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Interview: Duncan Quinn

Chris Graham
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Interview: Duncan Quinn

Walk far enough east along Spring Street in New York City, past flocks of tourists and striving fashionistas buffeting big label shops in SoHo, and you eventually reach NoLIta (North of Little Italy), where the crowds are thinner, the stores less flashy and the real estate is more affordable. While great food and clothing can be had, you do need to know where to look, especially if you are trying to find Duncan Quinn’s eponymous bespoke suiting shop.

The blue and green fronting, colourful suits and accessories in the window – especially the umbrellas – are striking, but the storefront is so narrow you could miss it if you blinked. If such a low profile seems surprising – especially given Duncan’s preference for bold colours and distinctive patterns – after a moment’s reflection the message is clear: If you want something everyone else is looking for, go back to SoHo. 

Duncan opened his first shop, in New York City, in 2003, largely out of a desire to do something more interesting than his job as a corporate lawyer. ‘What happened in essence was that I started a store for fun for me and my friends as a sideline to my day job.’ Duncan was originally trained as a barrister in the UK, where he was born and raised, but moved to New York in 1998, eventually practicing with the law firm Kirkland & Ellis LLP.

Never a conformist, sartorially or otherwise, Duncan grew increasingly tired of corporate law (which he derides as ‘decision by committee at every level’) and eventually used the shop as a way to do something more entrepreneurial. ‘I was just frustrated and decided to have some fun and spank my Amex to the tune of $25,000 and see what happened.’

What happened was a label that quickly became successful as a distinctive voice in American men’s tailoring. Duncan’s website describes him as ‘arguably one of the handful of people responsible for the resurgence of men’s tailoring in the USA’. Brazen self-promotion? Not entirely: In 2004, the New York Times dubbed Duncan and three other menswear designers – including Thom Browne and Andrew Harmon – America’s new ‘Men of the Cloth’. The label’s success has continued, growing to include locations in Los Angeles, Miami and Dallas, and Duncan has since left the law to focus on his menswear business full-time.

‘I started the store in NY when people in the US were nearly all still wearing mass-produced suits that were cut for the lowest common denominator… I just decided that there was no way that metric worked for me.’

Take a stroll through any of his shops and you quickly get an idea of what ‘works for Duncan’: sharp suits flashing colour and hints of British sensibility (think side vents and hacking pockets), shirts in bold colours cut close to the body, and a full range of colourful furnishings, including ties, cuff links, shoes, umbrellas and motorcycle helmets. ‘Everything we do is an extension of the things I enjoy and my own particular take on life.’ 

Sorry, motorcycle helmets? ‘I tripped and fell awkwardly in a bar called Momo in 1996 and met a guy who is a legend in his own lunchtime. As a result I ended up riding around on the latest test bikes. I liked the helmets; they were unique and interesting. Very Steve McQueen. They’re pretty much the only thing in the stores that we don’t make ourselves.’

It’s these sorts of chance encounters that make-up Duncan’s ‘particular take on life’. Another example is how Duncan came to spend so much time as a youth living in the South of France. ‘When my father was at Scotland Yard in the 1980s the chief of police of Nice’s criminal division was seeking a young English lad to help his son learn English…’ That lad would be Duncan, and Nice’s chief of police turned out to be a classic bon vivant, sharing with his young tutor a taste for wine, food and most importantly, interesting people. (Except, alas, for the son: ‘We hated each other’s guts’.) 

So much decadence makes me wonder whether Duncan ever took corporate law seriously. (From DuncanQuinn.com: ‘Duncan likes nothing better than to sit and watch the world go by in Cours Saleya…’ As this reporter can attest, not a pastime typically enjoyed by Wall Street lawyers.)

So, what’s the story? ‘Ha! That was the time honoured tradition of honour thy father and mother. My father was in the flying squad and the Criminal Investigation Department for thirty years so he thought being a lawyer was the soft touch way to a nice life. I guess he never met any bankers!’

Is running a menswear business really less demanding than working as a corporate attorney? ‘Well, I semi-seriously look at it as me having retired when I gave up practicing law. I work very hard but its not a job, and I’m lucky that people find what I do interesting enough to part with their hard-earned cash which funds what I enjoy.’

Sounds pretty good. Any advice for people – say, budding Oxford entrepreneurs – looking to replicate that kind of success in their own life?

‘Ultimately it’s all about stories. If you don’t have any you need to live life a little more and accrue some.’

George Alagiah: Six in the City

Joseph King
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George Alagiah: Six in the City

Nelson Mandela once told a gathering of international reporters: “You are privileged people. You can observe from near but judge from afar.” But for George Alagiah, this kind of disassociation was never possible. Born in Sri-Lanka, brought up in Ghana, and settled in England, he says that he has lived his whole life as a migrant. Formerly one of the BBC’s leading foreign correspondents, and now the face of the Six o’clock News, his career abroad has put him in the middle of some of the most significant events of the last decade.

Entering the BBC TV Centre in White City, I half expect to see Alagiah beaming at me from the plasma screens that line the reception. I’m greeted instead by Sophie Raworth presenting BBC News at One. Moments later, the man himself strides through the interior swivel doors. Ms Raworth’s televised reception just doesn’t compare.

His career in journalism began at Durham University. There was no climbing the ladder; he applied straight for the position of editor at the Palatinate student paper and got it. After that, his degree in politics was somewhat sidelined, and as Alagiah puts it to me “some people might say I read journalism really”.

But he didn’t make the BBC’s graduate trainee scheme. Instead he took a job as Africa Editor of the now-defunct magazine South. It was this experience that really shaped his journalism, he says. It was an attempt to look at the world from a southern perspective; “the poor world’s perspective. The world looks very different if you stand in Managua, Harare, or Mumbai.” He explains how the magazine was talking about issues like the Kurdish problem or the unfairness of trade agreements long before the rest of the world first picked up on them.

It is this sense of perspective that has always been Alagiah’s real forte, and so appointentment as the BBC foreign correspondent in Johannesburg in the 1990s was certainly no vocational detour. While stationed there he met two towering figures of the political world: Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu. I wonder what was going through his head in these encounters. As Alagiah recalls, the Mandela interview came when everyone wanted him. It was 1994 and the ANC had just won an election. “You were, whether you liked it or not, sitting next to a man of soaring moral authority. I had to curb the temptation to sit there and go ‘wow, I’m sitting next to Nelson Mandela’, and just get on with the interview.”

But while the experience was sensational, it was also one of the most challenging interviews Alagiah has done: “Mandela is a man who found it very difficult to talk in any personal terms. Of course this is half of what you go to an interview for. You want to find out what makes them tick and get something personal. But you couldn’t get him to talk like that.” Alagiah remembers Mandela’s eloquent explanation for this: “‘I learnt to think through my brains and not through my blood’.”

Tutu was an absolute contrast: “A man with vigour and a kind of impish humour. But the same kind of moral standards and goals”.

After almost two decades as a specialist foreign correspondent, I ask if he’s bothered by the parochialism of the mainstream TV news he now presents. There is inevitably some loss of intimacy with the stories; surely that’s the rub?

But Alagiah argues that there is a fundamental continuity: “OK, I no longer specialise in foreign affairs. But if you look at the job of a journalist, whether presenter or reporter, it’s to get an idea across, to boil down a story. And that’s still what I do.” He’s eager to expand on this point: “Most people think that presenting is the 28 minutes from six to when the program ends. I don’t regard that as my job.” The real journalism happens 2-3 hours before when he helps devise the program. “Right up until 5.30-5.45 what goes in is up for grabs.” He pauses, and then hastens to add: “But although it’s my program, in the end it is of course the editor’s call.”

Last year Alagiah made headlines when he was told to step down as patron of the Fairtrade Foundation charity. The media fuss threw up the issue of what it means to be an impartial broadcaster. “It is not the business of BBC journalism to take a view on this” said Helen Boaden, the BBC Director of News. I also flag up his position on the board of the Royal Shakespeare Company. But Alagiah assures me that he thinks no one, as yet, is against Shakespeare. All the same, he admits that striking a blanace between the personal and the professional is always a challenge. “We’re not cloned out of nowhere as presenters; we’re human beings, we live in the real world, and of course we have opinions”.

The thing is – and Alagiah is adamant that these aren’t confused – there’s a difference between opinion and judgement. “Nobody pays me to have opinions, or far less, broadcast them on air. Who cares what George Alagiah has an opinion about?” But he wants to be clear that senior journalists are expected to have some judgement. “You can’t have a half way house on everything. Where’s the middle ground between a woman that’s been raped, and the man who’s raped her? There isn’t. You have to make a judgement.”

Having now spent many years in our living-rooms, perfecting the BBC smile, Alagiah is also the Mr Nice Guy we all trust to deliver the bad news. And in Britain there seems to be a deluge of it. I ask how on earth he gets up every day to announce yet more deaths from the Middle East conflict, or that we’re all, yet again, doomed by the perils of climate change. He’s got to get disaffected by it all, surely? “Not at all,” says Alagiah. “Some stories get me more than others – but I don’t think I get bored with any of it.”

He also points out that it’s not all about the news. “We’re in people’s faces daily. People develop a relationship with you and the BBC.” And just occasionally he gets an email or letter where someone says, ‘Oh, you looked a bit upset the other day. Was anything wrong?’

The six o’clock news is on in a few hours and Alagiah gestures at his watch. I take a last look around the news room and it seems as though we’re sat among a vast workforce at his command. Maybe the Murdoch media czar image is a stretch too far, but I have to ask whether he thinks he’s clinched the best job in the BBC. “I’m not just saying this”, replies Alagiah, “but I pinch myself sometimes just to make sure it’s all real.”

George Alagiah speaks at the Union 19th May 2010 8:30pm

Ministry of Magdalen

Theo Merz And Natalya Segrove
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Ministry of Magdalen

Five out of the twenty-nine members of the new Cabinet were educated at Magdalen College, Oxford, with twenty of the group being made up of Oxford or Cambridge graduates. This number is up from eight out of twenty-five in the last cabinet.

The Magdalen graduates are William Hague, George Osborne, Chris Huhne, Jeremy Hunt and Dominic Grieve, who will serve as Attorney General, a part time member.

There are now as many Magdalen graduates as there are Lib Dems in the coalition Cabinet.

Archive material owned by Cherwell from the new Ministers’ time in Oxford shows some surprising changes and ironic similarities in the MPs’ approaches to politics.

As an undergraduate reading PPE at Magdalen and editor of The Isis magazine, Chris Huhne, now Minister for Energy and the Environment, slammed the suggestion of a Lab-Lib coalition slate for the National Union of Students delegation.

He criticised the Labour Club’s advances to Conservative and Liberal student politicians to bolster their slate, writing, “It is reassuring to know that prospective Labour party politicians are learning early, and don’t bother to wait until they reach Parliament before jettisoning their principles.”

“Was a broad left possible?” he asked in 1974.

In an editorial, Huhne, now a Minister in a coalition government, claimed that true politicians never compromise their principles.

“It is evident no politician will compromise…especially no student left-winger,” he wrote. “By the nature of a cause it has to be totally right: one side must be white and the other black.”

Apparently feelings towards Huhne were equally uncompromising. A gossip column named ‘Private Isis’ recorded that he was “notably reptilian” in his days as an undergraduate.

Chancellor George Osborne, who read Modern History at Magdalen and was also editor of The Isis in 1992, published a special edition printed partially on hemp paper, to indicate the importance that he attached to “green issues”.

In the accompanying editorial, Isis said that “green issues are not going to leave us. As time moves on, they will become more urgent and relevant.
To forestall change may not jeopardise our own lives or even those of our grandchildren, but it certainly ruins our hopes of living in a healthy world.”

The headline of a leader article in Osborne’s hemp edition read “How an Earth Did the Tories Get Back In?” and questioned how John Major had been returned to power in 1992.

The new Foreign Secretary, William Hague, another Magdalen-educated member of the front bench, was President of both the Union and OUCA during his time at the University.

An article dating from 1981 reported that he had been found “guilty of incompetence and irresponsibility” in his role as Returning Officer by an OUCA tribunal.

Michael Gove, the new Secretary for Education, attracted his fair share of controversy while President of the Union.

Most notable was his appearance in an Evelyn article, the gossip column, entitled, “Union hacks in five in a bed romp shocker”. The article claimed that the Minister was found in a bed with other Union members following a ball.

He was also labelled a “not so nice hack” in a similar article from 1986.
Andrew Smith, the Labour MP for Oxford East re-elected last week with an increased majority, was the subject of student media attention from his first Parliamentary campaign.

A political round-up in 1987, months before he entered Parliament for the first time, described him as “a man with the style worthy of the smoothest of gameshow hosts.”

The President of Magdalen Professor David Clary, spoke to Cherwell about the disproportionate number of alumni from his college now in the Cabinet.

“It has not escaped our notice that there are as many Magdalen members in the Cabinet as there are Lib Dems,” he said.

“Those Magdalen Tutorials in PPE or History must have made the difference,” he suggested.

As editor of the Isis, George Osborne also found time to express reservations about the power of the security services.

In an interview with an unnamed spook, he said, “new technology is allowing organisations like GCHQ and MI5 to literally ‘harvest’ communications from the airwaves, making it that much easier to monitor the affairs of British companies and British citizens whose interests they are supposed to be guarding.”

Mr Osborne’s anti-establishment views were also expressed in the another edition of the Isis.

In an article about gambling, he wrote that, “The gambler is implicitly giving the two fingers to the pillars of our bourgeois society – security and stability.”

He went on to write that gambling held an attraction for many because they felt “suffocated by the laws of what you should and shouldn’t do”, and commented that it was “no wonder that this fantasy world can be so much more alluring than the reality of nine to five jobs.”

However, his writing did also contain traces of the rhetoric now used by the Conservative Party.

In an Editorial from 1992, Isis pondered its own image, and concluded that “ISIS should draw upon the strength of its past to build a bridge to the future.”

The Ministers mentioned in the archive material were contacted for comment, but did not respond.

Mr Osborne’s office said that it was not “something George is going to be able to do at this time”.

Be ambitious, but not boring

Cherwell Editorial
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Be ambitious, but not boring

Tony Blair said on the Labour campaign trail that change is the most vacuous slogan in politics. But we’ve got it. For the first time in generations we have a real seismic shift from an over-powerful government to a coalition. Brute strength has been replaced by compromise. Apparently.

Yet there is something that hasn’t changed. One left-wing Oxbridge elite leaves power, and a right-wing Oxbridge elite enters power in this bizarre see-saw of intellectual aloofness and non-representativeness that we call Westminster politics. Five ministers in David Cameron’s cabinet were educated at Magdalen College, Oxford. To compare the number of undergraduates that Magdalen takes in each year (about 120) and the number of adults in the UK, which is probably something around 45million, might be called overstressing the point. But it’s clear. Politics is an ‘us and them’ game.
And we are ‘us’. And how should this ‘us’ behave given that, casting all optimism aside, it is likely that a future cabinet will contain a disproportional number of personalities who spend their evenings creeping around President’s Drinks, swilling port, or Community Organising? We’ll tell you how. Like normal human beings. Like normal undergraduates.

One of the saddest things we encounter at Oxford is a mindset that says ‘be careful. I’ve got my career to think about’. We all know someone who’ll decline that offer of a last drink, who might duck away from that kiss or refuse to put on that fancy dress costume like their friends do, because of some irrational fear that having fun now destroys any serious attempt to get a job later.
But as we’ve seen, you can dress up as a Nazi officer if you want. You can edit a magazine and write headlines that slam the political party you will end up close to the top of. Tony Blair grew his hair long and joined a band.

You can even enter a club whose tailcoat costs more than a year’s University tuition. And you can still make it all the way to Number 10.

Our cautious friends are prolific “detaggers”. But Facebook means that we are a generation that really cannot escape from its past. There may not be photos of you puking on a tramp or urinating on a war memorial, but, if you’re anything like us, there will be ones of you blind drunk, singing, perhaps in drag, perhaps on the floor, perhaps even having a romantic liaison. And these will stick. They will come back to haunt you. But we say: let them.

No one should begrudge you having a normal childhood, nor should they begrudge you having a normal student experience at University. As we’ve said before, this is the time to live for today, and not for some distant hypothetical tomorrow.

 

Forlan finishes forlorn Fulham

Scott Mody
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Forlan finishes forlorn Fulham

No-one in the JCR TV room is a Fulham supporter, but that doesn’t seem to matter. With an almost nonchalant flick of his trailing right heel, Diego Forlan has just driven a stake into our neutral-turned-fanatic hearts. Atletico Madrid close out the final 5 minutes of an entrancing extra-time period, clinching the inaugural Europa League with the most gut-wrenchingly tight 2-1 victory. Fulham’s travelling cohort of celebrity followers struggle to contain themselves, too: Lily Allen is openly sobbing, Hugh Grant spills his beer in frustration, and owner Mohammed Al-Fayed looks like a man who’d trade all the money in the world (£1.5 billion from this week’s sale of Harrods, to be exact) for a re-scripted ending to one of the most amazing near-misses in European football history.

There’ll be enough glowing panegyrics in the national press: Roy Hodgson has orchestrated a transformation of truly epic proportions, moulding a Premier League bottom-feeder into continental finalists within 3 years. What a massive shame that a remarkably successful season was not crowned by the club’s very first piece of silverware: to lose a match in such late and crushing circumstances is as brutal as sport gets. Fulham are a small-sized, average-funded top division club- they certainly don’t spend wildly, and rely heavily upon the proven tactical astuteness of their outstanding manager: in short, this Europa League final had all the feel of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the west Londoners. Distraught players litter the post-match pitch in Hamburg like wounded soldiers, men haunted by the immediate spectre of glory unfulfilled. Everything that has been accomplished crumbles to dust, at least for some time, in the wake of plaintive defeat.

Nonetheless, minute-by-minute, kick-by-kick, the trusty band of JCR football regulars watched with increasingly partisan excitement: who doesn’t love an underdog, especially an English one? Before long, even the dangling anvil of looming exams became trivial in the face of Fulham’s outrageous bid for a midweek Spanish conquest- 2 hours of tense sporting drama can provide a much-required distraction from academic demands, if only for its inimitable offer of sheer escapism: Forlan’s late dagger is plunged into JCR spectators across the city.

Fulham, we share your pain. Vicarious viewing is what football is all about, even when your supported team isn’t involved: exult with every goal and die with every defeat. Throw yourself headlong into the operatic theatre of the beautiful game- it’s well worth the emotional investment. Watching football is an under-valued antidote to the stresses of work, and one that will be in plentiful supply over the next few months; with a World Cup on the not-so-distant horizon, we can once again gorge ourselves on the tasty forbidden fruit of exam-season sport. Fingers crossed, then, that England’s South African progress doesn’t inflict too much damage on the Prelims and Finals performances of Oxford’s football-loving population. After all, let’s be honest: who’ll be revising once Rooney & Co. get rolling?

 

Oriel threatens library closure

Camilla Turner
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Oriel threatens library closure

Oriel have threatened to restrict the College library opening hours in response to the surge of vandalism incidents that have taken place this week.
The damage includes several broken chairs and a “flagrant disregard for library regulations”.
Charles B. Watson of the Oriel Classics Departmemt wrote a letter to all JCR members, condemning the vandalism and the consumption of food and drink in the library, which is strictly forbidden under library regulations.
He has Urged anyone with information about the broken chairs to come forward.
He warned that, “If those responsible for the broken furniture do not come forward or if library regulations continue to be ignored, the Governing Body will take drastic action at its next meeting, Wednesday of 4th Week. The current proposal is to close the library from 10pm-7am.”
James Pickering, a third year, PPEist, said, “I think its fair for the College to act in this way. People have been taking trashy food into the library and stinking out the place.
“It just seems absurd for people to transgress the rules in this way and as far as I’m concerned there is no need for it. Of course it is a massive hindrance. I do know people who work in the late hours of the evening and will find it very difficult if the library is closed over night. But I can’t see any other way of getting people to stick to the rules, which I think are completely reasonable”
Nick Gallagher, a third year Classics and English student, said “Oriel’s library is open for 24 hours a day, this is obviously a tremendous resource.
“I would certainly find it an inconvenience if the library was closed overnight and my work would suffer as a result.”

Comedian booed off stage at ball

Raffaele De Leon
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Comedian booed off stage at ball

Comedy rocker Mitch Benn was forced off stage by a hail of missiles at the Somerville-Jesus Ball last Saturday.
The bearded entertainer stopped mid-show to berate revellers for their behaviour, warning, “If anyone chucks one more thing, I’m off.” A drunken ball-goer then launched a bottle cap at the stage.
Benn duly left, to groans and boos from the crowd who had previously been enjoying his act. Mr Benn later tweeted, “Sorry how it ended but I hope you understand why I had to do that. “
Eyewitness James Waterson, of Jesus College, condemned the culprits. “The Ball Committee made a big effort to book [Benn] and I don’t blame him for leaving – he got the fee, we lost out: very good money for ten minutes’ work…the bottle cap throwers were tossers.”
Jesus JCR President Ross Evans was responsible for booking Mr Benn and also Stage Manager for his gig. Mr Evans defended Benn’s response, saying “you can’t blame him – he’s an artist. He’s not paid to have stuff thrown at him…the culprits should consider themselves lucky not to have been thrown out.”
Ball Vice President Jordan Clay claimed that it was not “the place of the committee to stop people getting drunk.”
However he also said, “It would have been better if we’d had some security set up.”
Ball Treasurer Joe Staines refused to say whether he had tried to withhold any of Mitch Benn’s fees to punish his early exit. However, Ball committee sources indicate that Mr Benn will receive the full amount for his performance despite not completing the show. A thank-you card is also planned.
Mitch Benn was unavailable for comment, and the culprits have not been identified.

Controversial Cardinal cancels

Andrew Kramer
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Controversial Cardinal cancels

Cardinal Brady has cancelled his planned visit to the Oxford University Newman Society this week.
Cardinal Sean Brady, the Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, announced his cancellation the day after Cherwell published an article entitled “‘Cover-up’ Cardinal to visit Oxford”.
He was due to deliver the termly Thomas More Lecture, celebrate Mass in Trinity College, and attend the Newman Society’s black-tie dinner, to be held in his honour at St Benet’s Hall on Wednesday 12th May.
The Newman Society is the Catholic Society of Oxford University. It is not officially known why Brady decided to cancel his visit, only five days before he was due to come.
Cardinal Brady is a controversial figure. He has repeatedly refused to resign as Cardinal despite legal challenges against him. He stands accused of covering up child sex abuse in the Church, by requiring underage victims to sign oaths swearing they would not discuss their abuse.
Brady’s office said, “As he continues a gradual return to normal duties following a short period of illness Cardinal Brady has, with deep regret, decided to cancel his proposed visit to Oxford.
“Cardinal Brady expressed the hope that he would be able to visit the members of the Oxford University Newman Society in due course and conveyed his good wishes and prayers for the work of the Society and the University, especially for those students preparing for examinations at this time.”
His lecture was due to be on the “Challenges Facing the Church in Ireland in the Twenty First Century”.
Conor Gannon, President of the Newman Society, said “I am personally disappointed that he cannot come as I felt it would be an excellent opportunity to hear how he intends to lead the Catholic Church in Ireland at this difficult time.
“Whether or not he should resign is not a matter for the Newman Society. We simply wished to provide him with the opportunity to apologise for the wrongdoings of the Church in the past and outline a way forward for the future.
“The Newman Society is aware of the sensitivity of the issue of child abuse in the Catholic Church. All those who have been affected by such appalling sins are in our prayers and we pray for reconciliation.”

£5 million gift to Oxford

India Lenon
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£5 million gift to Oxford

Oxford is to receive a donation of £5 million to strengthen its global health research networks with Asia, and with China in particular.
The donation from the Li Ka Shing Foundation will fund a series of partnerships, teaching and research projects that will see centres in China, Vietnam and Thailand become full partners in the University’s Asia Research Network.
Sir Ka Shing set up the foundation in 1980 to support activities in education, and medicine and healthcare. The Li Ka Shing-University of Oxford Global Health Programme will help develop the best responses to these global health challenges.
The donation will fund training in infectious disease research at Shantou University, and a number of medical students from Shantou University will be able to travel to Oxford for further medical training. There will also be opportunities for clinical scientists to undertake graduate degrees with the University of Oxford.

Tories and Labour triumph in Oxford

James Gibson
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Tories and Labour triumph in Oxford

Andrew Smith retained his seat in Oxford West in last week’s general election, beating the Liberal Democrat Steve Goddard by 4,581 votes.
The Liberal Democrat Dr Evan Harris lost his seat, which he has held for the last 13 years, to Nicola Blackwood of the Conservative Party in Oxford West and Abingdon.
Steven Goddard reflected on his loss to incumbent Andrew Smith, saying, “Well, I wish that my campaign had had access to the national injections of cash and resources that my opponent had from big business and the unions!”
The Conservatives gained 97 seats nationally, not enough to secure a majority. Instead a coalition has been formed with the Liberal Democrats after several days of post-election deal-making. Oxford East saw a swing on 4.1% from the Lib Dems to Labour.
The Green Party lost votes from 2005 in this seat, but UKIP and the Socialist Equality Party both gained votes. In Oxford West and Abingdon there was a swing of 6.9% from the Lib Dems to the Conservatives.

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