a tax on long haul flights, compulsory lift-sharing to work, and seven-bin recycling. All are ideas that are in the ether and discussed by those who want to move fastest on climate change; some even came from the IPCC recommendations earlier this year. None of them have ever come close to even being suggested as policy by either of the two major parties.

It is true that there are some areas where changes did need to be made to government policy, and heat pumps and boilers are the perfect example of that. It is just an unfortunate fact of our energy grid that in some rural areas gas is not an option and, in some settings, heat pumps are not sufficient or cost-effective. Allowing these households to keep oil boilers for the time being is altogether sensible. Even more sensible and in keeping with the new slogan, ‘long-term decisions for a brighter future’ (not that catchy, is it), would be to stop giving housing contracts to companies that aren’t using heat pumps and proper insulation today. Of course, that seems a step too far.

The headlines around the world are even more demonstrative of how detached from global sentiment Sunak is. El País calls it “una marcha atrás”, the New York Times “a weakening”, and Le Monde “une repoussé des measure clés”. As I write this, the UN is gathering in New York for a climate summit: Sadiq Khan and Alok Sharma have both said that these roll-backs are ‘being discussed’.

The Prime Minister still claims the UK will reach net zero by 2050. This is perhaps the crux of the issue – he cannot simply wish that goal into being. Relaxations here will mean stricter and more dramatic cuts elsewhere: none of that is going to ‘bring the British people with him’. If the stakes weren’t so high, this desperate throw of the political dice would be laughable. As it is, it’s depressing and terrifying.

Oxford bottoms rankings for care leaver admissions

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The University of Oxford has been ranked as the worst university for care leaver admissions, a study has found. Out of about 15,685 Oxford undergraduate students, only five were care leavers (0.03%) in the 2021-22 academic year.

In contrast, Cambridge ranked significantly better, placing 109th out of the 149 UK universities, with 65 care leavers of 13,645 undergraduates attending the university.

Russell Group universities generally ranked poorly, with five appearing in the bottom ten universities, and only three making it to the top 100. The report also mentioned that across the 24 Russell universities, there were just 1,730 care leavers registered, accounting for 0.4% of their student populations. This proportion is half of the national university average of 0.8%.

The report, published by the think-tank Civitas, used official data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), to rank all 149 UK universities and higher education providers. It found that of the 1.95 million undergraduates in 2021-22, 15,555 had been in social care for at least a year before 18. 

According to the think-tank, almost half of non-care leavers (47%) started university in 2021-22, compared to just 14% of care leavers, which Civitas has called “the care ceiling”. 

Based on the current rate of progress, it is estimated it will take 107 years to close this gap, possibly even longer for elite universities with low baseline proportions, as when care leavers are admitted to university they are twice as likely to attend one with a “low” UCAS-tariff compared to a higher one. 

Civitas also found that children receiving free school meals and those in the bottom 20% wealth bracket are more than twice as likely to attend university before the age of 19 than care leavers.

The Care Leaver Officer at Oxford’s Class Act campaign told Cherwell: “While the University of Oxford has historically prided itself upon its prestigious reputation, there is without a doubt a concerning lack of support for care-experienced and estranged students, which runs contrary to their claims of commitment to inclusivity and equality. 

“Despite a slightly increasing number of care-experienced and estranged students being admitted to Oxford, the figures are still devastatingly low- a mere five undergraduate care-leavers in 2021-22 gained admission.”

The Civitas report advocates for a “scholarship” system, which it claims has seen success in Scotland. Current support for care leavers at Oxford includes assisting in securing 365-day accommodation through Colleges, the Crankstart scholarship (means-tested), and a care leaver bursary of up to £3,000 per year. 

Furthermore, in 2023 the Care-Experienced Academic Futures scholarship for graduate students was launched to assist with course fees and living costs.

The University has also refuted the published figure of five as not a reliable reflection of the actual population of care leavers it had. A spokesman for Oxford University told Cherwell: “Oxford is committed to supporting students from a care background and ensuring that finance is not a barrier for talented students who want to pursue study here. Between 2019 and 2022, 72 undergraduate care leavers were accepted to Oxford.

“We continue to review and enhance the support we offer to under-represented students at Oxford to help improve equality, diversity and inclusion in Oxford’s student body.

“In addition to the tuition fee and maintenance support available to UK undergraduates, Oxford provides a range of non-repayable financial support for care experienced UK students.”

Figures differ between different institutions; the number Oxford uses is pulled from UCAS where a “care flag” is present. This does not necessarily document and capture, or ask to declare if someone is a care-leaver. Numbers obtained from Student Finance England (SFE) are lower with 19 care-leavers at Oxford. 

Civitas told Cherwell that the reason for this divergence is how care-leavers are defined and what metrics are used to count them, adding that “the different datasets do indeed frequently have different results, and these results favour different institutions.” 

According to the think-tank, the UCAS “care experienced” tick-box and means-tested funding data used by SFE have high false positive rates. They argue that their approach gives “the most accurate view of this count” but acknowledge that it may not capture all care-leavers.

Civitas also told Cherwell: “Universities – especially elite universities – without carefully designed strategies to widen participation of care leavers tend to have very few care leavers as care leavers will almost always apply to universities that offer free year-round accommodation and full funding.


“On this, Oxford’s program for widening participation (the Astrophoria Foundation Year Programme) started this academic year, so the numbers will take a few years to tick up. This is key to note; Oxford’s very poor performance is almost certain to drastically improve in the coming years as the wheels are well in motion on improving it.”

St Catz replaces dining hall and JCR with marquees amidst RAAC review

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St Catherine’s College will temporarily replace the dining hall and JCR lounge with marquees due to RAAC concerns. 152 student bedrooms, the Administration block, the Wolfson Library and the kitchen were also constructed with RAAC.

In an email to students on Tuesday, 19 September, the college stated that these areas and others in the same block built in the 1960s will be “restricted to access” as advisors investigate the construction and devise “remedial measures”.

The review will “likely” carry into the new academic year and the college has consequently erected two marquees to serve as a temporary dining hall and JCR lounge. The college also has plans to implement a “mobile bar” in the JCR Garden to serve as a temporary bar, as has been done in the best, including during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The affected student bedrooms are found on the top floors of staircases 1-16, mainly reserved for 1st and 3rd years. The College added that the Accommodation Officer “is currently securing alternative accommodation for those students who will be affected”. Students will be advised “shortly” if these changes will affect them. In an email to the Fresher’s Rep, the College clarified that freshers will be prioritised.

Students from the college were taken by surprise when the use of RAAC was first revealed last week and the JCR has continued to push for updates. The college notes in their most recent email that they are “doing everything [they] can to return College life to normal and to minimise the impact of the changes on student in the meantime”.

The college has stated that they have “no further comment at this stage”.

Following the college’s announcement that restricted access would continue into Michaelmas, St Catherine’s JCR president, Axel Roy Lee, emailed the students, noting that the update was “contrary to the initial expectation that full access would be restored before the start of term.”

Sharing a response to a previous request for clarification, the college told him: “I understand that students are wanting to know, but I’m afraid that we cannot say more until we have the assessment.”

Lee’s email further said: “It is completely understandable that the College needs time to formulate a strategy and wait for professional advice. However, at the same time, it is crucial that the College provides the reasoning behind its decision making ahead of time and delivers prompt, detailed updates.”

He added that the student body “must be allowed to contribute to addressing the situation as it unfolds, rather than simply react.”

This is a developing story which will be updated with further comment. This story was updated at 18:05 19th September 2023 to include the email from St Catherine’s JCR President.

What the RAAC crisis tells us about the state of British education

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When the Department for Education declared its concern over buildings constructed with unsafe concrete on 1st September, more than 150 schools were forced to close their doors only days before students were expected back in the classroom. It is difficult to exaggerate the severity of the subsequent ‘RAAC crisis’. 

The full scale of the crisis at the moment is difficult to grasp, not least since RAAC looks the same as normal concrete. Whilst only 156 schools are currently facing closure, a report by the National Audit Office in June revealed that, in actual fact, 572 schools have been identified as possibly containing Raac. Concrete experts, such as Professor Chris Goodier from Loughborough University, have pointed out that nothing is necessarily wrong with using RAAC as a building material, as long as it is adequately maintained. However, as we now know, it has not been adequately maintained. In fact, it seems that very few buildings in the public sector have been. Our schools are crumbling, along with the British education system itself, and our entire country. The RAAC crisis is just one example of the disastrous effects of the chronic underfunding suffered by our schools, police stations, hospitals, prisons and courts for over a decade. We are teetering on the edge of a self-constructed, slippery concrete slope, and the flimsy structures of our education system are beginning to crack. 

It is telling that schools in certain areas, such as Essex and the north-east, are disproportionately represented on the list of school closures due to RAAC, exposing the severe regional inequality that underlines this crisis. This is the worst possible scenario for many students and teachers across the country. Schools that were already underfunded and disadvantaged are once again bearing the brunt of this disaster. One comprehensive school in county Durham is even using a local hotel in an attempt to maintain at least some level of in-person teaching after being told to close. But the persistent restlessness and din of a hotel foyer is far from ideal when it comes to teaching Macbeth, quadratic equations and Bach chorales. The teachers have no idea when they can return to their classrooms to retrieve vital folders of work and resources, and the students have no idea when remote learning will come to an end. The pupils preparing to apply to Oxbridge asked one teacher where they would be sitting their entrance exams; the teacher did not know. Still playing catch-up after Covid, an underfunded school that was already struggling is being forced to find its own way out of the crisis. 

It has been particularly unsettling to discover that 22 schools on the original list of 156 closures had previously applied for ‘exceptional case’ rebuilding projects because of dangerous concrete, but had been denied them by the government. Underfunded schools in deprived areas begging for support were turned away, only to be closed thereafter. In these cases, it was no surprise when the concrete ticking time bomb finally went off.

The education gap between the most advantaged and the most disadvantaged has never been wider. Perhaps the worst part of this crisis, however, is that there was nothing inevitable about it. This catastrophic disruption to learning was absolutely preventable. Concerns over RAAC were first raised in 1996 by an engineer, followed by a 2007 report which highlighted that the bubbly material would eventually structurally degrade. In 2017 and 2018 school roofs collapsed, and in 2019 the Structural Safety Committee raised attention to the significant risk of RAAC planks failing. Formal concerns over at-risk buildings have been raised for over 20 years, with ministers themselves admitting last year that over 30 NHS hospitals could ‘collapse without warning’. Clearly, nothing about this crisis was random. In fact, the very same school in Durham now using hotel rooms had featured in a programme called ‘Crumbling Schools’ in March 2022, which highlighted the building’s leaking pipes and broken windows. Warning was given. I highly doubt that any teacher in this school was surprised by its closure this month. For them, crumbling walls and leaky ceilings have been a classroom reality for the past decade. For them, the school playing field has never been level.

You might assume that once our leaders had been told that RAAC was ‘life-expired and liable to collapse’ by the Office of Government Property in 2022, or that some schools were now ‘a threat to life’ by the civil service in the same year, they would be compelled to properly fund school building projects. But this was not the case. Instead, our Education Secretary, Gillian Keegan, splurged £34 million on an office revamp in April of this year. Perhaps nothing more acutely encapsulates the problem here than our Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, donating £100,000 of his own money to his old boarding school, Winchester College, having slashed the budget for repairing dangerous schools by a half when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer in 2021. But this was only one layer in a Tory tier of cost-cutting. 

When the Conservative party came to power in 2010, Michael Gove christened the Tory dedication to austerity by scrapping the ‘Building Schools for the Future’ project – a decision even he later admitted to have been ‘wasteful’. A real-terms cut to public spending by 50 per cent over the past decade casts considerable doubt on the Prime Minister’s claim that he will ‘spend whatever it takes’ on repair costs. Besides, repair costs will come from the existing education budget, leaving any additional costs to be covered by the schools themselves. So when advised by the Department for Education that £5.3 billion a year was needed to mitigate the ‘serious risks of building failure’, Rishi Sunak giving funding for no more than 50 schools tells us all we need to know about the Tories’ commitment to our public sector. 

There has perhaps never been any greater manifestation of educational and regional inequality than this RAAC crisis. Successive years of increasing neglect and underfunding have turned a preventable catastrophe into an inevitable disaster. Instead of properly investing in education, a government obsessed with cost-cutting waited until school roofs were literally falling in on themselves before taking any action. Buildings with RAAC may have passed their sell-by date, but so too has the government which paved the way for this crisis.

Image Credit: Steven Baltakatei Sandoval // CC-BY-SA-4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Older voters increasingly influenced by financially struggling younger relatives, Oxford research finds

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New research from Oxford’s Nuffield Politics Research Centre, in collaboration with the Resolution Foundation, highlights that members of the older generations are increasingly motivated to support economic policies that help the younger generations, as many are personally concerned for their own family members.

In an unprecedented fashion, the research (which collected data from over 6,000 adults) reveals that for older adults, seeing the younger members of their families struggling financially is worrying. It is a key reason for them welcoming support-focussed policies which address affordable housing, free vocational education and childcare.

Researchers are calling this older, concerned group ‘Family Fortunes Voters’. They are thought to represent 17% of the electorate (people aged 40+ with younger relatives struggling financially).

This over-40s section, making up around 1-in-6 in the electorate, has not been properly identified before. However, they recognise that the younger generations need financial support and beneficial policies, even if it is at the cost of higher taxes for themselves.

Nuffield Politics Research Centre study author, Dr Zack Grant, said in a statement: “‘Understanding this group goes some way to challenging common views about political conflict between the generations. Family Fortunes Voters are a substantial ‘hidden electorate’ who look set to reward parties that improve the living standards of their loved ones, and reject those which do not.”

Moreover, co-author and Director of the Centre, Professor Jane Green, conveys that as the older generations are more and more aware of economic disparities in the country, which affect their loved ones, they are motivated to try and do something about them.

In a statement Green said: “Our findings should act as a warning to the Conservatives. A failure to raise the average level of wellbeing among younger adults may not just harm the party among Millennials and Generation Z: it might also cost them votes from their parents and grandparents.”

The research team urges people to contextualise their findings and understand that while older adults are becoming an increasingly significant part of the electorate, they care for policies that not only satisfy their needs, but those that benefit and take care of the younger generations as well.

Oxford places second in Good University Guide, beaten by St Andrews

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After placing first in the The Sunday Times and The Times “Good University” ranking last year, Oxford has fallen down to second place in the 2024 rankings. While it still ranked first in the South-East region, St Andrews has come out on top overall.

The ranking is based on teaching value, student experience, research quality, entry standards, graduate prospects, first-class and upper-second-class (2:1) degrees, staff-student ratio, and the continuation rate. 

Out of the criteria, Oxford placed first in the highest staff-student ratio (10.3), ranking second in first-class and 2:1 degrees (94.1%) and the continuation rate (98.5%). 

Oxford scored fourth place for graduate prospects, with 92.5% of students continuing into professional jobs or graduate study. The average graduate salary was £32,000. 

It also offers the second-best degree in terms of earning potential, with graduates in the area of business, management and marketing expecting to take home £58,000 within 15 months of graduating. This was only outperformed by Imperial College’s computer science degree, where the average salary reached £64,000. 

The metrics for teaching value and student experience for Oxford are absent from the final table, as they rely on the National Student Survey (NSS) results from 2022 and 2023. However, the SU and students previously boycotted the National Student Survey over concerns that the link between the survey and the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) could have permitted high-performing universities to raise their fees. 

Since no results from 2022 were available, the Good University ranking adjusted data from 2016 for its calculations, yet chose to omit the exact values from the tables. 

However, the 2023 results from the NSS survey are available since no active boycott of the NSS took place this year. The Oxford NSS website further states that “the previously perceived link to the TEF framework and fees and the commercialisation of Higher Education” has “now been considered.” 

In these recent NSS results, Oxford placed 51 with a 79.4% positivity rating. This was based on 32 questions related to teaching, learning opportunities, assessment and feedback, academic support, organisation and management, learning resources, and student voice.

Besides the general ranking, the Good University Guide measured social inclusion, in which Oxford progressed from place 115 to 109. This included the % of state-schooled students (53.5%) and students with an ethnic background at Oxford (24.6%).

Oxford also placed first in ten subject-specific Good University Rankings, including in English, Mechanical Engineering, and Medicine.

Four Year PhD Scholars Programme at The Radcliffe Department of Medicine

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Oxford University and CEPI to develop vaccines against “Disease X”

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The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) has pledged up to $80 million USD to develop rapid-response vaccine platforms in partnership with Oxford University with the goal of combatting potentially-pandemic pathogen outbreaks.

CEPI, an organisation financing research projects that aim to develop vaccines against epidemic pathogens, and Oxford have focused their efforts on combating “Disease X”, a term the WHO uses to refer to as-yet unknown diseases with the potential to cause pandemics.

Researchers with the Oxford Vaccine Group will focus on creating vaccines effective against several high-risk viral families, including flaviviruses like Zika and West Nile, viral hemorrhagic fevers, coronaviruses, and other diseases with the potential to spread rapidly. According to Dr. Richard Hatchett, this program aims to enable researchers to prepare prototype vaccines that could be adapted to a specific pathogenic outbreak in as little as 100 days. 

This partnership will build on Oxford’s existing ChAdOx technology, which uses adenoviral vectors to develop vaccines. This technology was crucial to the development of the Oxford-Astrazeneca COVID-19 vaccine, and has potential to advance further research in vaccine manufacture.

According to CEPI, as globalisation, urbanisation, and climate change increase human contact with animals and with each other, the eventual outbreak of a future Disease X is “all but inevitable”, but programs like the CEPI-Oxford partnership aim to mitigate the spread and severity of a Disease X epidemic and prevent the devastation caused by pathogens like COVID-19 and Ebola. 

The partnership will also work to address issues of vaccine hesitancy and vaccine-related misinformation in communities affected by epidemic disease. 

Oxford student groups like Effective Altruism (EA) Oxford have lauded this partnership. Sofya Lebedeva, a DPhil student specialising in immunology and member of EA Oxford told Cherwell: “I am excited by the growing investment in biosecurity, especially since the Covid-19 pandemic.”

The Queen’s Death: To Mourn Without Love

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A year ago, on 8th September, Queen Elizabeth II died. 

At the time, there was plenty of discussion about how we should mark the occasion, enlightened as we were in 2022 by an awareness of the Royal Family’s colonial history and our obligation to face difficult truths relating to race, class and power in this country. For me, this boiled down to a single decision – to post on Instagram or not.

Amidst the discussion online about whether or not it is acceptable to celebrate someone’s death, I would like to weigh in, a year on, as the child of immigrants from within the British Empire, with some thoughts on inheritance, Britishness, and what it means to mourn.

First, the Queen inherited an Empire which was, at its black heart, racist, exploitative and oppressive. The Empire killed millions, extracted trillions of pounds worth of wealth and probably began the process of rapid global climate change. States were chewed up and spat out, incapacitated after independence. Many have not fully recovered from their economic losses alone.

But the majority of Elizabeth II’s reign was spent overseeing the decolonisation of her dominions. Her inheritance, immoral as it was, was not something she could control. And her commitment to the Commonwealth of Nations predicates, fundamentally, that the UK is an equal to the 55 other, sovereign, member states – an idea that Margaret Thatcher did not support. She was not Winston Churchill, whose political actions resulted in the death of millions in Bengal, nor Queen Victoria, in whose name British India was made into a colonial possession. 

The challenging part is what many see in the Queen: the class system enshrined, the superiority of the English, a living reminder of the Empire. The many around the country who were genuinely devastated at her loss could only have known her as a semi-mythical celebrity. As such, it was deeply troubling to see them mourn the Queen as they did; placing her on a pedestal of esteem like a martyr, making remarks about her extraordinary life as though they knew her personally, flouting their grief as though it made them more British.

It was troubling because when we mourned the Queen, we all mourned different things. Some mourned the stability they felt they had lost, others a celebrity they had come to love. But many, I believe, mourned in the nationalist, cult-like fashion that was the philosophy of the British Empire, tinged with divine right and a nostalgia for a bygone age.

I did mourn. For me, the Queen is a temporal link to my family’s colonial history, proof that the country we live in today is the same that ruled over Malawi two generations ago. She is the reason we had passports and a right to live and work in the UK. Without her, it is as though we have lost our place; neither entirely English nor Indian or African, my family is a direct consequence of the global Empire.

To people from her former colonies, Elizabeth II meant a great deal. Whereas the English had the privilege of forgetting about the monarchy’s existence (unless you were accused of a crime), the colonised were constantly reminded of it. State visits by senior royals, like the Queen Mother to Nyasaland (now Malawi) in 1957, required locals to parade before their rulers. In many British colonies, most of the goods available came from Britain, as the market was strictly controlled. Everywhere one looked one faced a reminder of British colonisation. As was common in England at the time, my grandfather recalls how he was expected to stand and sing ‘God save the Queen’ in the cinema, at the end of every showing. We grieve the Queen, but grief is a lot more than the ‘price we pay for love’. There’s no love lost here.

What is lost is her symbolism, her position as a target with which to criticise all 15 former prime ministers, the social and cultural changes of the last 70 years and the consequences of the last 18 general elections. It is so much easier to concentrate our criticisms on what we think the late Queen represented than it is to figure out how we can address the specific injustices of the Iraq War, and every other atrocity Britain has committed under her rule. 

Although she may have had soft power to influence policy throughout her reign, especially if you believe Netflix’s The Crown, the nature of Britain’s constitutional monarchy meant that she simply acted as the government of the day wished. This includes when she gave Tony Blair a knighthood shortly before her death, even though many in the country would have rather seen him put on trial for an illegal war. She did this because we voted him in as our Prime Minister, and prime ministers are often awarded honours following the end of their term.

Those who saw her death as cause for celebration, or simply didn’t care about it, missed something vital. The poignancy of her death, and the reason that I mourned her loss, is that we are left divided in her absence. Russell Brand said that the Queen bound us to each other and to God. That includes binding us to the part of the country which brought about atrocities. Now, there can never be fair reconciliation for this country’s history under her rule; it might instead happen under Charles or William. The monarchy, and the Empire we have yet to take responsibility for, is our inheritance.

A year on, the growing irrelevance of the monarchy is severing the links between our country and its colonial past without us having first acknowledged it. I worry that King Charles’ unpopularity distracts from the reality that our history has shaped our lives and continues to be important in this country. Much of what we take for granted in this country, especially the wealth we enjoy, is built on a racist past. The Queen’s death has only served to further entrench the divide between those who believe this and those who do not, and soon there will be no hope for reconciliation.

I did, in the end, post on Instagram. I chose a picture in which the Queen was turned away from us, addressing a crowd of thousands in the Commonwealth – her then-subjects. A figurehead for a nation with a grey past.

Image Credits: Communicate New Zealand – National Archives – CNZ Collection // CC BY 2.0 via Flickr

UCU votes to end marking and assessments boycott

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The UCU has ended its marking boycott, with 60% of members voting in favour of the decision. Markers have been instructed to resume “working normally” on examinations that have been left unmarked from the boycott. The UCU leadership, however, advised markers to contact their UCU branch if they are given “inappropriate or unreasonable instruction to speed up marking and assessment in order to ‘beat’ the marking and assessment boycott.” 

The UCU has confirmed that, although the boycott is being suspended, this is not the end of its industrial action. It indicated that from Monday, 25 September, to Friday, 29 September, lecturers at 136 universities across the UK will go on strike. Since Oxford’s Michaelmas term begins on 8 October, the lecturer strike is not expected to affect Oxford students. 

The end of the boycott comes at a time when many Oxford students have not received degree classifications due to missing marks—according to a Freedom of Information Request made by Cherwell, over 400 Oxford students have, as of 22 August, been provisionally given unclassified degrees. While markers will resume working on marking papers for these students, it is unclear how soon the marking will be complete and a degree classification conferred. Despite these uncertainties, the University has made it clear that all assessments will be marked.

In a social media announcement, the UCU indicated that the Higher Education Committee (HEC) has also voted to launch another national ballot on this year’s pay offer. The following reason was given: “Only by renewing our mandate with another massive YES vote can we force our employers to make the type of pay + conditions offer that members deserve.” 

The UCU continued, reiterating that “the fight is not over,” and that “we will not give up until we have delivered the deal that addresses years of pay cuts, unbearable workloads, rampant casualisation and unacceptable pay inequalities.”

The decision to end the boycott was not without dissent. One university lecturer replied to the social media announcement by tweeting, “You have absolutely betrayed your MABbing members if you’ve decided the call-off is effective immediately, as opposed to when the mandate was due to end on 30/9 as we were reasonably preparing for. How am I supposed to mark over a hundred papers while preparing for the new term?” 

The Student Union told Cherwell: “From the perspective of affected students, the end of the MAB signals relief and the return of their long-awaited grades. Despite this, we also recognise that this end sacrifices industrial action that we, as a Student Union have and will remain in full support of. Not only are we democratically mandated to support UCU industrial action, but we are institutionally built upon values that promote causes that are intended to improve the educational experience of students.

“By improving staff pay and working conditions, current and future students will find themselves in a better educational environment- which for many, will one day be their own working environment.”

The University told Cherwell: “While recognising the right of our colleagues to take industrial action, we regret the impact the boycott has had on some students. We are working to ensure that any outstanding marking is undertaken and we are working with colleagues across the University to put the necessary processes in place to deliver this in a timely way.”

This article was updated to reflect comment from the Student Union at 14:14 8th September 2023 and the University at 10:24 13th September 2023.