“There’ll be much mistletoe-ing, and hearts will be glowing, when loved ones are near – it’s the most wonderful time of the year!” And so the song goes, one of countless tunes of its kind, reminding all of us of the happy spirit of the holiday season.

We all expect to hear the strains of “Jingle Bells” or “White Christmas”, “Joy to the World” or “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” as the holiday season is upon us. But every year, it seems like Christmas is coming just a little bit earlier, with the geese getting fatter in October and the bells ringing in as November carries on.

Despite what the melody may promise, the nights aren’t silent for very long after Halloween. Within mere days, Christmas decorations adorn the shops and lights are strung up in the streets. November 26th of this week sees Oxford host a Christmas light processional– almost exactly a month before the birth of our Lord is officially celebrated. What on earth is the point of this?

One can point to many reasons for the proliferation of decorations so early in advance. It’s a commercial opportunity for vendors, who can coax people into buying irrelevant goods they might otherwise have passed by in order to get a jump on their annual Christmas shopping list. Charities know that people are more likely to give generously in the spirit of the holiday season. Schools sigh as the actual date draws nearer, with children’s attention firmly focused on what will be waiting for them under the tree rather than on their studies.

And Oxford is no exception to this phenomenon. In fact, students celebrate “Oxmas” during the last full week of term in order to savour some of the holiday cheer with friends at university, and numerous colleges and intercollegiate societies hold Christmas parties weeks before the actual date draws near. Nobody save for those cult classics of Ebenezer Scrooge or the Grinch can deny that the holidays are a happy season, or that extending them surely brings more good than harm. But perhaps it’s best to let nature be the guide and celebrate when the first flakes fall. After all, there’s no end in sight otherwise, and we’ll be scouring the Covered Market for Christmas cards in July.

It’s Lib Dem bashing season. And, in many ways, rightly so: the chutzpah the leadership have displayed in reneging on their pre-election pledge not to vote in favour of rises in University tuition fees is deplorable.

The NUS plan a ‘decapitation’ strategy of Liberal Democrat MPs at the next electionThis will do nothing to help students. Rather, undermining the Lib Dems will help the Conservatives add to their tally of seats, replacing a party who, as a whole, care more about tuition fees and students.

So what about Labour? What of their distinguished recent history of fighting for students? Pull the other one. This is the same party who, in 2001, pledged in their manifesto not to introduce top-up fees – then promptly did so anyway. And, their 2010 manifesto would have raised students’ burden of studying at University. If the Lib Dems might fail in their role of championing students’ interests, it is a role Labour never aspired to.

It is hard to defend what the Liberal Democrats have done. They – or more accurately the party leadership – have behaved despicably. So the case for the defence is a limited one – and, being incredibly angered by their behaviour, I am probably not the best person to make it.

But here goes. The uproar over their readiness to ditch their policy on scrapping tuition fees must be considered in light of the political climate. Both other main parties supported rises in tuition fees in their 2010 manifestos – so, if the Lib Dems were going to form a coalition, the dominant party were always going to advocate increases. Realistically, they could ensure crucial progressive measures like increases in bursaries and limits to the increases – and they have. The blame lies not so much in their legislation, over which they have limited control considering the Tories have over five times as many MPs, as the pledge – which was always going to be unrealistic.

The Lib Dems are victims of double standards. When the Conservatives or Labour freely abandon manifesto pledges, it is evidence that politics is a tricky business. You need to be pragmatic to succeed, after all. When the Lib Dems do the same – notwithstanding the fact that, by nature of being the junior coalition partner, they have to, it is the betrayal of the century. The backlash, especially from the NUS, is totally disproportionate to the one Labour faced after abandoning their 2001 manifesto promise. This is perverse in the extreme. Labour were in government when they made the election pledge – so had full access to accounts and the civil service; and they were in sole power, and with a huge majority, when they reversed it. The mitigating circumstances the Lib Dems can cite simply did not exist for Labour, yet that hasn’t stopped anyone lambasting them far more.

Why, then, have the Lib Dems received such merciless criticism? More than anything, it’s because they appeared to represent something different – an appeal to idealism. Their election campaign and emphasis on representing the ‘new politics’, with a distinct sense of moral superiority, inevitably created mileage in any story of their moral fallibility. Moralising Nick set his party up to be judged differently from the others. And judged differently they have been. The anger is certainly understandable, but the moral standards expected of the Lib Dems seem not to apply to the other political parties. Fundamentally, all parties should be judged with the same scrutiny.

The Liberal Democrats remain a party with great regard for students. But the party leadership – distinct from the party itself – has been taken over by the centre-right – Clegg, Alexander and Laws – for whom tuition fees are a much less significant issue than for the vast majority of the membership, who are generally much to the left of the leadership. Students have every right to feel anger at the Lib Dems but the tendency to scapegoat them is unproductive. If the enemy is the tuition fee rises, than the NUS’s strategy is completely wrong. However odious the rises are to many, few could deny they would have been greater still without Lib Dem influence. And what would the ‘decapitation’ strategy achieve? Above all, it would help the Conservatives, whose views on tuition fees are just what the NUS are trying to oppose.

What can be done? It is time for the Lib Dems MPs who signed those notorious pledges to fight back against the takeover of the party. Rather than lay into the Libs mercilessly, students should do all they can to pressurise their MPs to rebel against the fee rises – a much more constructive course of action.

What is the Alternative Vote (AV)?

The current system, first-past-the-post, is winner-takes-all: the candidate with the most votes wins (even if he or she gets much less than 50% of the votes cast). With AV a voter marks the ballot paper 1, 2, 3 etc. against candidates in order of preference in a single-member seat. Winning candidates must get more than 50% of the votes, with second and third preferences also being counted. There are different types of AV (Alternative Vote): ranking all the candidates on offer, or indicating as many choices as a voter wishes. The Supplementary Vote variant of AV (first and second preferences only) is used for the London Mayor. The Bill proposes a system which does not require a ranking of every candidate.

Would we see more coalitions under AV?

It is difficult to say. Supporters of more consensual politics say it would, and a good thing too; and many people who want to keep first-past-the-post also say that it would, and that’s the problem: voters need the certainty and simplicity of first-past-the-post. Opponents of AV also say that Conservatives and Liberal Democrats in the present Coalition Government are now pursuing a compromise programme which no-one actually voted for as a whole. Issues like tuition fees– and, of course, the AV Bill itself– make compromises like this especially contentious.

Why reduce the total number of MPs?

The proposed reduction specified in the AV Bill is from 650 to 600 – a cut of 7.6%. The Government ‘s line is that a House of 600 is the right size to have roughly equal-sized constituencies of a manageable size and at the same time to be able to hold the Executive to account. In the last edition of How Parliament Works we considered the case for a much larger cut – to 400. Parliamentary opportunities for questions, debating time, select committee places and so on are much greater per Member in a smaller House. But a key question is whether the number of Ministers is reduced by the same proportion, otherwise the Executive has a comparatively greater presence in a smaller House.

What will happen now?

The current electoral quota for England is 69,935 electors (about the same in Scotland, less in Scotland and Wales). The Bill’s proposals would mean a UK-wide average of 76,000. Small constituencies mean greater connection between MPs and constituents, and the Bill would make little difference to this. Opposition centres on the fact that Boundary Commissions setting constituency boundaries would have less discretion to take local circumstances into account, and on the fear that this would ignore patterns of local communities and geography for the sake of the numbers. Having half of the Isle of Wight and part of Hampshire form a single constituency is an example. This adds to the controversy of AV: it has not been tried for the Commons, but the devolved assembly, GLA and European Parliament elections all use forms of PR to some extent.

What happened?

Top o’ de mornin’ to ya! Vaguely racist japery aside, the Irish are in trouble. This presents problems for national stereotyping. Normally we associate Ireland with the fun things in life- Guinness, Father Ted, Roman Catholicism- but it appears that their economy collapsed, endangering us all. In truth, this crisis has been brewing since at least 2007 when Ireland’s debt-fuelled boom fell apart. An intense recession followed which, basically, has forced the Irish Government to take out a 90bn Euro loan from the EU. There’s a direct effect on us: Britain will be contributing £7bn to the operation. That’s about the same amount as welfare benefit cuts, though the crucial difference is that we will get the money back. The poor old Irish meanwhile are going to have to make yet more scything cuts to their public sector in an attempt to bring their crushing budget deficit under some sort of control.

What the papers say

The Irish papers were understandably depressed. ‘Was it for this?’ asked the Irish TImes, highlighting the deaths of thousands of Irishmen in the struggle for independence in the 1920s. There is a sense of betrayal of their bravery. ‘Having obtained our political independence from Britain to be the masters of our own affairs, we have now surrendered our sovereignty to the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund.’ Not a problem for Britain. This is a corking opportunity to bash the EU, which the British press essentially exist to do. The Daily Telegraph excels itself by including both right-wing economics and euroscepticism in the same sentence: ‘Ireland must now choose between leaving the euro and deeper integration into a eurozone hostile to its low-tax experiments.’ The elephant in the room is indeed Ireland’s membership of the Euro which, according to some, had a hand in causing the present crisis.

What now?

One man who’ll be quaking in his Leprechaun-fashioned boots is Brian Cowen, the Irish Prime Minister. Think Gordon Brown but very fat, head of a coalition government, and with an even bigger economic crisis. He has already bowed to demands for an early election in January and is almost universally despised. So this crisis will throw him out and his centrist Finanna Fail government as well. Whether whoever takes over can clear up the problem is anybody’s guess. The crisis also has important international consequences. It threatens the stability of a Eurozone already strained by a similar economic collapse in Greece earlier this year. The Euro was meant to stabilise European economies and bring them together; instead, it has shown up its tendency to serve the larger economies better. But this isn’t a European problem so much as an Irish one: Ireland’s sovereignty is seriously threatened if it relies on the rest of Europe for economic stability.

Jerusalem, the city holy to the three main monotheistic religions where I lived for 11 years as a foreign correspondent for The Times as one of the 2% of Christian residents among 64% Jewish ones, and 32% Muslim always had many aspects of life which were far from holy.

All this was among some captivating beauty and religious sights truly worthy of wonder. To Muslims it is “Al Quds”, “The Holy”, the spot where Mohammed is said to have ascended to heaven on his steed, and to Jews, the incarnation of ancient Israel where Abraham went to sacrifice Isaac, the eternal and indivisible capital of the Jewish people.
Perhaps the worst that I now recall involved my two Jerusalem-born children, both known in the vernacular as Goy (Yiddish for non Jews) Sabras, that is how Israeli Jews saw themselves if they happened to be born in the Land of Israel – it is the word for the fruit of the cactus and is famously prickly on the skin and sweet inside.

They were being educated like many other foreigners at the Anglican International School, situated on the aptly named Rehov Hanevin (Street of the Prophets) and some 300 yards away from the French Lycée, where most French speaking children of diplomats , journalists and others living in the so-called Golden City – a reference to its stunning looks as the sun rose in the mornings – when the incident occurred.

One of the terrifyingly fanatic suicide bombers bred in the teeming Palestinian refugee camps of the region, usually in the geographically close West Bank, captured during the Six Day War of 1967 and probably the curse that will prevent peace as it now houses nearly 250,000 Jewish settlers – many of whom passionately believe the territory they know as Judea and Samaria was God’s gift to the Jews – decided to blow himself up near the French educational establishment, probably in an attack aimed at a crowded bus.

Mercifully on that occasion, no one was killed but the bomber’s disembodied head flew over the stone wall of the Lycée and landed slap in the middle of its football pitch, where by luck no children were at the time playing. It was a macabre sight which few of those who saw it are ever likely to forget.

It made me think of how apt to this day was the memorable description of Jerusalem, also known as The City of David and rather unfortunately, The City of Peace, given that during its turbulent history, it has been destroyed twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times and captured 44 times since the oldest part was settled in the 4th millennium BC, that was attributed to Mukaddasi in AD 985 and later quoted in the formidable History of Jerusalem under the Muslims written by Guy le Strange.s to the saying that Jerusalem is the most illustrious of cities –is she not the one that unites the advantages of This World and those of the Next?” he asked with remarkable foresight. “Still Jerusalem has some disadvantages.

Christopher Walker was The Times Foreign Correspondent from 1974 to 2001 and edited Cherwell while at Oxford

90 years! That’s quite an achievement. To mark it, I thought I should dig out the Cherwells from my time at Oxford, the mid-seventies. I don’t feel that old, but it was, undeniably, a long time ago.
After a lot of searching, I eventually found an old file in the loft which contained my Oxford mementos – essays, party invites, a lot of letters (remember this was before mobiles or Facebook), and a batch of Cherwells. The file was covered in dust, and the copies of Cherwell were yellowing.

What I did I think of the newspapers, after all these years?
Well, the layout was a bit basic – a reflection of the fact that without any training we did the layout ourselves with glue, columns of typeset copy, and Letraset.

Some of the articles were a bit over-written. I have since spent many years as a TV writer and chief sub, and I soon spotted unnecessary adjectives and sentences.

But what was heartening was that the stories were interesting, even 30 years on; we clearly had no problem filling the various sections: and the paper was full of life – angry letters, editorial campaigns, and a lot of humour.

As for the content, the news pages covered protests about cuts and grants, debates over single sex colleges and student representation on governing bodies, and opposition to university investments in apartheid South Africa. There was even a feature on climate change – which must have been ahead of its time!

I suspect many Cherwell staff from that era would identify with these reflections.

But there was another thing, though, which struck me – and that was how strong the brand was. We didn’t work for the student newspaper. We worked for Cherwell. I knew of the name before I went up to Oxford, and it’s still well known and widely respected.
And as we move into the unpredictable and uncertain world of multi-source, cross-platform journalism, I think that having a strong brand is really important.

Indeed, traditional, well-established brands, who have moved decisively into the digital arena, are actually finding that they are doing quite well – reaching new audiences, and developing new products.
The BBC iPlayer, the Economist app, the Times paywall – all of these are redefining the way that we consume and engage with different forms of media. Their strength is that they are combining a well known brand name with a cutting edge digital technology.

So for newspapers like Cherwell, I would argue the future can be bright. It has a strong brand, and a reputation for quality. But, in my view, it needs to continue to match this image to new and emerging technologies.

But enough of the lecture!

I’ll now put my copies of Cherwell back in the loft, where they belong. Happy, but distant, memories of a different time – and a different technology.

Nigel Dacre edited Cherwell in 1976 and was editor of ITV News between 1996 and 2002.

The name of Quentin Skinner really ought to be more well-known and resonant than it presently is. Offered a teaching fellowship at Christ’s College, Cambridge upon his graduation based solely on his examination results (a starred first), Professor Skinner’s career has been long, productive and eminent. Praising Oxford’s multidisciplinarity, Skinner casually states that “in some ways I admire Oxford more”. Astonishingly, one of Cambridge’s premier historians could have easily come to Oxford: “I did in fact apply to Oxford and was accepted by Balliol, but in those days there were scholarship examinations … and the one at Cambridge came up first and I took that.” His taste for multidisciplinarity has led him to make brilliant contributions to history, philosophy, politics and even English literature. As an academic, he has anxieties about the rise in tuition fees: he worries about the socially regressive effects, and thinks that the future of universities outside Oxbridge and London is gloomy. Speaking of the universities of this country, he thinks that we “ought to be thinking about ourselves more as a community, but our political masters have told us all to compete with one another.”

Despite the seemingly public relevance of Skinner’s work, he is wary about becoming a public intellectual: “I think there’s a tremendous danger to be avoided there, which is simply that of becoming a pundit, that you have some particular expertise but then you start talking about everything. Very soon you will start talking about things you know nothing about.” I bring up the examples of Dawkins and Hitchens, and while Skinner is careful not to skewer either of them directly and distinguishes between the two, he thinks that someone like Hitchens is the type of intellectual who might “simply end up as someone with opinions.” Being an “opinion machine is … going to lead you to say things which are quite likely to be silly … or which are ignorant.” Dawkins’s polemics tend to “be a little simple-minded or … don’t do justice to some of the questions that might be raised.” There is, he thinks, another kind of atheist, counter to Dawkins and Bertrand Russell, and these are nonetheless interested in religion as “a binding force of societies which might be important irrespective of its truth”: he cites Hobbes, Spinoza and Feuerbach as examples.

Many political acts seem unideological to us, or perhaps pseudo-ideological, but Skinner is adamant that there is a general link between political principles and actions, and “the linkage operates through the key concept of legitimation … in democratic political societies, what you can do in politics depends on what you can legitimise.” Skinner therefore contends that “politicians are condemned to operate within the normative boundaries set up by the existing values of their society.” There is “a unity of theory and practice, always.” Politicians can affect the range of reference of the terms we use to express our principles: he cites, for example, child abuse legislation: “the range of social behaviour which would now be brought under the heading of child abuse and therefore condemned is much wider than it was a generation ago.” But he thinks that “we don’t look to our politicians to be innovators at the level of principle. What we want in politicians is people who are good at running the apparatus of government within the parameters set by values of democracy.”

Since Skinner says, in response to theorists attempting to fix the definitions of terms such as ‘liberty’ and ‘state’, that the battle is all there is, I ask him if the same does not apply to his own work. His reply here is characteristically humble: he is a man who wears his learning lightly. He prefers to see his work, in a rather charming metaphor, as “interventions in some existing conversation.” “The debate is a conversation, it goes on endlessly, it doesn’t have a conclusion.” When I worry that historical writing often ages quite ungracefully, Skinner is quick to point out that “if anything ages less gracefully than history, it is science. Scientific theories as they stand may all be false.” There is, he hypothesises, a “spectrum of decay of cultural objects, where the most open to decay might turn out to be scientific theories and the least open to decay might turn out to be very great lyric poetry.” Here he betrays his literary sympathies and remarks, in wonder, that “it is however astounding to reflect that Shakespeare still holds the stage in the twenty-first century.” He is, however, stoic about his own work, about becoming “footnotes in a history of our subject.”

He does expresse a couple of professional regrets: one of them is not making a more substantial and coherent statement on historical explanation and interpretation. Yet it is heartening to know that for a man nearing seventy, Skinner is exploring new directions: as Professor of the Humanities at Queen Mary, London, Skinner happily states that “I don’t have to call myself a historian or philosopher, and I find it very liberating. I feel a certain liberation from the professional straitjacket of intellectual history and political theory.”

He is giving the prestigious Clarendon lectures (which makes him the latest in a list of luminaries with names such as Frank Kermode and Margaret Atwood) this academic year at Oxford on “classical theories of rhetoric and their revival and development in the Renaissance.” Skinner’s career, it seems, is going through its own renaissance.