Tuesday 23rd December 2025
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Oxford scholarship director tied to Russian shell companies

Cherwell Investigations
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Oxford scholarship director tied to Russian shell companies

The University of Oxford prides itself on high ethical and reputational standards for its donors and funding. The list of scholarships offered at the University is long and comprehensive, but how transparent is it who the people behind them are? Alastair Tulloch, the trustee of Hill Foundation which supports a scholarship at University of Oxford, has managed to balance his role with running a firm that set up and managed offshore companies for sanctioned Russian officials and businessmen.

The Hill Foundation Scholarship is a programme that supports Russian nationals and residents pursuing a second bachelor’s degree, full-time master’s or DPhil. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, around ten scholarships per year have been awarded to students. 

The scholarship fully covers fees and also provides a grant towards living costs. It has supported 56 graduate scholars over the past 5 years. One of the scholarship’s eligibility criteria is that students should intend to leave the UK upon completing their degree. Whether this means that students would have to return to Russia is unclear.

One of the three named trustees of the Hill Foundation is Alastair Tulloch, a lawyer who has reportedly been involved in multiple financial schemes, such as the purchase of Whitehall flats for Igor Shuvalov, former First Deputy Prime Minister of Russia. He is also the only trustee listed in the contacts section of the Foundation’s website. Cherwell discovered that a range of companies linked to Russian oligarchs with minimal online presence have Tulloch as one of their directors and share the address with the Hill Foundation.

University and ethical donorship

More than three years have passed since Russia launched a full-scale invasion on Ukraine. There have been over 40,000 civilian casualties, and 3.7 million people are internally displaced with 6.9 million fleeing Ukraine. Many countries including the UK, US, and EU have imposed sanctions on Russian gas and oil, but also personally on individuals who support the war.

According to the register of charities, Tulloch is the oldest standing trustee for the foundation, having been appointed in May 2007. As a trustee, he is partially responsible for awarding the scholarships to the candidates “who demonstrate extremely high academic ability and personal and social qualities of a high order”, according to the University website.

The other two trustees are Professor John Nightingale at Magdalen College, appointed in February 2022, and Professor Catriona Kelly at Trinity College, Cambridge, appointed in May 2008.

The University Freedom of Information (FOI) Officer told Cherwell: “We have not discovered any correspondence concerning UK sanctions against Russia and the appearance of Alistair Tulloch in the Pandora files or other investigations.”

Graph Credit: Oscar Reynolds

Other scholarships supporting Russian students have been under pressure since the beginning of the war. The Chevening Scholarship, a fully-funded UK government programme priding itself in supporting “emerging leaders”, was suspended for Russian residents in 2022. The decision to reinstate it for Russian students received backlash due to concerns that such education benefits Vladimir Putin’s regime. 

Meanwhile, the absence of communication regarding the sanctions, as FOI’s show, between the University and Hill Foundation means the reassessment of compliance to the University’s policy on ethical donorship has not been conducted.

Better Call Tulloch

Tulloch is a founding partner of TGW Law, a firm focusing on corporate transactions and reorganisations, investment funds, and UK charities. TGW Law and its address frequently appear in the financial paper trail of Russian investments with links to government officials and oligarchs.

Tulloch is a director of at least 5 companies and has been a secretary or a director of more than 50 companies and charities in the past. A significant number of these companies have minimal online presence and share the same office and communications address as the Hill Foundation and Tulloch’s law firm.

TGW Law appears in a leak of over 6.4 million documents, around three million images, over a million emails and almost half-a-million spreadsheets obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) – the Pandora Papers. These revealed numerous international networks of companies set up across borders and hiding ownership of assets. 

According to the leaks, TGW Law firm assisted with the management of offshore companies for former Russian Deputy Finance Minister Andrey Vavilov who served under former Russian President Boris Yeltsin, and Vitaly Zhogin, a banker wanted in Russia for alleged fraud. His firm also structured a network of companies for Alexander Mamut, a Russian billionaire who was included in the ‘Putin List’, a US Treasury Department list of 210 Russian political and business figures and has faced US sanctions since 2018.

Tulloch was also linked to Igor Shuvalov’s real estate purchases. Igor Shuvalov served as the First Deputy Prime Minister in both Putin’s and Medvedev’s administrations and is currently the Chair of the Russian state development corporation VEB.RF. He has been sanctioned by the US, EU, Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Switzerland, and Ukraine since the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. 

The University spokesperson responded to the questions about Alastair Tulloch’s position in the Foundation to Cherwell: “All donors are subject to our policies on the acceptance of gifts, and all significant donors and funders must be approved by the University’s Committee to Review Donations and Research Funding, which is a robust, independent system taking legal, ethical and reputational issues into consideration.”

Cozy offices in Mayfair town house

Two addresses keep appearing in the records of a number of foundations linked to Russian businessmen, 4 Hill Street and 46 Laurier Road. For over 60 companies, they are listed as either correspondence addresses or registered offices. Cherwell has independently verified that the buildings at those addresses appear to be small London town houses, and unlikely to be large enough to headquarter that number of separate offices. 

Tulloch’s firm TGW Law is also registered at 4 Hill Street, and so is the Hill Foundation. Cherwell understands that the foundation which supports the Oxford scholarship takes its name from this address.

Many of the companies that Tulloch was a director of have minimal online presence. A number of them are connected to Russian businessmen such as Alexander Mamut, Evgeny Lebedev, or Yury Milner. There is no public information regarding who the donors of Hill Foundation are. This absence of transparency raises many questions about the people behind the scholarship.

A humble flat for Shuvalov

Shuvalov, Putin’s former Deputy Prime Minister, was the richest member of the government in 2012, according to government records owning a house in Austria, seven cars, and a number of flats in Russia. In 2018 Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation revealed that Shuvalov used a £38 million secret private jet to fly his wife’s Corgis to the UK.

In 2018 Alexei Navalny, Russian political activist and head of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, uncovered Shuvalov’s 483m2 flat worth £11.4 million in Whitehall Court, a 19th century Westminster luxury apartment block. The records, such as applications for listed building consent, show the flat was owned by a number of different offshore companies, including Central Cove Ltd. Central Cove Ltd. also shared the address with Hill Foundation and Tulloch’s law firm.

This, however, was not the end of Tulloch’s law firm involvement in “fixing” the housing for Shuvalov. In 2014 the flat was bought by Sova Real Estate LLC, a company owned by Shuvalov and his wife Olga. During registration of the company, the due diligence was conducted by none other than Tulloch & Co (now known as TGW law) and the person with overall responsibility was Alastair Tulloch.

Ex-KGB Spy and Boris Johnson’s friend

Cherwell has also found that Tulloch was one of the directors of the Lebedev Foundation, before the company dissolved. However, the 14 years at Lebedev Foundation does not conclude Tulloch’s business relationship with the Russian-British businessman. Tulloch was a director of the Journalism Foundation together with Evgeny Lebedev from 2011 to 2013. Finally, Tulloch was a secretary of an obscure company El Private Office Limited, which was directed by Evgeny Lebedev.

Evgeny Lebedev is an investor in The Independent, and the owner of The Evening Standard. He received life peerage from Boris Johnson, which received criticism considering Lebedev’s father, Alexander Lebedev’s past as a KGB agent. According to the chair of the House of Lords, Lebedev’s nomination for peerage was paused after MI5 advice, but approved with a note that the appointment would be controversial. Channel 4’s documentary has alleged that government officials asked Queen Elizabeth to block Evgeny Lebedev’s peerage.

Evgeny Lebedev’s influence on the UK government and particularly Boris Johnson was a subject for concern of many. Boris Johnson was criticised for meeting in private with the businessmen and his father, an ex-KGB agent. However, Lebedev himself denies there was “security risk” to the meeting. Tulloch’s professional relationship with the Lebedev family seems all too similar to his other relationships with Russian businessmen close to power.

Matryoshka of shell companies

Trustees of Hill Foundation Scholarship have the say in who receives the financial awards. Connections to a range of Russian officials and businessmen and a track record of involvement of his company in setting up shell companies to conceal identity of the owners of assets reflect the deeper link of Tulloch to the so-called world of ‘Londongrad’. 

The scholarships support the education of people who, as Hill Foundation website puts it, will “work for the betterment of Russian life and culture”. What kind of ‘betterment’ do the trustees with links to sanctioned officials and shady businessmen have in mind?

The paper trail of a number of charities and companies leading to 4 Hill Street highlights the strong connection between Tulloch and Russian oligarchs in London. It is unclear who the key donors for the foundation are, as neither the website is transparent on whose donation established the foundation nor is the University. Whether the University will conduct a reassessment of the ethical and reputational standards following a range of investigations in Tulloch’s operations remains unclear as well. 

The University receiving funds from reputationally dubious donors and foundations has raised concerns in the past. Cherwell reported on Potanin, Russian oligarch and Putin’s ‘hockey buddy’, donating $150,000 to the Said Business School in 2017 for a fellowship.

According to the press release provided by Alastair Tulloch:”The Hill Foundation, a UK registered charity, was founded in 2001 under the chairmanship of Anthony Smith, the then president of Magdalen College, Oxford and at the instigation of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a longtime critic of the Putin regime who was recognized by Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience in 2011 during his unlawful and unfair prosecution by the Kremlin.

“The Hill Foundation has in the past been funded by the Khodorkovsky Foundation, then a related party, but funding ceased upon the Khodorkovsky Foundation and the Oxford Russia Fund (also a related party and now called the New Eurasia Strategies Centre) being designated as undesirable organisations by the Russian Government in 2021. The Hill Foundation’s continued grant giving activity relies on its 2001 GBP13.5m [sic.] endowment. The Russian Government has not designated the Hill Foundation as an undesirable organisation (which would adversely affect its ability to provide scholarship funding utilized by Russian nationals) and Russian students have not been prevented from taking up scholarship funded courses at Oxford.

“The current trustees of the Hill Foundation are John Nightingale, a fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, Catriona Kelly, a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge and Alastair Tulloch, a graduate of Magdalen College, a trustee of the Khodorkovsky Foundation and the New Eurasia Strategies Centre and whose law firm, TGW Law, provides the day to day administration for the Hill Foundation.

“The Hill Foundation has provided scholarship funding to Oxford University since 2001 enabling over 200 students from Russia to undertake post graduate courses at Oxford University. Scholars are selected on a competitive basis by a selection committee composed of Oxford University academics. Scholars are expected to confirm their intention to return, at some stage, to Russia after the end of their UK academic studies. The intention is not a legally enforceable obligation. It is the intention of the trustees that graduates of the programme make a meaningful contribution to the development of Russia and promote east/west understanding [sic.]. In the past, graduates have returned to Russia to make their contribution directly in the country and it is hoped that in the future this will be possible again.”

Look up! Statues and gargoyles in Oxford

Maxim Vorobev
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Look up! Statues and gargoyles in Oxford

Walking around Oxford you often feel like you’re part of the city’s tourist attraction. The long walk up to the Radcliffe Camera entrance, pushing the heavy door to enter your college: there’s always an eerie feeling of being watched. The feeling is right, you are always observed. Not necessarily by other people, but certainly by the myriad of statues, gargoyles, and grotesques throughout Oxford’s architecture. Many statues represent benefactors or founders of colleges, like in the case of The Queen’s College. Other common symbols are saints, like St. John in the tower of St John’s College. Oxford’s architecture is a controversial part of student life, considering the protests against Oriel College’s Rhodes Statue in 2020, or the architectural inequalities between ancient and modern colleges. 

Modern perceptions of such decorations as wasteful expense ignores their important influence on college culture as well as identity. Sometimes looking up at new figures, ideas and bizarre statues can change our perspective on our environment. As we oppose statues that do not represent our values as an academic community–it can also be a fun exercise to examine what other figures dot our college rooftops.

If you’ve ever gone to the fifth floor of the Weston Library, or looked up during Matriculation, you’ll spot the statues atop the Clarendon Building. With some of them under maintenance, the building usually features the nine muses. A glance up when walking down Broad Street introduces you to the particularly striking Melpomene, the muse of tragedy, holding out her mask in a foreboding sign of how you’re about to do in your exams if you haven’t been revising.

For a more shocking experience, don’t miss Antony Gormley’s Another Time II of a nude man atop Blackwell’s gazing down on the tourist packed Broad Street. Its near human silhouette often catches the unaware mind. Exeter College seemingly prides itself on its unique acquisition that contrasts the classical sculptures atop Trinity College across the street. What’s better than a bit of college rivalry expressed through statues?

Oxford’s tradition of the bizarre figures continues further down Broad Street. Right beside the nude man, you have the mysterious Sheldonian Emperors, always a favourite for a bizarre tourist photo. They are centuries old with little documented reason for their creation. 

To move from their gigantism to the miniature, St John’s boasts an impressive collection of grotesques (small figures without a drainage or water use) in its baroque Canterbury Quad. With each new President being given the right to choose a figure of their choice, it features depictions of the Green Man, eagles, lizards, Kings, dragons, and a variety of crest-bearing angels. It also boasts some rare  gargoyles on its neo-Gothic walls. 

Oxford rooftops are a place for colleges to show off their learning and development. Trinity College chapel has four women, each representing Astronomy, Theology, Medicine, and Geometry. St John’s similarly features busts of the seven liberal arts alongside the seven virtues on either side of its quad. 

Looking up reminds us that these are not simply pretty constructions for colleges, but they are sets of symbols and messages to undergraduates. Statues are not just entertainment, they have always been created with key values. The gothic and neo-gothic styles emphasised instruction as well as decoration. Magdalen’s medieval cloisters feature an eclectic set of imagery with statues representing everything from drunkenness to lust. In each corner there are the four medieval professions for graduates: a priest, a teacher, a doctor, and a lawyer. There are also statues of greed and fraud, warning undergraduates what to avoid, while also informing them of their ideals and future. Always ask yourself, what are you looking up to? Literally and metaphorically. 

Many of these statues and figures will become staples of your college tours, or photos. Learning your surroundings, what they represent, and what their intention was, is always a fruitful way of understanding the past.

Oxford University ranked second on the Soft-Power Index

Joshua McGillivray
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Oxford University ranked second on the Soft-Power Index

More current world leaders have studied at Oxford University than any other higher-learning institution except Harvard University, according to the latest annual Soft-Power Index published by the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) and the educational services organisation Kaplan. 

The results measure the educational soft power of different countries by counting how many monarchs, presidents, prime ministers, or similarly high-ranking government figures from other countries graduated from their higher-level education institutes. The results of the index reveal that Harvard has 15 current world leaders among its alumni, whilst Oxford has 12.

Soft power is defined as a state’s ability to influence the foreign policy of other countries through ideas and cultural influence, rather than military pressure or force. Universities influence the soft power of countries by imparting ideas and cultural knowledge. Higher education can improve a country’s global perception and partnerships, with some international students becoming advocates for their host countries after returning home. 

In response to the index, Vice-Chancellor Irene Tracey said: “That so many world leaders have studied at Oxford speaks to the transformative power of education – to shape ideas, deepen understanding, and inspire service on the global stage.”

The findings also show that five of the top six global institutions for educating world leaders in the Soft-Power Index are located in the UK. The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst educated eight world leaders, the University of Manchester educated six, the University of Cambridge educated five, and London School of Economics educated four.

In total, 59 of the 170 leaders who studied outside their home countries did so in the UK – they collectively represent over a quarter of countries across the world. These leaders include Alexander Stubb, President of Finland; Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada; Viktor Orbán, Prime Minister of Hungary; Abdullah II of Jordan; and Naruhito, Emperor of Japan.

The results of the HEPI 2025 Soft-Power index suggest that the educational soft power of both the US and the UK has remained stable over the past year. In 2024, 70 current heads of state were educated in the US and 58 current heads of state were educated in the UK. However, the number educated in France has fallen from 28 to 23, whilst the number who studied in Russia has risen from 10 to 13.

The release of the 2025 Soft-Power Index follows the creation of a Soft Power Council, announced in January 2025. This is a government advisory board dedicated to promoting the UK’s economic growth and international partnerships. The Council has 26 members, including the Provost of Oriel College, Neil Mendoza CBE, and the BBC Studios CEO Tom Fussell.

Nick Hillman, the director of HEPI, welcomed both the Soft Power Council and the government’s promotion of education exports, but also said that the initiatives were “counterbalanced by the incoming levy on international students, huge dollops of negative rhetoric and excessive visa costs”.The Vice-Chancellor of Manchester University, Duncan Ivison, said that the UK has a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make the UK the global destination for the best and brightest in the world given what is happening elsewhere”.

Museum of Oxford to introduce entrance fees for first time in 50-year history

Matt Donnelly
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Museum of Oxford to introduce entrance fees for first time in 50-year history

An entrance fee will be introduced at the Museum of Oxford from January 2026, ending five decades of free admission to the local history museum.

Visitors will be charged £4 for standard admission and £2 for those who are eligible for a concession ticket, with students qualifying for the reduced rate. Free access will also be retained by children under the age of five, those receiving benefits, council employees, and Oxfordshire school-trip parties.

Annually, the number of visitors to the museum has dropped substantially from 74,000 in 2021 to 55,000 in 2024. This drop resulted in a £77,000 shortfall for the city council in the past year. The council currently subsidises the museum by almost £250,000 annually, but have agreed to reduce this to £152,000.

Councillor Alex Hollingsworth, Cabinet Member for Planning and Culture, said: “The Museum of Oxford has been very successful at the work it has done, as a place where the culture and history of this city’s people can be celebrated. However, we must not forget that the creation of its museum in its current format… was with an aspiration that it could be self-sustaining financially, and that has never been achieved.”

The proposal faced significant opposition, with more than 650 people signing a petition to keep the museum free. Oxford West and Abingdon MP Layla Moran also firmly opposed the plans.

Marta Lomza, former community engagement officer at the museum, criticised the decision at Wednesday’s council meeting. She said the proposal showed “an attitude to Oxford’s residents which can only be described as contemptuous” and included “little to no evidence, poor understanding of financial modelling, editorial errors and simply bad maths”.

A council spokesperson told Cherwell: “The charge is being used to raise funds to reduce the current subsidy that the Council gives to the Museum, from almost £250k a year to the agreed subsidy in the Council’s budget of £152k a year. This overspend by the Museum is taking away money from other potential Council services.”

The museum marks its 50th anniversary this year, and houses a large number of significant Oxford artefacts. These include a Red Cross medal that belonged to Alice Liddell, who is believed to have inspired Lewis Carroll to write the Alice in Wonderland novels, as well as St Frideswide’s grave slab. The Museum of Oxford underwent a £2.8 million refurbishment in 2021, tripling the size of its exhibition space.

Despite the controversy, the museum recently received news that they will receive a £227,952 award from the government’s Museum Renewal Fund to support ongoing operations and marketing.
Councillor Alex Hollingsworth further said the museum received only £5,000 in voluntary donations last year, far short of the quarter of a million pounds needed to run the facility. The charge will be permanent but subject to future review based on visitor numbers and income.

Police ban Oxford asylum hotel protest under public order act

Peter Chen
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Police ban Oxford asylum hotel protest under public order act

Thames Valley Police (TVP) has banned a planned anti-immigration protest and counter protest due to take place tomorrow at an Oxford hotel which houses asylum seekers. The ban is due to a football match taking place nearby.

Cherwell understands that an anti-immigration protest was planned outside the Holiday Inn Express hotel near Kassam stadium, and that a counter protest by local community groups was planned for 12:30pm. The hotel houses asylum seekers, most of whom are believed to be male.

Oxford United is due to play a home game at the Stadium tomorrow at 3pm. The police have issued a dispersal order in parts of Littlemore from 8am on Saturday to 8am on Monday, as well as imposing Public Order Act conditions which ban these protests from taking place between 12:30pm and 7pm tomorrow.

The police have the power to direct people who are, or are likely to be, engaged in anti-social behaviour away from the area covered by the dispersal order under the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act. If these individuals return to the area, they may face arrest.

A senior police officer is able to impose time restrictions on any planned protest under the Public Order Act 1986 when they believe the restrictions are necessary to prevent disorder, damage, disruption, or intimidation.

These protests come after Hadush Kebatu, a convicted sex offender from Ethiopia, was accidentally released by the Home Office instead of being deported. He was arrested by the Metropolitan Police in London on 26th October, and has since been deported back to his home country after being paid £500 by the government under the Facilitated Returns Scheme. The government has pledged to close all asylum hotels by the next general election.

Regarding the protest ban, Assistant Chief Constable Tim Metcalfe said: “Everyone has the right to protest peacefully, but we will always take appropriate steps to ensure our communities remain safe.

“We are aware of recent tensions involving anti-asylum seeker protesters and residents of the Holiday Inn hotel. We want to be clear: any criminal activity – whether from protesters or residents – will not be tolerated.”

Disclosure: the author of this article is a volunteer with a local refugee charity, Asylum Welcome.

Oxford’s Story Museum wins JM Barrie award for ‘Outstanding Achievement’

Medha Dixit
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Oxford’s Story Museum wins JM Barrie award for ‘Outstanding Achievement’

Oxford’s Story Museum is this year’s winner of the JM Barrie Award for Outstanding Achievement, granted in recognition of their significant contribution to children’s arts and literature. 

This marks the second time that the museum has received national recognition since its reopening in 2021 and the first since it opened its new permanent gallery, The Story Arcade, earlier this year. 

The award – which this year highlights the themes of early years, the power of stories, and the ties between arts and sciences – highlights the work which the Museum has done for local schools and communities. Programmes operated by the Museum have shown the museum’s central role and value to children in Oxford. This includes the ‘Start With A Story’ Project and  2023’s ‘Everything Is Connected’, where the Museum collaborated with contemporary children’s authors to run workshops in secondary schools across Oxford. The ‘Start With A Story’ Project is partnership with Growing Minds and Donnington Doorstep, where the Museum provides children story-based learning activities in underserved areas of Oxfordshire.

This year’s awards will be presented on Thursday 6th November at the Prince of Wales Theatre in London, where CEO Conrad Bodman, Emeritus Director Tish Francis, Director Kim Pickin, and former Director Caroline Jones will attend as representatives of the Museum. 

The JM Barrie Awards are presented by the charity Action for Children’s Arts, which was founded in 1998 by Vicky Ireland MBE to raise awareness and support for the importance of children’s artistic interests and activities. Aside from running the JM Barrie Awards, the charity also runs campaigns to support childhood access to art across the country, having worked with institutions such as the National Theatre, the Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum, and the Young Vic.

The Story Museum is located at 42 Pembroke Street, and is open from 10am to 5:30pm, seven days a week. Entry to the Museum starts at £7, or £7.70 including a donation to the Museum.

Chivalry in the age of automatic doors

Matt Donnelly
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Chivalry in the age of automatic doors

The waiter has just brought the bill, irritatingly diplomatic in his placement – middle of the table. You both glance at it, then at each other, caught in that peculiar modern standoff where nobody’s quite sure what the right move is any more. Will they think I’m old-fashioned and patronising if I offer to pay? Rude if I suggest splitting it? All the while, the nagging question lingers of whether the gesture means anything if it comes out of daddy’s Barclays Premier Current Account. So, has chivalry had its day? Or does it just look different in 2025 – a world of situationships and automatic doors?

Believed to have been coined in medieval England, stemming from the French ‘chevalerie’, the term originally referred to horse-mounted soldiers, but later became associated with the behavioural code that these knights were expected to follow. A code that encompassed loyalty, honour, and courtesy.

Taking this as the definition, I don’t think chivalry is dead, nor does it need to be. What I do think is that we’ve been approaching it all wrong. The problem isn’t that men do or don’t open doors for women, or offer to pay for dinner. The problem is that we’ve made chivalry about gender rather than kindness, about grand gestures rather than basic human decency.

True chivalry, surely, is about extending courtesy to anyone who might need it, regardless of their sex. It’s about recognising that a fellow human being is struggling with a heavy bag outside Blackwell’s and offering to help. It’s about saving someone’s seat in the Bodleian when they’ve gone to find a book. It’s about sharing your lecture notes with the person who was too ill to attend. These don’t need to be patronising acts, but simple human kindnesses that make daily life a little more bearable. Modern chivalry doesn’t need to be limited to the acts of males towards females.

Besides, modern dating practices can be more than a little confusing. How do you navigate traditional gestures of courtesy when you’ve both agreed that your relationship exists in some undefined space between friendship and romance? Does offering to pay for a meal signal an inappropriate investment in a situationship?

The truth is that some people genuinely don’t want doors held for them, meals paid for, or heavy bags carried. And that’s absolutely fine. Part of modern chivalry can be reading social cues and respecting boundaries of individuals. The key is making the offer without expecting gratitude, and accepting refusal without taking offence.

The academic pressures of Oxford life certainly don’t help. With everyone desperately clawing to stay afloat, with the weight of 900 years of academic tradition resting on our shoulders, basic consideration for others can sometimes become lost in it all. We’re so focused on our own deadlines that it can be difficult to notice the opportunities to help someone out.

The cruel irony is that this may be exactly why we need it most. In a world where we’re increasingly isolated by our phones, carefully curated social media presences, and never-ending coursework, small acts of human consideration become more valuable. A form of chivalry that has nothing to do with horse-mounted knights and everything to do with simply paying attention to the people around us.

Infrastructure can also get in the way. Every term seems to bring a fresh batch of automatic doors, rendering a door-holder-opener entirely obsolete. I have nothing against automatic doors, but there’s something vaguely melancholic about watching a steady stream of students flow through the Schwarzman Centre entrance without so much as a second of eye contact, let alone holding anything open for anyone.

I am all for a man acting courteously towards a woman – in the same way that I am all for a person acting courteously towards another person. I would hope that these acts of ‘chivalry’ are not carried out on the patronising condition that the recipient is female. So no, chivalry isn’t dead; it’s just evolved. Modern courtesy isn’t about men protecting women because they need protecting. It’s about human beings looking out for one another where we can, acknowledging our shared vulnerability and, occasionally, dependence. It’s about being the sort of person who makes other people’s lives fractionally easier, not because you want anything in return, but because kindness, as it turns out, is still worth practising. But as for restaurant bills: God knows.

Vaults and Garden Cafe to close next month after two-year legal battle

Oskar Doepke
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Vaults and Garden Cafe to close next month after two-year legal battle

The Vaults and Garden Cafe, a popular eatery in Radcliffe Square, is set to close in November after a lengthy legal battle. The cafe had been challenging an eviction order from the Parochial Church Council (PCC), which oversees the University Church of St Mary the Virgin, since 2023. 

After three preliminary hearings, the case was set to begin on October 28th in the High Court in London. To cover legal fees associated with the case, Vaults and Garden launched a crowdfunding appeal to raise £100,000. 

However, the appeal only raised £17,237. As a result, the cafe, which had already faced £200,000 in legal costs, opted to reach an agreement with the PCC. 

In a statement published on the crowdfunding website, Vaults and Garden wrote: “We appreciate the generosity of all 373 of you who have given help with our legal costs in our campaign to save the cafe. Some of you have given two or even three times to help, and we appreciate your concerns for us and your wish for the cafe to stay open.

“It has become apparent to us now that we are not going to raise the £100,000 target of this campaign to help with the £200,000 of legal costs that we have already incurred … Accordingly, we have taken the decision to reach an agreed settlement with the church which will allow for the orderly closure of the cafe before the end of the year.” 

The Vaults and Garden Cafe, which employs roughly 60 people, will have been in continuous operation for 22 years before its closure next month. The cafe had partnered with events such as the Oxford Literary Festival and the Oxford Chamber Music Festival. More than 15,500 people signed an online petition to save the cafe.

The PCC had originally authorised the eviction order to “reduce energy usage, improve accessibility, enhance security, and ensure that the Grade 1 building is fit to welcome all visitors”. In addition, the PCC announced plans to reopen the site as a new cafe – a social enterprise offering “affordable” pricing and additional “employment opportunities for underrepresented people”. 

In a joint press release, Vaults and Garden and the PCC confirmed an agreement had been reached where “all parties are happy”. The statement explained that Vaults and Garden’s parent company will continue to operate their other venues, while PCC will “carry out urgent repairs” before reopening the new cafe “in the course of the next 18 months”.

We must fight the Right’s narrative about Oxford

Laurence Cooke
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We must fight the Right’s narrative about Oxford

Oxford has gone woke, apparently. This once-venerable institution has been dumbed down to a shadow of its former self, a place where debate is stifled, academic rigour has vanished, and diversity trumps diligence. Lee Cohen, a journalist for GB News (now Britain’s most-watched news channel) recently asserted that all this points to “a deeper malaise afflicting Britain’s elite institutions”. As current students here, we must be very frightened indeed. 

Given their emphasis on Oxford’s declining intellectual credentials, the extent of the Right’s fallacy is remarkable. The erroneous inference from part (the Oxford Union, for example) to whole (the University) is glaring. Failing actual empirical research, a few controversial examples are handpicked to bolster the narrative that the oldest university in the English-speaking world has been subject to ideological capture and irreversible decline. 

This is obviously false. Anyone on the ground here knows that Oxford remains a thriving community of scholars: not only the best university in the world, but 4th in the UK! The majority of Oxford students, who don’t read The Telegraph or watch GB News, are unaware their institution is supposed to have fallen into disarray. But such outlets have large followings, and despite the risk of preaching to the choir, it needs to be said: Oxford is still brilliant. 

A few Oxford stories have recently exploded across national and international media. The most prominent among them concerns George Abaraonye, the Union President-Elect fighting to stay in the role following highly controversial comments about the shooting of far-right influencer Charlie Kirk. Horrible though these comments were, the media frenzy that ensued reached a whole new fever pitch precisely because it fits the narrative that Oxford has gone to the dogs. Particular attention has been paid to Abaraonye’s A-level results, with the implicit message that Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) initiatives were somehow responsible for this mess. 

The logical leap from the faults of one student to the failure of an entire recruitment strategy wouldn’t survive under the scrutiny of an Oxford tutor, but the perpetual moral outrage it engenders does help sell newspapers and drive clicks. When a privately-educated Union president makes a mistake of similarly stupid proportions in future, the press will surely jump to the conclusion that the massive overrepresentation of students from fee-paying schools is the root cause. 

Other recent flashpoints include plans to use gender-inclusive Latin in graduation ceremonies, claims about non-exam assessment methods being expanded to help minorities, and “social engineering” over black students’ A-levels. All from one newspaper in particular, whose strapline is “we speak your mind”. 

‘Mind’ is right, as whatever the claims, they certainly require an active imagination. Go and see students toiling away on their essays in the brand-new Schwarzman Centre to see if they’re lazy, easily offended, incapable of sitting exams, or idiots brought in to satisfy a diversity quota. It’s evident the University’s exam system is alive and kicking. As are initiatives to get more students to Oxford from deprived (and so often more ethnically diverse) areas, ensuring we get the best talent from everywhere, not just the usual private schools and premium-postcode London grammar Oxbridge factories. 

As for the hysteria about ceremonial Latin: at Oxford nowadays, we tend to focus on substance over style. Most of us don’t wake up every day in consternation at the fact some words have been changed from a future graduation ceremony. We get on with the business of study, which ironically enough doesn’t hold much currency in the right-wing media attention economy. 

Obviously, protests from Oxford students against Israel’s genocide in Gaza have fed the narrative too. Apparently a student body that opposes the murder of innocent civilians, as well as the destruction of universities, has profoundly lost its way. Many are also extremely uneasy with the proscription of direct action protest groups as terrorist organisations. To represent progressives’ opposition as intellectual vacuity or moral ruin is to engage in precisely the Orwellian doublespeak that the Right is obsessed with attributing to the ‘woke agenda’. It’s shameful.

All this overtly partisan talk of ‘woke’ might feel very old-fashioned and the rebuttal of the nonsense spouted about this University and its students futile. Yet the stakes are too high for us to sit back and watch our best universities slide into the same category as the BBC: institutional cornerstones sitting on the brink after decades of right-wing slings and arrows. A future Farage government will not be kind to Oxford, just as Trump has not been kind to American higher education. 

What’s more, this presentation of Oxford is a major distraction from the many pressing questions the University is actually facing. The more national outlets parrot Union gossip, snap merry ballgoers, or criticise ‘woke’ window dressing policies, the less we talk about the institutional embrace of ChatGPT, the abysmal pay faced by early career academics forced to turn to food banks, or how to secure funding for the humanities. All fall by the wayside if the British popular perception of the jewel in our education crown is anchored in  meaningless culture war debates.


Oxford is alive and well, whatever the media might say. Anti-intellectualism may be on the rise, but we must look through the click-bait, fear-mongering, rage-baiting mist and see the wood for the trees. Don’t change. The day this University caves to the caprices of a populist press is the day we are truly in trouble. 

Crown Estate acquires 221-acre site for development in south Oxford

Charlie Goldberg
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Crown Estate acquires 221-acre site for development in south Oxford

The Crown Estate, the property company that manages the British monarchy’s lands and holdings, announced last Tuesday that it had acquired a 221-acre site next to the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, about 25 kilometres south of Oxford. The Crown Estate projects the site will be worth £4.5 billion, generate 30,000 jobs nationally, and build as many as 400 homes.

The investment is being made as part of the Estate’s commitment to invest £1.5 billion into science, innovation, and technology. The Chief Executive of the Crown Estate, Dan Labbad, said: “The ambition of Harwell East is to create a space for great science to flourish.” He noted that the “acquisition marks the latest step in our journey to support the UK’s fast-growing sectors”.

The Science Minister Lord Vallance said that the “vast economic potential of the site underlines precisely why we are determined to fully unlock the Oxford-Cambridge Growth Corridor”. The announcement follows the plans unveiled earlier this year by Chancellor Rachel Reeves for major investments in infrastructure, technology, and research in the Oxford-Cambridge Arc.

As a company sitting between private and public ownership, the Crown Estate sees most of its income go to the HM Treasury, and closely cooperates with government-led schemes to increase investment. Profits made by the company are partly used to fund King Charles III’s work and initiatives. Reeves’s expected announcement of £10 billion of private investment into the UK will include the Crown Estate’s Harwell East science park.

The Harwell Science and Innovation Campus was itself formed as part of the government initiative in 2006, and has offices and laboratories for organisations working in biotech, energy, and battery systems, and both the European and UK space agencies. The announced investment would mark a major expansion of the campus, which has seen high demand for lab and office space.

The Crown Estate has other significant ongoing investments in Oxfordshire. Last year, the company became a partner in a £125 million project to transform the shuttered Debenhams store in Oxford city centre into laboratory space, alongside Oxford Science Enterprises and Pioneer Group. The Harwell East site will join the Debenhams redevelopment, the new Oxford life sciences hub, the Oxford North innovation district, and the Oxford Science Park as part of the general expansion of sciences and research funding.

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