Friday, April 25, 2025
Blog Page 198

Diversity Triumphs: UK finally has PM from Lincoln College

Patrick Clinch
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Diversity Triumphs: UK finally has PM from Lincoln College

In a stunning moment for diversity in British politics, Rishi Sunak became Britain’s first Prime Minister to have attended Lincoln College, Oxford on Tuesday. “People said it couldn’t be done, but here I am,” said Sunak, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer who matriculated into Lincoln in 1998 and graduated in 2001 with a first in PPE. 

“This is an incredible achievement,” said the current Master of Lincoln College, “to think that a college which was only ranked third in the Norrington Table in 2021 could send an alumnus to No. 10. It really proves that in this country you can achieve anything if you work hard enough.” 

Sunak, who is worth around £730 million through his former career in finance and his marriage to heiress Akshata Murty, has had to overcome the barriers placed before him by politicians who attended Christ Church or Merton in order to become the leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party. “I believe that anyone who attended Oxford, even those who studied at St. Peter’s or Lady Margaret Hall can now dream of becoming Prime Minister. I hope I am an inspiration to Oxford graduates everywhere,” said Sunak. 

The new Prime Minister met with King Charles III on Tuesday to receive his invitation to form a government, the first Lincoln graduate to have been granted such an honour. “It was not lost on me,” said Sunak of the meeting, “that history was being made at that moment. Needless to say I was thinking of all those Lincoln graduates who had to live and die without becoming Prime Minister.” Sunak has pledged that, despite having attended Lincoln, he will be a Prime Minister for members of all colleges, and, presumably, other Britons as well. 

Lincoln graduate Sunak will also be the first non-white person to become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

Union controversy as Freemasons “crash” state-school access event

Freya Jones
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Union controversy as Freemasons “crash” state-school access event

Controversy has erupted at the Oxford Union after members alleged that a group of Freemasons were present at a socio-economic access event. Their appearance in white tie caused particular upset, since a similar incident last year was supposed to have led to the Union planning events to avoid conflicts with the masonic lodge’s calendar.

The event was claimed to have taken place on Saturday 22nd October, when Freemasons came into the Union Bar wearing white tie during an access social with the 93% Club, Oxford University’s state-school society. This event was intended as a way for students from underrepresented socio-economic backgrounds to enjoy the Union in a less formal capacity, introducing its potential to be an accessible and welcoming space for all.

Freemasons are members of social organisations which originally promoted freedom of religion and speech, but now mainly serve a social function. Their use of secret handshakes and rituals, as well as of formal dress at social events, has led to accusations of elitism. Masonic lodges also prohibit members from discussing their rituals with non-members, which has led to the spawning of conspiracy theories about their practices.

The social was originally held in the Goodman Library, but relocated to the bar when only four members of the 93% Club attended. One member of the Union Committee described the event as “Quite underpopulated compared to expectations, but everyone present seemed to enjoy it”.

However, the appearance of suspected Freemasons, who bought drinks at the bar before walking out again, sparked outrage among some members of Committee, who objected to the fact they were wearing white tie, which they considered elitist. 

The incident caused particular distress by recalling an event last Hillary, when Freemasons allegedly walked into a larger socio-economic access event, and ate some of the food being served. Members of committee who were present described the Freemasons’ appearance as a display of entitlement and a “fuck you” to people from under-represented backgrounds.

In light of this, those responsible for organising events at the Union were expected to account for the Masonic Lodge calendar when planning access socials. Failure to do this satisfactorily caused the current Union Secretary Matthew Dick to come under fire in a Standing Committee meeting on Monday 24th. When questioned on his commitment to access, he said, “I apologise for the lapse in checking the Lodge calendar,” adding, “if I didn’t care about making the society more accessible, I would instantly resign.” However, it was also noted that the masons present on this occasion arrived unannounced and are also Union members, with one committee member telling Cherwell they were “powerless to remove them” for that reason.

Other members of the committee raised concerns about messages Dick sent during the summer vacation, seen by Cherwell, where he joked: “I am a Freemason. I will crash the social this year in white tie”.

Dick told Cherwell: “It is disappointing to learn that excerpts of private messages from many months ago that were exchanged privately have been misused and taken out of context to drive a false narrative. I would also like to reassure members that this sort of behaviour does not represent what most people in the Union stand for and would encourage members to attend Consultative Committee and other events where they can freely ask questions and make up their own minds.”

In the meeting, he added: “access is absolutely not a joke to me. Why would I crash a social event that I organised?”

One Committee member told Cherwell: “[Matthew] is in no way a Freemason, which made this joke particularly funny. It was understood at the time and in the context by everyone in the group chat to be a joke and is still very much seen as [a] joke.”

There is also fear among committee members that the 93% Club may reconsider further partnerships with the Oxford Union as a result of this incident. However, President Ahmad Nawaz said of the Freemasons, “Being a fair president, I cannot remove people because they are in white tie.”

Another committee member added: “the notion that working class students would get perturbed by four men in white tie getting drinks at the bar is deeply patronising towards our working class members. It is a shame that some members of Committee are weaponising the disadvantaged for political gain.”

The Union plans to issue a formal apology and send formal emails to the Freemasons to “100% ensure” this does not happen a third time.

A spokesperson for Apollo University Lodge said: “Members of the Lodge couldn’t have been present at, or ‘crashed’, the socio-economic social hosted by the 93% Club. The Union term card says this took place between 14:00 and 16:00. The photo in the article was clearly taken in the evening, and our dinner didn’t finish until 21:30, so members of the Lodge would only have arrived several hours after the event had ended. What’s more, members of the Lodge who go to the Union after meetings are members of the Union in their own right, and are permitted to use the facilities unless there is a private event (e.g. a ball). There may also have been people present in the bar who had previously been at the 93% Club event, but this is not the same thing, as members of the Union meet in the bar all the time.

We are three organisations, two of which are exclusively for women. The two leading women’s Grand Lodges with whom we have the closest relationships are Freemasonry for Women and the Order of Women Freemasons. These two groups only admit women because that is the choice of their memberships. Both women’s organisations and UGLE prefer to practise our Freemasonry in single-sex environments. Due to our mutual respect and close relations, the United Grand Lodge of England regularly allows the two women’s Grand Lodges to hold meetings in our headquarters.

“Moreover, kindness and charity are deeply ingrained within the principles of Freemasonry. For example, in 2020, Freemasons donated over £1 million to Covid-19 related causes. We have also committed a further £2.1m to support the ongoing Covid-19 crisis response. Of that £2.1m, £850,000 has been allocated to help homeless people through several charities with which UGLE partners, while £715,000 is earmarked to support adult, young and parent carers. And closer to home, Apollo University Lodge supports seven annual bursaries for students who are already in receipt of the Oxford Bursary or a Crankstart Scholarship.”

Additional reporting credit: Charlie Hancock

We should back Ukraine’s demand for a Nuremburg-style tribunal

Bincheng Mao
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We should back Ukraine’s demand for a Nuremburg-style tribunal

In the aftermath of World War II, the allies convened the Nuremberg trials to investigate and prosecute twenty-one of the most senior Nazi leaders. In its verdict released in 1946, one sentence encapsulated the special court’s unanimous view: launching a war of aggression is the “supreme international crime” as it “contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”

Last month at the UN General Assembly, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky publicly called for a special international tribunal to try Russian officials responsible for crimes throughout the Russian invasion. In his speech, Zelensky echoed the notion of a supreme international crime set out in the Nuremberg verdict. He stated first that Russia committed crimes against Ukraine’s “state borders” and then described all the other atrocities recorded so far.

It is worth pondering that the crime of aggression was actually conceived by a Russian jurist. Aron Trainin, a graduate of Moscow State University, was the first in the world to propose the criminalization of aggression in the wake of Nazi Germany’s full-scale invasion of the USSR. The stark contrast between Trainin’s groundbreaking suggestion during World War II and Putin’s callous invasion of Ukraine today is ironic and tragic. 

Britain, along with the collective West, has a moral duty to support Ukrainian President Zelensky’s request for a special tribunal. It stems from our conviction that the rule of law is the cornerstone of liberty both domestically and internationally. So far, however, major powers such as Britain and America have yet to declare support for the idea of a criminal tribunal for aggression in Ukraine. 

Applying the Nuremberg model is both a moral and practical way to hold senior Russian officials accountable for committing the crime of aggression. As it stands today, there is unfortunately no existing permanent international court that can prosecute Russian leaders for this crime. Russia initially signed the Rome Statue, which set up the International Criminal Court in The Hague, but later withdrew its signature. The ICC cannot prosecute nationals of a country that is not a party to the Rome Treaty. 

These barriers can be only removed through a special trial: one that is able to investigate evidence of Russian high-ranking officials’ responsibility in this war of aggression, delegitimize Vladimir Putin as a world leader, and provide a lesson in history to all would-be aggressors.

The responsibility falls on Britain’s shoulders because the UK is one of the few countries that can secure enough political backing for President Zelensky’s request. From Nuremberg to Tokyo, we know that tribunals can be created when there is political will, and their creations do not have to go through the UN Security Council where Russia has a veto. And even within the UN system, we have the precedent of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal, one that was established with an agreement between the UN chief executive and Cambodia endorsed by the UN General Assembly, where no country has veto powers. 

Britain should rally support from allies and partners, including India and many Commonwealth countries in Africa that have remained nominally neutral on the war in Ukraine, to push for a resolution in the United Nations General Assembly. It can authorize the UN Secretary-General to make an agreement with Ukraine to set up a tribunal, just like the Khmer Rouge Tribunal. With a simple majority of UN member states, we can ensure that prosecuting senior Russian officials for their crimes of aggression will be a reality. 

In the eyes of many in the world, putting Putin on trial seems a distant hope. And it may be so. But when Charles de Gaulle fled to England in World War II, it would have also seemed impossible to most that German generals such as Wilhelm Keitel and Alfred Jodl would face trials merely five years later at Nuremberg. Setting up a special criminal tribunal is a practical blueprint for prosecuting Putin and his associates for their crimes.
As Ukraine made stunning advances in the east, Putin escalated the war with a partial mobilization in Russia and constant missile attacks on Ukrainian energy facilities. It is clear that he and his associates care more about colonial conquest than any legal considerations. But that does not mean that we should sit idly by. We can show the world that justice still matters by advancing the creation of a special international tribunal to hold those who have committed crimes in Ukraine to account.

Image:CC 1.0//Via Flickr.

Why austerity isn’t the answer

James Melia
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Why austerity isn’t the answer

Everyone can see that the Tories have destroyed the economy. Inflation is soaring, mortgage rates are shooting through the roof, and the cost of government borrowing is spiralling out of control. The only thing going down is the value of the pound. 

Many Tories, including Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, are already building the narrative that the government borrowed too much and so we must cut public spending – a return to the austerity policy of the last decade. This argument is wrong in many respects. 

Firstly, the economy has not crashed simply because the government borrowed too much money. France, Japan and Spain all have far larger government debt than the UK, and yet they are not experiencing the kind of economic crisis precipitated by Liz Truss’ mini-budget. During the pandemic, Rishi Sunak borrowed upwards of £400 billion to rescue the economy and no one asked ‘how are you going to pay for it?’. 

The fact is that as a country with its own sovereign currency, the UK government can never run out of money. The Bank of England spends money into existence at the command of parliament and will always be able to do so. 

However, this does this not mean that the government should spend unlimited amounts. The real constraint on government spending is not the threat of bankruptcy, it is inflation. Rishi Sunak was able to borrow vast amounts during the pandemic because the economy was in recession so had the capacity to absorb the huge new spending without causing inflation. 

On other hand, when Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng announced £45 billion of tax cuts at a time when inflation is already at 10%, the markets correctly judged that this would further push up prices. International investors saw the obvious truth that allowing rich people to go on a £45 billion spending spree will of course drive up inflation, and so they dumped UK assets. 

Thus, the UK needs to begin dealing with the real crisis it faces: inflation. The government can reduce inflation by increasing taxes because this reduces overall consumer spending. So, the government must introduce an emergency 60% top rate of tax for those earning over £200,000 a year to cut their spending and reduce inflation. It would be morally abhorrent to get control of inflation on the backs of the poorest in society.  Instead, the wealthiest people must accept their patriotic duty to take a temporary cut in pay to get inflation in check, just as they did during the Second World War. 

The government must also act now to restrain the vast profits of some corporations. Oil companies are self-proclaimed ‘money printing machines’ due to the global oil price shock. Banks are making a killing off the sky-high mortgage and interest rates that the British people now face. The government has no choice but to place windfall taxes on the inordinate profits of these corporations. 

The Tories have a different strategy to face the economic crisis of their own making. Jeremy Hunt, the new Chancellor of the Exchequer (for now), has said that he intends to fill a ‘£60 billion black hole’ in the public finances, partly by cutting government spending. This £60 billion figure is pure nonsense. It is based on the assertion that the government must cut its deficit to zero within three years. However, the deficit hasn’t been that low in 20 years. Why Mr Hunt thinks we need to cut the deficit so rapidly, when the economy needs support to get through the energy crisis, is incomprehensible. 

But Mr Hunt is right that government borrowing does need to be reduced, even if not by £60bn, because reducing government borrowing will cut inflation and restore confidence to the financial markets. The chancellor is signalling that he will achieve this by cutting public spending. Such a course of action would be economically illiterate. 

David Cameron and George Osborne already tried to balance the books by cutting public spending. It did not work. It lead to a decade of lost economic growth. It caused widespread poverty and the near collapse of the NHS. And it did not even get down the debt.

The impact of their austerity policies is still being felt today. One of the main reasons for this country’s weak economic growth is that hundreds of thousands of people cannot work due to long-term illness caused by the underfunding of the NHS. If the Tories had not shut down Gordon Brown’s home insulation programme, the British people would be saving £3.7 billion on their energy bills every year. This reflects the essence of all Tory economics: saving money in the short term, just to lose it in the long term. 

So what should the government do instead? It should reject public spending cuts and instead hike taxes for those who can afford to pay a bit more. And, once inflation has settled back down, the government must recognise that it will then be able to afford to borrow more. A strong economy depends on the government borrowing to invest in projects that will lower inflation in the long term. If the government borrows over the long term to invest in insulating every home in Britain, retraining our workforce for the 21st century and building a new wave of green infrastructure, then they will get the economy growing and keep the confidence of the markets. Assuming that Jeremy Hunt is still set to make his fiscal statement on 31st of October, he can take the opportunity of Halloween to bury the zombie economics of austerity by choosing to tax the rich and set out a plan for the green future of our economy. If he does not, the British economy will slide further into global irrelevancy. 

Image: CC2.0//William Murphy via Flickr.

This House would Boycott the Qatar World Cup

A. Dowell
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This House would Boycott the Qatar World Cup

The Oxford Union members warmed up by debating whether “this house would penalise sports teams for their fans’ actions”. As this was the second and final week of Nawaz’s extended open period, the debate was accessible to all twenty-six thousand bod-card carrying students at the university. The chair for the members debate announced the motion. “Would anyone like to speak for the proposition?” There was a long silence. Finally, someone was cajoled to the front where they delivered the dazzling point that people usually go to sports matches to support only one side. As the debate went on it began to feel like a self-help group for fans of ill-fated regional football clubs. “Hi, my name’s Alex, and I support Brentford Football Club.” “Hi, my name’s Derek and I support Huddersfield Town.” The chair scrolled through his phone with a look of intense concentration. I idly read the notice on the back of my program detailing that no one should use their phones, but that “interpretation of the forms of the house rests with the chair.” I got my phone out.

The Union Committee strutted in for the real debate. Their business this week consisted of gently patting themselves on the back for the immense influence they must have, since Truss resigned after last week’s debate concluded that the Union had “no confidence” in his majesty’s government. This causality is as substantiated as the age of Miss America influencing the number of deaths by steam, vapour, and hot objects.[i] Lettuce jokes were made with all the delighted glee of the first time someone compared a woman to rotting produce, probably sometime Before Christ.

The proposition for a boycott of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar put forth a variable front. The first speaker, Lukas Seifert, aggressively nice, waxed lyrical about the beautiful game and his guilt at eating inorganic meat. He ended with some practical suggestions for how to boycott the World Cup whilst still watching it, barely onside. Thomas Beattie, the first openly gay professional footballer since 1990, gave a moving speech about the plight of the gay community in Qatar. The staging of the World Cup in Qatar was not motivated by bringing change, he argued, gracefully avoiding mention of the $1 million in bribes Fifa officials have reportedly accepted. David Fevre, the godfather of sports medicine, opened his speech with nearly a minute of name dropping. He lamented the modern politics of sport and suggested any kind of political protest at the games, such as rainbow badges, would be merely a “vague statement” placating audiences at home. Ciaron Tobin finished off the proposition. He began by telling the now emptier hall that the union was great fun, and everyone should “just get involved’” His speech was full of non sequiturs: we lurched from Qatar; to the labour party; to why one should pick your local chicken shop over any MacDonalds. “A boycott from the bottom forces a boycott from the top.” He ended on the principled argument of comfort above all. Why go to Qatar when you’d be more comfortable at home?

Lewis Fisher, the first speaker for the opposition, gave a good speech in favour of a compensation fund rather than a boycott. He finished, rather unfortunately, with the insensitive hope that football would come home. Martyn Ziegler, a sports reporter who has reported on every World Cup for the last twenty years, argued that cash-for-votes in major sporting events has been the norm. On his raised stage, the president folded his programme into a little fan. Minky Worden, an impressive director of global initiatives at Human Rights Watch, opposed the boycott and instead advocated for better forms of action. A compensation fund, supported by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, is the “only available remedy” for the grieving families of the thousands of migrant workers who have died in Qatar during the construction of the stadiums. She argued that this, rather than a boycott, would prove to prospective hosts for the 2030 World Cup, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, that human rights are imperative. Dan Kilpatrick, the football correspondent for the Evening Standard, opened the final speech for the opposition with a question: “Mum and Dad, are you still awake?” We all craned around to see a couple nodding supportively at the back. As a member of the media, he pleaded the need for impartial media coverage to hold the Qatari government to account.

The evening’s debate was inconclusive because the opposition did not prove that a boycott and the reparations that they advocated for were mutually exclusive. The House barely decided against the Boycott with 84 votes against, and 80 for.

Image credit: Joe Emmens

[i] https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations

Breakwater : Oxford’s first student feature-film in forty years

Thomas Bristow
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Breakwater : Oxford’s first student feature-film in forty years

‘Breakwater’ is an upcoming feature-length film, produced by Oxford-based Nocturne Productions, and the first film by Oxford University students since ‘Privileged’ in 1982. According to the Indiegogo page, ‘The film follows the relationship between Otto, a university student, and John, a retired angler who lives on the coast. Their lives collide and fuse irreversibly over the shared trauma of losing a loved one. However, their tentative romance develops into something more sinister after the past exhumes itself in the form of guilt, grief and ghosts to devastating effect’. Thomas Bristow interviewed the Writer/Director Max Morgan, Second year English at Christ Church, and the Producer Jemima Chen, Second year English and Italian at Balliol, about their exciting new venture: 

What sort of precedent has the film ‘Privileged’ (1982) set, and would you like to follow in that precedent or are you going to be much more independent?

Max: We’re working with the people who did ‘Privileged’ as a team, and they’re helping us with production and with script a great deal as well. It’s a really well shot film, and Andy (Paterson) has been telling us loads of stories about how they did it. Every night they would shoot a roll of film then drive in the evening to the studio to get it processed, then they’d drive back and do another day of shooting, so it was just this constant cycle. 

When they first came and met with us, they said they were listening to Bruce Springsteen, just as they did when they were on their way to drop the film off at the studio when they were shooting. But before we properly started the project, we knew that ‘Privileged’ was a very Oxford-centric project about this elite group of people. It’s such a cool film, but we were hoping to make ‘Breakwater’ a bit more independent of Oxford, and differentiate it from quite a lot of student films in a sense by having it pay homage to Oxford, but also to portray Oxford in a slightly different light as well. Also having the entire second location, where the bulk of the film is set, in Suffolk and on the Suffolk coast, and by having that older character and the relationship between Otto and John who’s the older man he meets and spends time with on the coast. Production-wise, ‘Privileged’ started so many careers, Hugh Grant etc, so it would be really cool to know that we’ve given people their first opportunity to get involved in film. But I think in terms of precedent we want to make a good film first, I guess, and see what happens afterwards and hopefully have fun with it. 

Jemima: I think also we’re really lucky their advice to guide us through this whole process as well, because I think when we first got into it we were thinking ‘We just need a £5k budget, we just need this etc’, and it’s been rising and rising and rising. What we’re taking on here is a two year project, it’s going to be massive. It’s not your ordinary student film by any means, like what Max said. 

My next question, which I think you may have already answered, was how vital have the previous cast and crew of ‘Privileged’ been?

Jemima: Andy and Mike (Hoffman) have been absolutely invaluable with the script. They came to this meeting that we had with them with so many notes and it was really cool to hear how they worked. Mike was a Master’s student at Oxford, specialising in Shakespeare, so the whole time we were talking through the script he’d frame it with a Shakespearean reference. And he’d have diagrams and was like ‘This is what happens at this point in Twelfth Night. How does that connect to Breakwater?’. It was really amazing for them to care so much and have so many notes. It was hours of us just chatting with them. At the start they were very intense. They asked Max some hard-hitting questions and he did really well. They were like ‘Describe this film in five words. Give me an example where two people’s narratives in a film together has ever worked.’ It was basically baptism by fire but by the end of it, it was really fun.

Max: The film has definitely become a lot better because of what they did. And we’re constantly sending updates to them as well, so they’re still reading it which is amazing considering how busy they are. 

You’ve written an exciting summary of your film on the Indiegogo website, but what can we expect from the style of it, and what do you want to achieve with that?

Max: I think when we originally described it on the Facebook call out for crew, we described it as like Mark Jenkins’ ‘Bait’, set in Cornwall and shot on film, it’s about this fisherman’s struggle against gentrification, and losing a fishing boat. It’s highly stylistic, black and white, and visually I think that’s something we’re aiming for. But in terms of plot, maybe something slightly more psychological. Psychological drama and horror are the sort of genres we’re aiming for. And obviously with Oxford and Suffolk we’re shooting in two visually stunning locations, it’s about the clashing of those two; the smoothness of the golden sandstone and something a bit grittier, salt-encrusted and darker. I think the film is one of self-discovery as you descend into darkness, collapsing into something more sinister as their relationship develops. 

Jemima: We’re trying to move way from the whole ‘Oxford’ style because I think a lot of student films like to capitalise on the happiness, romanticism and hedonism of Oxford. This is very much taking quite a stark difference, though at the same time what we’re quite aware of is that we’ve kind of done a really perverse ‘Brideshead’. We’ve taken this ‘Brideshead’ format of our main character becoming a bit of a ‘Charles’ and we’ve just wrecked the idea of what ‘Sebastian’ is. That in my opinion is what the new script is looking like. So we’re paying homage to these Oxford traditions but at the same time mixing them in with some dark stuff. 

Again I think you’ve already half-answered this, but very simply what have been your creative influences?

Max: I really like the plays of Robert Holman because he writes about the coast loads. And there’s a play it’s loosely based on called ‘Jonah and Otto’. But I don’t know, because when we first started talking about doing this, it was various groupings of images and developing a plot out of it with massive shifts between what happens. This is really random, but the band ‘Jockstrap’ were a massive influence. I saw a ‘Jockstrap’ concert, and I thought it would interesting to write about the relationship between experimental music and someone radically outside of that and outside of the Oxford sphere. I live close to where we’re filming so I have a lot of memories there, and I think that’s partly something to do with it and something to do with the fact that we can film in Oxford. Knowing the area where we’re going to be shooting helps too. That’s something we’re having to grapple with when we make this, because obviously we have a limited budget and not necessarily limited technical capabilities. But we’re still students and we’re working around ‘Who’s going to stay where? How many air mattresses do we need? How are we going to get extras for this scene?’. It’s thinking about how we’re going to move forward with the film whilst bearing stuff like budget and what’s technically feasible in mind. For example, ‘How are we going to light this scene?’, and ‘Where are we going to shoot it?’ has an impact on writing. Recently, our primary filming location burnt down.

Jemima: Two floors just gone! It was our prime location, and it was ‘John’s’ house, so it’s prime filming and our accommodation just gone. 

Max: Yeah we were going to stay in my friend’s house and shoot downstairs. It was so antiquated that it wasn’t fireproof and burnt down. Fortunately, we’ve found alternatives but we’re still working with that. 

Another very simple question I suppose, but why did you want to make this film? 

Jemima: I’m part of OUFF (Oxford University Filmmaking Foundation) and I’m the Secretary, so I was really lucky to meet with Neil and Andy just on a completely separate topic of the kind of rejuvenation of OUFF and how we can go forward and make it a bigger thing. We were talking about what ideas we should do and what films and they were like ‘Do a feature’. Max and I haven’t worked on a project this large before, but they were like ‘Go ahead and just do a feature film’. So we were like ‘Why not?’, because obviously it’s been 40 years since it was last done. It’s always been ticking along, it’s always been an idea. Max and I have both been lucky enough to work professionally in the industry, so there’s been some really cool projects. But being on set and working long and hard days and being at the bottom of the hierarchy made us think ‘We want to give this a go’. I’ve learnt a lot of lessons from there and it’s been really amazing, but also to be in charge of our own project is very liberating. We’re also really lucky to have amazing people on board, our DoP (Director of Photography) is from the University of Westminster film school. He’s amazing and was working in Jamaica when we interviewed him. We’re really lucky, and having the confidence came from finding other people who were interested in the project, which is snowballing. 

Max: Jemima and I had been hatching it for a bit, and then we asked people to join the crew, and the excitement that generated was really great. Our crew is full of experienced and talented people, and pre-production is going really well because everyone is dedicated to the project. It’s so nice to have quite a big crew to work on a project of this scale, and feel like everyone is really involved in the film. It’s a lot of work to do, which Jemima and I didn’t anticipate so much, but everyone is getting involved. It’s fun but a lot of work. 

Jemima: There’s also a finance team with a CFO, which is amazing because we’re now a limited company. Eventually, we want to distribute the film like ‘Privileged’. We have a legal team and they’re also amazing, marketing and events too. It goes into so many facets. What spurred us on as well is that we were reaching out to businesses in Oxford to sponsor us, so The Missing Bean is sponsoring us for coffee when we shoot and Najar’s is sponsoring us for wraps when we shoot, so is Jericho Coffee Traders. When we got these businesses to sponsor us it gave us great confidence.

You have your launch coming up on the 27th of October at OXO Bar, what can we expect from that?

Jemima: It’s a way for everyone to meet our cast and crew, and in particular our crew from London. We’ve got our gaffer now so you’ll meet him and our DoP. There’s thirty people in our team so they’ll all be able to meet each other which is amazing. And more importantly everyone from Oxford can come and meet them because we everyone to get to know the crew, especially because we’re going to try and get casting really soon. We obviously want people who are interested in casting to come, we’re going to have ‘Breakwater’ themed drinks like ‘Otto’s drink’, and we’ve got some really exciting raffle prizes from some amazing sponsors. G&D’s is giving us vouchers for Sunday ice cream and we’ve got ball tickets. The raffle, importantly, is going to be an online thing that people can be part of, if they can’t make it to the drinks. It’s completely free to come, we just want everyone to see what the vibe is. We also have merch by our amazing graphics designer Freddie, who also did the poster. It’s really exciting. 

The ‘Breakwater’ Indieogogo page was set up to help with funding, and importantly the film will be casting soon. Naturally, I cannot wait to see the finished product, and I’m sure the reader will join myself in wishing Max and Jemima all the best for their production.

The Indiegogo page can be found here: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/breakwater#/

Cost of living crisis felt in Oxford as Hertford opens JCR food bank

Maggie Wilcox
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Cost of living crisis felt in Oxford as Hertford opens JCR food bank

Hertford College JCR has put in place a food bank to help address food insecurity in the student body.

In order to help the increasing number of students now struggling to purchase sufficient and nutritious food, a food bank has been set up in Hertford college. The initiative was proposed by Anya Tregay, Class representative for the Hertford JCR, and seconded by Orlaith Lindsay, the JCR secretary. 

In their JCR motion, they highlighted that the cost of rent at Hertford has gone up 8.5% since Trinity Term 2022. This increase, coupled with the general cost of living crisis, has made purchasing food and other resources difficult. While Hertford has increased their bursaries, many of which are awarded automatically to those who qualify, Tregay and Lindsay believe that “this may not be enough to allow all students a comfortable financial position”. They also stress that it may be intimidating for students to use existing local Oxford food banks.

The motion, which was adopted following a general JCR meeting this past Sunday, October 18, highlights that students should not only be able to access necessities from the food bank. They should equally be able to take “non-essential” items like tea, coffee and cereals, as these are essential to student comfort and quality of life. 

This initiative comes directly from the students, a testament to “the heart and community spirit of Hertford”, according to one student. However, the same student was frustrated that College and University administration have not done more to address the cost of living crisis. They note that Hertford is beginning “expensive building projects such as a new library and graduate centre”. This student, who is now “counting the pennies of [their] weekly shop”, wishes that more support was available to low income students. Hertford, for their part, has put in place additional support schemes for students struggling. In an email to Cherwell, a college spokesperson voiced the administration’s full support of the JCR food bank initiative.

Tregay announced in a JCR Facebook post that there is now a donation bin in the JCR. She wrote that students who are struggling shouldn’t feel nervous to take what they need. All students who can are encouraged to donate non-perishable goods to help their peers.

Image Credit: [Michael D Beckwith]/[CC 0] via [Wikimedia Commons]

The centre cannot hold – What is the Republican Party?

Lucas Haskins
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The centre cannot hold – What is the Republican Party?

(If some terms seem alien, a much more detailed account of the midterms can be found here. The analysis reflects the state of play in February, but some explanations may be of use). 

When Lloyd Grove, staff writer for The Washington Post, trekked to suburban Arizona in 1994 to visit the 85 year old Barry Goldwater, he was told by the former senator and presidential nominee “I haven’t changed my outlook at all.” The Post’s article addressed some of Goldwater’s recent apostasies, particularly his support for gay rights – as a man for whom libertarianism was a commitment and not a fig leaf, discrimination against homosexuals struck him as wrong. 

Goldwater was a conservative, a conservative for whom individual rights and liberties were the starting point – in the article, he came out swinging (inaccurately) against Bill Clinton’s doomed healthcare plan. Yet by the 1990s, Goldwater had also become alienated from a Republican party which seemed less concerned with freedom than with prurient, ‘church-ordained’ forms of social control. Addressing the transparently dominant right of the GOP, he said, “You are extremists, and you’ve hurt the Republican party much more than Democrats.” 

Barry Goldwater was obliterated in the 1964 presidential election by LBJ, who with absolute justification had painted him as an extremist (Goldwater had suggested the use of nukes in Vietnam), and was also widely seen as the forerunner to Reagan, conservatism’s supposed apotheosis. The gruff Arizonan who had been enthusiastically supported by both Joan Didion and Hillary Clinton, the hawk who deserved to be beaten in 1964, had in his twilight years nonetheless become conscious of a dark strain in American conservatism. 

I wonder what he would say now. 

I do not have the time, ability, or even the knowledge to properly recount how the snake came to be in the garden, all I know is that it is there. There is a malevolent force in American life, and it serves nobody to be anything other than perfectly transparent about this reality. In 2022, the Republican Party is driven by deep and dangerous impulses; it poses a profound threat to democracy, to personal freedom, and to the very safety of society’s vulnerable. The most appropriate tone for writing about the so-called ‘Grand Old Party’ is one of indictment. 

We start with democracy. 

Roughly 70% of Republicans believe that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, and not for no reason. Of course, their reason has nothing to do with  truth –  the claim has always been nonsense – and everything to do with the fact that Republican politicians and media figures have fed them lies. From Trump downwards, this lost cause mythos has percolated to all levels of the party – indeed, it has been deliberately and maliciously spread. 

A bumper 538 investigation recently surveyed all 552 Republican nominees for the most important offices up this cycle (Senate, House, governor, secretary of state, attorney general) and found that 200 totally rejected the results of the 2020 election. A further 62 “raised questions” (innocently and in the spirit of curiosity I am sure) and 122 either dodged or rendered no comment. 

When 2024 rolls around, many of those who have actively endorsed Trump’s coup attempt will hold power. Extremist Republicans will control governorships, perhaps even in crucial swing states (whilst Doug Mastriano looks likely to lose in Pennsylvania, the same cannot be said of Kari Lake in Arizona), they will oversee elections as secretaries of state, and they will enforce state laws as attorneys general. 

Part of the reason why Trump failed to force a truly sundering moment two years ago was that his election denialism lacked adherents in the key posts of key states. Whatever happens in these midterms, that will be much less of a problem for him next time. 

And it looks as though there will be a next time. I think Trump will run, and if/when he does, he will almost certainly be the Republican nominee; frankly he will be quasi-coronated. According to polling averages, Trump leads a prospective Republican field by 25 points and shows no signs of drastically slipping. In the subsequent general election, it is almost impossible to imagine Trump getting below 45% of the vote and very easy to imagine him actually winning. 

This is a man who has proudly proclaimed his willingness to burn the whole damn system down out of spite and wounded pride. On January 6th 2021 he, in the words of noted liberal stalwart Liz Cheney, “summoned the mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame”, a mob that sought to overthrow the transition of power and hang Mike Pence. We actually learned this year that Trump suggested his supporters had a point vis-à-vis the execution of his own vice president. 

The former president instigated an attack against the nation which at that point he still led, and his party let him get away with it. Every House Democrat voted to impeach Trump, as did 10 brave House Republicans (8 of whom will not be in Congress come January thanks to Trump’s programmatic policy of vengeance). Republican senators, Leader McConnell most of all, knew that if 17 of them voted to convict Trump on the articles passed by the House, then the Senate would be able to bar him from holding public office ever again, and they did not do it. Only seven Republicans voted to impeach, 10 short of what was required. 

Certainly their motivations were complex: surely some were cowards, some deluded, some cynics, some authoritarians, some displayed Philip Roth’s “shameless vanity of utter fools”, but all saw the knife at the throat of American democracy and left it there. 

Now, the Republican party draws its energy, its foremost reason for existence, from its efforts to install and uphold various forms of minority rule. Even excepting Trump for a moment, the GOP seeks to insulate its exercise of power from the will of the voters.

In the upcoming Supreme Court term a case called Moore v. Harper is set to be litigated. State legislators in North Carolina are asking the justices to endorse the “independent state legislature theory”, the idea that the Constitution gives sweeping powers to state governments to oversee federal (i.e. presidential) elections in their own states. 

Presidents are not chosen directly by voters, but rather by the electoral college, a body of 538 electors who represent the people of the 50 states. Larger states have more electors and smaller states have fewer – California for instance boasts 55 compared to Wyoming’s three. A presidential candidate achieves victory when they cross the 270 vote threshold. All states’ electoral votes are tied to the popular vote of that state meaning that the electoral college typically selects the candidate with more votes nationally – though of course this did not occur in 2016. 

However, the endpoint of the ISL theory is that legislatures could choose to dismiss their state’s presidential popular vote and send their own set of electors to the electoral college (as Trump and his allies suggested swing states do in 2020). In practical terms this would permit a Republican legislature in a state ‘won’ by Joe Biden to dismiss this result and cast the state’s votes for Trump. 

To most rational people, this looks like naked authoritarianism, and it is. But supporters of the ISL theory might argue that since state legislatures are elected, and since they chose senators until 1913, it is not fantastical to argue they might also be able to choose electors. Nonsense of course, but even more pernicious when one considers what state legislatures in swing states are actually like. 

During the very red 2010 midterms, Republicans flipped Wisconsin’s Assembly and  immediately gerrymandered it to a frankly ludicrous degree. In the 2018 elections, Democrats swept Wisconsin’s statewide offices; they reelected Senator Tammy Baldwin by 11 points and unseated the incumbent Republican governor, Scott Walker. They also won the popular vote for the Assembly by 8.2%. This convincing margin (the national popular vote in the 2008 presidential election, for instance, was Obama+7.2%) not only failed to produce a Democrat-controlled chamber, it barely dented the Republican supermajority. When all the votes had been counted, Republicans in the Assembly had lost one seat and retained control — 63 seats to 36. 

In what can only be described as a *fuck you* to voters, Republicans in the lame duck session then passed laws reducing the power of the incoming, popularly elected, Democratic governor, Tony Evers. So, to recap, Republicans in the Assembly built an election-proof wall that could only be surmounted by a D+20% wave (or pigs flying over it) and then used that power to weaken the importance of voting in determining the direction of state government. It is also worth noting that despite Joe Biden narrowly carrying Wisconsin in  2020, the ISL Theory would permit the aforementioned Assembly to instead select 10 pro-Trump electors. 

The Wisconsin case is a perfect example of how minoritarian structures can be used to reinforce one another. Another is the Supreme Court. 

There is an unpleasant symbiosis between the Court and the Republican party. I have explored the inflection point that was Barack Obama’s failed nomination of Merrick Garland elsewhere, most recently here, but it is worth recapping quickly. 

Essentially:

The death of Antonin Scalia in February 2016 meant a Court vacancy and another appointment for Obama. Scalia was the fifth conservative, and so the installation of a liberal justice would have flipped the body’s balance in favour of liberals. Prospective justices must be confirmed by the Senate which, since the 2014 elections, had been controlled by Republicans under Mitch McConnell. McConnell, unprecedentedly, refused to grant a hearing for Garland and held the seat open until 2017 when the new president, Donald Trump, could nominate a conservative. 

It is widely believed that the vacancy left by Scalia was a key motivating force for evangelicals and movement conservatives (the socially conservative grassroots dominant since the 1980s) soft in their support for Trump against Clinton. Their ‘homecoming’ likely helped him to eke out his electoral college win (whilst losing the popular vote). 

Over the course of his presidency, Trump nominated and saw confirmed three new justices. Or, to put it another way, a man who attained his office through a minoritarian pathway (the electoral college) used a body which systematically overweights Republicans (the Senate) to lock in conservative control of the Supreme Court for a generation. 

With its right ascendant, the Court has frequently implemented Republican policy on the party’s behalf; most recently  through the Dobbs decision which overturned the right to an abortion, held by women for half a century. Of course, none of this validates my “symbiosis” theory. In order to do that, one must illustrate that the Court has consistently ruled in ways which maximise the electoral power and advantage of Republicans. 

Well, it has. 

In the 2010 case, Citizens United v. FEC, the 5-4 Court wielded the First Amendment to invalidate extant restrictions on campaign spending by independent organisations (like corporations). The expectations at the time that this influx of “dark money” would aid Republicans proved prescient and were borne out in academic research. Similarly, 2013’s Shelby County v. Holder decision, which axed swathes of the Voting Rights Act, permitted Republicans at the state level to impose onerous restrictions on the franchise.  

The cumulative effect of all this self-dealing is thus: a conservative Supreme Court dismantles the guardrails of American democracy so as to advantage Republicans who would otherwise struggle to win national power. The Republicans then use this anti-democratic edge to shore up their control of the Supreme Court which in turn goes even further in its support for Republican political ends – for instance by…oh I don’t know….upholding segments of the independent state legislature theory?

And so on, and so forth, cracking and eroding.  

If democracy is a tree then American conservatives have spent years poisoning the soil. Now it might well be weak enough to cut down. 

And what is it all for? What does the Republican party actually want? Well, part of it is simply grievance, the GOP serving as a receptacle for American bitterness and resentment.  One of the sharpest ever bits done by the satirical news organisation, The Onion, was this report immediately following the defeat of Mitt Romney in 2012 titled After Obama Victory, Shrieking White-Hot Sphere of Pure Rage Early GOP Front-Runner For 2016. 

Another part of it is slavish devotion to Trump. That the Rs can’t seem to quit the big orange hunk seems self-evident at this point. 

Then there are Republican policies. Unfortunately, there is not one recent comprehensive statement of what the party would like to do in office; in 2020, the Convention neglected to develop a policy platform, in effect pointing at Trump and saying “whatever he wants.”

Thus we are forced to look at the following: (1) what Trump did in office, (2) what high profile national Republicans say they want to do after the midterms, and (3) what state-level Republicans have done since Biden was inaugurated. 

In the case of (1), we are forced to conclude: not much. The only flagship piece of partisan legislation to pass during Trump’s administration was a regressive tax cut which failed to drive economic growth but did balloon the deficit.

There is, however, a bit more meat on the bones of (2). Whilst Mitch McConnell has been coy about Republican plans for 2023 and beyond, the ghoulish head of the NRSC (National Republican Senatorial Committee), Rick Scott, has laid out plans to (among other things) sunset Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid after five years. 

Even more concerningly, the most likely Speaker next Congress, Kevin McCarthy, has been transparent about his intent to use the looming debt ceiling negotiations in order to force spending concessions. What this means in practise is that House Republicans intend to put a gun to the head of the economy and threaten a default on the debt of the *United fricking States* unless Biden cuts entitlement programmes. The party’s newfound apocalyptic ideation might even make them pull the trigger. At any rate, it should be of some concern that Republicans, not yet back in office, are already toying with an economic crisis. 

Finally, we must turn to (3). GOP state legislatures have been rather busy; unfortunately their chosen policies seem to reflect the controlling judgement which so repelled Goldwater. Republicans have been rolling back LGBTQ+ rights, particularly those of the trans community. 

In 2021, Arkansas became the first state in the nation to ban gender-affirming care for minors (a law currently under temporary block by federal courts). It has been noted (most recently and prominently by Jon Stewart in an interview with Leslie Rutledge, the state’s AG) that Arkansas typically follows the American Medical Association’s advice, i.e. in treating paediatric cancers, but has overruled the avowed consensus of the medical community as it pertains to trans children. The obvious reality is that the hypocrisies labelled “protecting the children” are being used as a cudgel to punish vulnerable minors and their families, simply for existing. 

The state(s) arrogantly wading into private, particularly medical, affairs based on the prejudices of Republican authorities appears the defining feature of the party’s recent legislating. Republican lawmakers have been banning books which address topics of race and sexuality, they have been prohibiting in classrooms recognition of the very existence and validity of LGBTQ people, and they have been implementing comprehensive bans on abortion with predictably tragic consequences. 

This jaunt through the house of horrors that is Republican policy reveals the following: the party’s economics are still broadly plutocratic, altered from (say) 2005 predominantly by their practical wedding to the party’s new tear-it-all-down philosophy. Republican social policies are hammers applied to things which look nothing like nails, theocratically coded morality plays which marginalise, victimise, and harm. Looking at them, it is hard to dismiss the now-famous Adam Serwer judgement, “the cruelty is the point.”

The Second Coming, the Yeats poem from which the broader title of this column is taken, contains the line “Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world”. In the context of American politics, that passive voice is misplaced. In the context of American politics, Republicans have unleashed anarchy, 

It is poorly understood quite how dangerous and extreme the party is. Perhaps American democracy survives a second Trump run, even a second Trump term – to be honest with you, it probably does (despite the inevitable weakening and hollowing that would occur). But, for the first time in a very long time, it might not. This possibility that the world’s totemic democracy might be irrecoverably damaged must concern anyone who still believes that liberal democracy is the best method we have for organising society.  


What is the Republican party? An entity which does not merit a shred of political power.

Image: CC:2.0//Andy Felliciotti via Unsplash.

Broad Street: Pedestrianisation in the heart of Oxford

Bintia Dennog
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<strong data-src=Broad Street: Pedestrianisation in the heart of Oxford" title="Broad Street: Pedestrianisation in the heart of Oxford" />

Broad Street is undergoing a transformative “pedestrianisation”, which will soon enter an 18-month trial period. Aiming to provide more public space for Oxford’s community, a wider pedestrian area with seating and green space will be made available.

The County Council intends it to be “accessible, welcoming”, benefitting wellbeing by providing a place for socialising, leisure, and events.

The city also moves one step closer to a greener, car-free centre through the removal of parking spaces and travel restrictions for vehicles, mainly cars. However, buses and bicycles are excluded from this and disabled parking spaces will remain available. 

The temporary pedestrian area was inspired by Broad Meadow, and the Council now hopes to emulate the success of this previous scheme. Broad Meadow brought in more than 100,000 people over the course of July to October, with 90% of survey correspondents wishing to return. 

This was similarly endorsed by multiple Broad Street businesses – Café Crème, Italiamo, Blackwell’s Bookshop, Crepes O Mania, and The Buttery Hotel. Oxfam’s manager Dage Loranca thinks this initiative in the heart of Oxford will have a positive impact, telling Cherwell “[it will be] an opportunity to engage with the community”. It is also hoped that the pedestrianisation will bring about a spike in sales and help to sustain independent Broad Street businesses in these gloomy economic times. 

The future looks brighter for cyclists too, as the removal of constant traffic will make road conditions a lot safer.  Chair of the Oxford cycle safety group Cyclox, Alison Hill, told Cherwell that “things are improving a lot”, although in the past cyclists faced a “hostile environment”.

Cyclox members, who have previously campaigned for a car-free Broad Street, are generally “really, really happy” with the results. However, Hill opposes the word “pedestrianisation”. “We don’t quite like the term” she reveals, clarifying that the phrase creates confusion over the fact that cyclists will retain access to Broad Street. 

Although there seems to be a generally positive consensus about Broad Street’s future, the current construction of the pedestrianised area has led to some dissatisfaction, particularly amongst Trinity, Balliol and Exeter students, whose colleges are all connected to Broad Street. 

One described the current situation as “unpredictable, with bikes everywhere”, while another expressed genuine concern about being run over by “either a car or like seven bikes from three different angles”. Numerous fences and bollards have done anything but help the situation, restricting cycle space still further. However, support for the initiative among students generally remains, with one Trinity student telling Cherwell, “the building process is a pain but I do hope they make it fully pedestrian”. 

According to a Country Council spokesperson, contractors are aiming to complete the project in the week of October 24th, with plans for it to stay in place for 18 months. After this trial period, it will undergo a six-month-long consultation for review.

Councillor Liz Leffmann, leader of the Oxfordshire County Council, hopes that it will eventually become a permanent feature.

Job opening: Oxford student wanted

Cherbadly
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Job opening: Oxford student wanted

HMG is seeking to hire a PM.

Qualified candidates should possess:

  • An Oxford degree
  • The ability to manage large groups of disagreeable fellow Oxonians
  • No sense of dignity

Experience, competence or membership of OUCA are not expected.

Pay is competitive. Initial contract is 6 months, with possibilities to extend up until January 2025.

Please send a cover letter and CV to [email protected] before October 31st to be considered.

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