The Oxford University Chabad Society has decided to cancel the hosting of a controversial archaeological exhibition early next week.

The Chabad Society, whose aim is “to create a vibrant Jewish atmosphere for all Jewish students from all backgrounds at the University”, was originally due to host an ‘Ancient Jerusalem Exhibition’ on Monday 16th November at the Slager Jewish Student Centre. The proposed exhibition was due to feature “newly discovered secrets of the Bible unearthed at the City of David.”

However, the event was organised at the last minute with the Ir David Foundation, without the knowledge of or consultation with the president or committee of the Chabad Society. The Society learned that Ir David Foundation was in fact a branch of the Elad Group, a highly controversial Israeli settlers’ organisation, which stirred some discontent amongst the members.

“The event did not stem from an invitation extended by the Oxford Chabad Society to Ir David Foundation,” said the Chabad Society’s President, Yishai Mishor. “It was offered to us as a last minute event, and was mistakenly publicised without prior discussion with the President and Committee of the Oxford Chabad Society.”

The event had already stirred up anger within members of the Palestine Society, who questioned the background to the exhibition, the nature of the Foundation behind it, and the effects upon Palestinian residents of the archaeological excavations, which were being undertaken in Jerusalem.

Katharine Halls, a student at Wadham College, and a member of the Palestine Society (PalSoc), commented, “The Palestine Society are relieved to hear of the cancellation of the event. Giving such groups as Elad platforms to promote themselves in a context which leaves no scope for critical examination of their activities, which this exhibition would have been, only serves to legitimise and support their aims.”

Mishor, however, defended the Chabad Society’s position. “Members of our Committee raised objections to hosting the lecture in our centre on learning that Elad, a controversial group in Israel, were behind this event,” he said.

Halls added that the exhibition could have been “deeply damaging for the reputation of the Chabad Society, a well-respected Oxonian institution.” Russell Inglis, another member of Palestine Society, wrote a damning letter to the Chabad Society on Tuesday, after the event had been publicised, underlining PalSoc’s concerns about the exhibition and urging that the event be cancelled.

Mishor asserted, “The aim of the Oxford Chabad Society is to undertake Jewish cultural and religious events for the benefit of the Jewish community. Our Rabbi, Eli Brackman, is supportive of an atmosphere of tolerance and diverse political views, while at the same time nurturing a non-political nature, since politics is not a purpose of the Oxford Chabad Society. However the Oxford Chabad Society is neither interested in nor supportive of giving a platform to people undertaking activities following extremist views.

“We plan to organise our very own event on the history of Jerusalem in the future, focusing on the academic perspective of archaeology in the City of David in Jerusalem.”

Two Oxford MPs have signed a pledge to vote against raising of tuition fees after being lobbied in Parliament by OUSU delegates including President Stefan Baskerville.

The meetings ran alongside a campaign to raise awareness of the government’s review of Higher Education funding, which saw Oxford students joining NUS protesters outside the Palace of Westminster.

OUSU has joined with the NUS on the “funding for our future” campaign to urge the government to listen to students on the subject of Higher Education Fees. The campaign is responding to a government review of funding for university education launched this week. The review will look at how much to charge students, how to ensure that poorer students are not deterred by higher fees and how employers could contribute more of the cost of degrees. However, many view the review as an attempt to defer discussion of the issue until after the general election, allowing parties to avoid scrutiny over the issue.

Stefan Baskerville, OUSU president, explained, “A rise in the cap on fees would be disastrous. At fees of £7000, the average Oxford student would leave with debts of £35000 and would need to earn £30000 a year just to pay off the interest on their loans, before they even start paying back the money they borrowed.”

On Wednesday, a delegation of Oxford student representatives, including Baskerville, and St Peter’s JCR President Daniel Stone, met local MPs Andrew Smith and Evan Harris in Parliament to discuss the issue. Both politicians signed a pledge on a large white board to vote against a rise in tuition fees during the next Parliament. It read, “I pledge to vote against any increase in fees in the next parliament and to pressure the government to introduce a fairer alternative.”

Baskerville was pleased with the signatures. He added, “All MPs and parliamentary candidates should come clean on fees before the election, so people know what they are voting for. Anything else smacks of a stitch-up by political parties to stay silent on this key issue until after the general election.”

The meeting preceded a gathering of more than 100 student leaders and MPs in a Parliamentary committee room to represent students’ views on education. Those gathered were addressed by figures such as Wes Streeting, NUS President, and David Lammy, Minister for Higher Education.

Today, a letter signed by 300 student leaders appeared in the Guardian calling to stop another fee hike. It read, “Labour and Conservative leaders seem to believe they can maintain their cosy consensus of silence until the election and beyond. Today we are descending on parliament to demand that MPs come clean on their stance. Any parliamentary candidate that does not sign the NUS pledge to vote against an increase in fees and support our calls for a fairer funding system will be named and shamed.”

In Oxford, more than thirty students handed out leaflets in the city centre on Wednesday morning. These informed about the funding review.

Owen Evans, St Anne’s JCR president commented, “We were leafleting today to draw attention to the significance of the government’s launch of a review of undergraduate fees, and its potential consequences.

“Essentially, the review takes tuition fees off the political agenda until after the general election. We are worried that the review will recommend an end to the cap on tuition fees, which would result in universities across the country raising fees to levels which are unaffordable to many people.”

Business Secretary Lord Mandelson has promised to consult “all who would be affected by any changes” during the funding review. However, Wes Streeting, President of the National Union of Students (NUS), is worried that students are under-represented on the review panel. “I have limited confidence that this review will do anything other than give universities the chance to increase fees after the general election,” he said.

“Politicians should remember the student backlash in 2004 that almost brought [Tony] Blair’s government down and saw many pro-fees MPs lose their seats. There will be an even greater backlash if the review proposes plunging students into greater debt.”

The review was promised by the government in 2004 in an attempt to placate rebel MPs who were considering voting against £3,000-a-year fees. It had to start this year, but the fact it will not be completed until after the election has prompted criticism.

The University and College Union (UCU) says publishing the review after the election will allow politicians to “duck the issue”, while OUSU’s leaflets argue that this delay reflects “a cosy stitch-up by the two main parties so they can avoid taking a position on higher education funding before or during the election.”

The launch of this review comes shortly after the NUS released a survey showing that only 12% of those members of the public who were questioned want fee increases to be considered.

Most students don’t seem to care about OUSU why should they?

The student union should be there to support students, it should be providing information for them whether it’s academic problems or a welfare issue, it should be there. I think that when students feel that their student union isn’t doing anything for them, too often these are the issues being focused on but we can look at other ways that OUSU can have a positive influence on students’ life, whether that’s saving them money or engagins students that just aren’t interested in the political side of it, that;s one way to move forward as well.

How can OUSU go about involving more of the student body?

This has been one of the areas that students have been most frustrated with with OUSU, that they feel like they have no role in it, they don’t get to say how it’s being directed or have the sort of influence that they should have and we really want to make a focus on it being a student-led organisation and I think this means that when OUSU goes to common rooms, it shouldn’t just be telling you what OUSU does, it should be asking you what you want OUSU to do. There should be forums of discussion, you can talk about the issues that are affecting you whether in your common room or in your community as a whole. We should follow up with things like annual surveys to get some feedback on the services that OUSU is providing for its students and use that to build a student union around the issues and areas that students want to focus on.

How would you propose to carry out those forums of discussion?

I think this is an area where we need to engage with the whole of the OUSU executive and not just rely on sabbatical officers. Between us there are over 20 individuals and with 30 common rooms its quite easy to make sure everyone is getting a common room visit. We’re there making sure there is a period of discussion, making sure that before we come to the common rooms are aware that they have an opportunity just to talk about the issue. Sometimes OUSU has already got an answer but is something where I would hope it bring up new areas for OUSU to pursue as well and really focus on the issues that are important to them. Every common room has its own issues and areas that it wants to focus on or its own particular problems, having discussions like this will hopefully pick up areas that haven’t been found before but also build links between different common rooms so they can work together on shared issues.

Only four people turned up to the hust at Exeter last night, do you think OUSU has a problem with advertising and how do you propose to improve that?

I think it’s quite clear that OUSU has a huge problem with advertising what it’s doing for students, when it’s holding meetings and how students can be engaged. There are quite varied levels at which you can work with OUSU or have some sort of role, from engaging with your common room executive and then going to OUSU meetings, to running for positions in elections or working on the behind scenes things like the website. I want to make a real focus on making sure that OUSU is there for its common room officers but also there for general students and helping students that have got other areas of interest. Lewis campaigned on introducing a CSV and then held a committee, mainly made up of JCR Presidents. I would want to make sure that we have students who want to do consultancy work or something like that so that we can then use their skills to develop a business plan or some sort of document so that they develop an area that they want to work in and OUSU gets something from it which is useful.

David Barclay mentioned that he would like to use the student media more to publicise OUSU. Is that something you would look at or would you choose other routes?

I think, in particular, in the last couple of weeks we have seen how the student media plays a really important role in holding OUSU to account. I think when you say that only four people went to a meeting for a hust, it shows there’s not a lot of student engagement there and I think that they’re relying on newspapers a lot to make sure they’re questioning OUSU, making sure they’ve got proper financial transparency and are printing the numbers that it should be and not running at a deficit which it is. So student media plays a critical role there but I would want to make sure they keep their independence. I would focus on information that could go out through the presidential email list, something that McClusky used very well, was underused last year and I don’t think has been used very effectively by Stefan this year. This doesn’t mean just spamming students with endless amounts of information, it means providing them with clear headers about what’s going into the email and where they can find more information. I think then that’s also starting to look to the website as well, for students who want to go and find out a little bit more you can put the bulk of the content up there and then you use the links through so its doesn’t feel like you’re getting a 1600-word email from Stefan every week.

You mentioned that you think that Stefan hasn’t used the mailing list effectively enough this year, what would you do that Stefan Baskerville hasn’t done, are there any mistakes that he’s made or anything you disagree with that you would change?

I think an area, this is just from personal experience, is the Fresher’s Fair which I organised this year and worked with Stefan on that. I found it really frustrating as we were going through the summer trying to actually get definitive numbers on what the pricing was going to be for students to go to the Fresher’s Fair this year, it was something I had to push both him and other members of the OUSU team on. Saying, if I’m going to contact common room officers and contact presidents and different staff members to actually tell them what the price is, it’s really infuriating when you don’t have that number. I’m pleased that it came down. My own view is that I think it’s a core service and we shouldn’t be charging for students anyway. It was useful to get the move between charging for all the commercial activities as well, the commercial marquee is now supposed to cover itself. Unfortunately, Stefan then didn’t go through and look at the itemised costs, we never sat down and we never discussed every single cost that I could associate with it, so there were still areas that I felt where some of the cost should have been transferred to the commercial side. One example would be the laptops that are used to collect names to go on to the OSSL mailing list, so it’s not a direct service, not part of the core aspect of OUSU it’s part of the OSSL side and the extra side and that cost didn’t get transferred across in the price. Because there was a slight communiciation problem there. I know that the summer is a very busy time but a very short conversation and it would have gone thorugh and it would have solved that and would have helped again reduce the price of tickets for students, lower to where I believe it should be.

Cherwell reported last week that OUSU has made one of the biggest losses ever in the last year, how do you propose to increase the efficiency of OUSU funding?

Yeh, I think this is a massive problem and one that has obviously been going on for a couple of years and is probably going to take a couple of years

to solve. I’m really pleased with the sabbatical team’s progress on this and that right at the start of the year they probably expected that this sort of problem had been solved by last year’s administration. But they’ve brought it up, flagged it up, they’ve paid back bad debts which have been carried on for years and are actually getting to the point where the student union is actually recognising the financial situation that it’s in. I think that’s actually the first step. Moving on from that, I think that the ideas behind he proposal that was put forward last year are very strong and I would want to emphasise moving towards a system where core services are covered by colleges. I don’t think that any student should be affected on a welfare basis or have access to welfare, academics or sport depending on the college that they go to.

I think if we can move towards that system it means we can have more positive debates about whether colleges want to disaffiliate or not, cos they can disaffiliate on services that OUSU are providing above and beyond the core services. I mean everyone expects that they should be provided, as soon as we can have a debate on those issues then we can be a bit more critical or a bit more positive on the areas that OUSU is either doing well or doing poorly on. As for, increasing extra funding, it’s a very tricky area I know that the new staffing structure is a positive move, I think having a full time business manager will help increase revenue there. Again, from the fresher’s fair you can see the difference between having someone who is roped in for a few months and someone who has been there for a while. You can see this when we’ve got companies already negotiating for contracts both for next year and contracts to last for five years so I think the sort of stability that we can offer to organisations there is useful. I think that an area of funding which is shockingly undervalued is the website and again this is because no one wants to use it at the moment, but if the website was redesigned and became this central, focal point for information where students could find out different issues that their student union are interested in, info about clubs and societies, a calendar of events and things that are going on in and around Oxford, you start increasing the students that are visiting that website and then it’s turnover potential increases as well and then you can start doing advertising offers where you can do a premium rate for the first few weeks of Michaelmas, a premium rate in the run up to Christmas and Valentine’s and target it to specific organisations who might want toadvertise at those times of year and then hopefully that will generate more revenue too.

What do you think of the student funding review that was launched on Monday and if you were to become president what would your position be on increasing university fees?

I think this is a fantastic opportunity for us to engage with NUS and really see what Oxford students voices are on this. I was disappointed last year with the way that the motion about whether we go for a graduate tax or tuition fees was brought about I thought htat it was a very poorly-worded motion and it made discussions difficult in common rooms. I think there are a lot of students who probably aren’t aware that OUSU does have a policy in supporting graduate tax. I happen to think that the graduate tax is the best way forward, as soon as you have a tuition fee based system we’re already seeing at this round of negotiations that aas soon as you set it up one level the next step is always to increase it again, and then increase it again year on year, it’s never going to decrease.

I think that if you have a graduate tax it’s the most fair system, it makes it easier to make sure that students aren’t inhibited when they’re applying and I think that’s the real area of the funding application that we can be working on, making sure that it’s used as a positive way to look at the way that bursaries are funded that scholarships are provided both for undergrads and grads. I don’t think that the way that the tuition system was brought in before, tuition fees, that it was done in a very clear manner. A lot of students still don’t know when they’re applying for bursaries what they can expect to get, that can create problems when you see that you have 3000 to pay now but then you have a loan coming in, but then a separate maintenance loan, then a grant and maybe something from your college or common room. If we talk about the difficulties that students are having with the current system then use that voice with NUS to hopefully communicate that ata national level to make sure we have a funding system that current students would have wanted to have so that students who come in the future can benefit from it.

Who’s your role model for the position of president?

It’s a fun question. I imagine it would probably be quite a similar answer on this, but it would have to be Martin McCluskky, he was seen by amny as being a very good OUSU President. I liked a lot fo the little things that Martin did, I mentioned before that he used the email system quite well, I felt when I was here that I was informed by OUSU and not spammed by OUSU because of him. He also did impressive things like when he came into a common room meeting, he came in and said right everyone get your mobile phones out and we did and he read out a number and he told us this was the safety bus number and he explained the system for that. I think that’s a fantastic way – he was very big on contact time and he recognised that talking to students was the most productive thing. Just putting up posters and a publicity campaing like that will only ever do so much but when see so many posters for plays or conferences or htinkgs like that around Oxford it doesn’t actually help. I think that when you can actually ask someone what the safety bus is or target schools, until you actually have a conversation about what target schools is it’s not necessarily clear that it’s an access scheme in Oxford for students to go back to their schools before and I think that he did that very well andit’s something I hope to emulate.

What evidence is there that the future of OUSU is going to be different from the past?

I think that the hard work of the sabbatical team right now, like I mentioned before, the fact that they’ve recognised the depth of the financial problems that OUSU’s in and are working towards that. It’ll be interesting to see the way they go about moving on from this. My own position is that you really have to work with bilateral relationships with common rooms on this area, to make sure that OUSU is financially secure and while it’s tyring to propose a new funding model you’ve got to make sure that that funding model has been discussed between each common room and their staff members so that you don’t get to a situation where you have a committee meeting with colleges and you put a paper in front of them which they’ve never read before and they’ve never had any input on. I think that’s the only kind of real way that OUSU can move forward, it means that common rooms can really hold OUSU to accountable and says if you want something from us you’ve got to make sure you’re providing the services that you said you would and hopefully that will create a positive bond there to move the institution forward.

What makes you a better candidate for president than David Barclay?

Again, good question. I think that this comes down to experience for me. David has spent a year as JCR President, obviously an excellent position. Myself, I’ve spent two years on my JCR executive, I was first welfare officer, I’ve then been VP. The VPs position at LMH is a lot higher that some others have been, I sat on governing body, I sit on buildings committee, I’ve negotiated accommodation rebates for students affected by building works,helped see the transition between two common rooms presidents as well , we’ve had overlapping policies that we’ve worked on, like producing an academic feedback system that supported students by showing them regardless of whether you’re on report or whether you thihnk you’re going on report the levels of support that you could have at any one time then the way that you can then move back up through the system as well once you’re on report. I think that then combined with my experience at the Oxford Hub which is the focal point for charitable activities at Oxford and is an organisation which is now only in its third year but has already shown a dramatic impact in really raising the profile of charitable activities in Oxford. My experience of managing a budget of 60,000, four staff members, we have 4500 members and we’ve organised national conferences that have been very high profile and had international speakers come to them. But, I think at the heart is still the Oxford Hub’s goal to connect students with causes and the way that we do that in the most primary way is supporting other charities, so it’s very much like a second tier organisation and when you’ve got groups like Amnesty or community volunteering projects in elderly centres or helping run projects for children reading after school, it’s a really diverse range and we’ve shown the way that we can work with different groups and actually provide a relevant service and help them achieve the things that they want to achieve as a second tier organisation.

I see that’s very similar to the way OUSU needs to work, it should be there to support common rooms and working on the issues that they want to work on. When you’ve got someone who’s been elected as a rep or an officer or a president OUSU should be talking to them to find out the issues that they were elected on and working on them and helping them achieve the things that they want to achieve and that’s a very relevant way that OUSU can say that they’ve helped students or they’ve done something for you because they’ve done something that’s more personal, you’ve votted that person into a position and then the student union’s helped them to achieve the things which you were hoping they would do in their time in office.

Most students just don’t seem to care about OUSU, why should they?

I think students should care about OUSU because it has the potential to have a real impact on their experience of Oxford. In the past, OUSU has been chiefly concerned just with talking about issues and talking about itself but I think it really has the chance to provide relevant services for students. I think it has the chance to give training and support to common rooms and societies and I think it has a crucial role to play in representing students to the university, to the city council and to the government. And for those reasons, I think students should be interested.

What evidence is there to suggest that the future of OUSU will be any different from the past?

I think the signs are quite promising for OUSU in the future, to be honest. In the past, there have been issues with the finances and I think there has been a general problem of too much talk and not enough action. But, I think, actually, from speaking to people in the university and from speaking to the current sabbatical officers, the future does look exciting in terms of new services, like the provision of a housing fair, a discount card but also the opportunity to work with the university to tackle big issues like the gender gap in finals. So, I think with the right sabbatical team there is a chance for OUSU to become much more relevant and provide dramatic improvements for students at Oxford.

You mentioned action, what do you think OUSU could do to involve more of the student body?

I think OUSU could do a couple of things. Firstly, it has to be in a much better relationship with common rooms and with societies and one of the things OUSU could do is provide training and support. I think OUSU has to be careful not to impose itself on common rooms and not pretend it can do those things which common rooms and societies do best. But, I think in terms of training that can be provided, like bookkeeping skills, bringing in professional companies to give society and common room representatives the support that they need in order to do a great job. I think through that it can really tap in to student interest. I think students really are interested in the issues that OUSU tackles, but at the moment it is very difficult to see what OUSU does about those issues and to see the ways that they can become involved in OUSU. Those are both things that I want to change.

At this week’s Exeter hust only four people turned up; do you think OUSU advertises itself enough? Do you think that’s a problem and how can it be solved?

I think it is a real problem. I mean Oxford is a place where people are incredibly busy, where there are multiple pulls on people’s time, but I think OUSU needs to be much more strategic in the way that it puts itself out there. I think the current campaign for students getting involved in OUSU is great, but I would like to see them use the media in new ways, for example. Obviously, editorial independence of both the newspapers is hugely important, but I think for OUSU to have the opportunity to project its voice in the media, in things like Oxide Radio, the Oxford Student, the Cherwell. It needs to be promoting a positive sense of what OUSU does and what students really care about. It does come back to the issue of what OUSU actually does because if people don’t feel that it does anything relevant, OUSU can advertise itself all it wants and no one will listen. OUSU fundamentally has to get down to doing something that students care about and that’s the way to make people believe it’s something that worth getting involved in and taking an interest in.

Cherwell reported last week that OUSU has made huge losses. There has been speculation as to why this might be and whether it was due to mismanagement, what do you think you can do to turn around the funding and the efficiency of OUSU?

I think the president has a really important role. The president is the person who can bring together all the major players and the major stakeholders in OUSU. OUSU needs a new funding model, yes, mistakes were made in the past, but I think, fundamentally, the funding model for OUSU was not sustainable, it was constantly incurring losses. We need a new model and we need a discussion on the services that OUSU should provide and who should be paying for those. I would bring together colleges, bring the university into this discussion, use my experience as a JCR President and working with these kinds of people, bring them together and get them to sign up to a new model which will ensure that all the services we want from OUSU are going to adequately funded and in a sustainable and effective manner.

Stefan Baskerville said quite recently that colleges should be funding OUSU, whereas at the moment it’s the JCRs. Would you agree with that, do you think colleges should be putting money into OUSU?

Personally, yes I think colleges should be putting money into OUSU. There’s a real argument for services that OUSU provides that colleges should be paying for and contributing to. Again, it’s one of those things where the question of at what stage you take the money and fund it into OUSU is in some ways not the most relevant one. Because, of course a lot of money that the colleges get has come from the university or it has come from the government. So, in some ways it could be passed between the university and colleges and back again. What we need to do it sit them both down and get them both to agree on a funding model that will work. There was no strategic plan for how htat could be done last year and that’s somewhere where I would use my experience as a JCR president and use the team that I’ve got to make sure that that happens.

Do you think that students could maybe even pay for OUSU in the same way that they pay for punts and welfare on battels? Do you think that would increase student participation?

I don’t think that would be a hugely effective way to fund OUSU because I don’t think that would reflect the reason why OUSU exists. OUSU exists in order to represent students in all areas of their life and that means that every student comes to Oxford as a member of OUSU although they can personally disaffiliate. But I think the system we have whereby they are part of OUSU through the colleges is a really healthy system that links students to OUSU through the common rooms. The Oxford structure is so unique, that actually the way that the model works at the moment, the way that students contribute is effective because it means that you can have a proper debate in common rooms about what OUSU does and I think that provides a level of stability that’s really important for basic services.

You mentioned implementing a new funding model, can you give a specific example?

It’s very difficult to predict exactly what that new funding model would look like. Not least because Stefan and the team are currently working incredibly hard to make sure that that’s in place. There’s a chance that it mmight be in place even before this time next year so in some ways it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to say now what the model would look like. But, I would say that the one feature of it would be that it would be a diverse funding model, with funding from lots of different sources and it would be a sustainable one. People would commit to funding in a long term and effective manner.

What do you think about the government student funding review that was launched on Monday and what position would you take on it if you were to become OUSU President?

The sad thing about it is that the government has ignored calls both from OUSU and from the NUS to have students involved in that process. That’s a huge shame and is something that OUSU needs to continue to press the government on. It’s scandalous that the government has t

reated the funding review in the way that it has done so far. The position that I would take is that I personally think that a graduate tax is the way forward. I understand the frustration of many Oxford students who say that they haven’t been consulted on this. OUSU has a graduate tax policy but it’s not really got a strong mandate for that because it hasn’t suggested how a graduate tax would work in practice. The NUS have a blueprint out on how exactly a graduate tax would work. I think we need to take that to students at Oxford, we need to have that debated and discussed amongst students and common rooms and we need to bring that to OUSU council so we can think about whether we want to work with NUS on trying to pressure the government to implement that.

Is there any decision that Stefan Baskerville has taken that you think you could have done better?

Obviously, it’s quite early days in terms of Stefan’s presidency and I think he will do a great job. I think he’s been in very difficult circumstances at the moment because OUSU is racked with internal problems. But there hasn’t yet been enough focus on the services that OUSU can provide. There are practical things that OUSU can do to affect every student’s life in Oxford, things like trying to make Sky subscriptions cheaper in common rooms, or bringing out a discount card or getting increased job opportunites for students. All these things we can do and we can do them very easily and at very minimal cost. There hasn’t yet been a focus from Stefan and his team on new service ideas, and that is a crucial part of how to make OUSU relevant in the long term.

Who would be your role model for president, which OUSU President do you think has achieved the most?

I spoke to Martin McClusky over the summer about the role of OUSU President. He was president during my first year and I only met him a couple of times, just after I became JCR President at Worcester. I think he did a great job. The fact that he was Scottish obviously gives me a sense of affinity but he also brought common rooms together. He started the process of a new policy making structure for OUSU, which we’re now coming to the end of. He was at once an approachable and really likeable character but I think he was also quite a serious thinker and someone that cared deeply about OUSU in the long term and not just for his year.

In terms of the policy making structure, we’ve seen that delayed by a term, what do you think was the main cause of this delay?

Essentially, it just wasn’t thought through how it was going to work practically. We are seeing now that the motion calling for the new policy making structure is about three of four pages long because it has to go into detail about all the things in the constitution which need to be changed in order to make it work. Frankly, there just wasn’t enough effort put into how to make this work. But also there just wasn’t enough effort put into how it would work in relation to the university. All changes to OUSU’s constitution have to be put to the university in order to be approved and this was just not done last year. It was a fairly catastrophic failure in terms of really basic issues of making sure something is sustainable for the long term. It reflects the problem of OUSU in the past which is that is has been focussed just on the personalities that are involved and maybe too short term focussed and not focussed on the impact that it can potentially have in the long term and the way in which it can really affect students in Oxford.

What makes you a better candidate than Jake Leeper?

There are a couple of things. My experience makes me a better candidate. I’ve been a JCR President which means not only do I have the experience of responsibility for serving students and really seeing the issues that matter to them, but it also means that I have fought for students. One of the things that makes charities and JCRs fundamentally very different is that charities fight against apathy whereas colleges fight against opposition. I have had to deal with college officials and university officials who do not have students interests at their heart and I’ve had to fight for students in that way. I also think the team we have sets up apart, myself Alex and Katherine, all share a vision of what OUSU can be and all share a practical record of making change in Oxford. The way in which we work together and see areas we can tackle together, like the gender gap, which isn’t just an academic issue but also a representation issue, that’s something that can never be tackled just by one sabbatical officer, it needs a coordinated approach and that’s what we would bring to the job. That’s what sets us apart.

Despite launching a “Get Involved” campaign and measures to inform students about “what OUSU does for you” there is still very low student participation in the election process. Only four students turned up to a major hust at Exeter on Monday evening where both presidential candidates were speaking. Tuesday’s central hust, held at Magdalen, also failed even to fill the auditorium.

Sam Smith, Pembroke JCR committee member, commented, “The impression I get is that OUSU is quite inaccessible and has a reputation of being very ineffectual.”

A number of positions, including major sabbatical ones like VP for Welfare and Equal Opportunities and VP for Access and Academic Affairs, are uncontested. No candidate is running for the position of VP Graduates.

One graduate at Wadham, who was also at Oxford during his undergraduate days, said, “I’m not well-informed about it at all – OUSU really can’t be very effective if I don’t know about what it

does.”

Following the news last week of OUSU’s debt problems, St Catherine’s College MCR co-president, Ben Britton, commented,”It is no surprise that there are so few candidates willing to run a broken institution.”

OUSU election rules are notoriously strict and have resulted in the fining of two candidates over the past week.

Presidential candidate, Jake Leeper, was fined 5% of his publicity budget for an article he wrote for the OxStu before he nominated himself. Will McCullum, former Wadham SU President and candidate for VP Charities and Communities, was also fined for providing quotes in his capacity as media contact for Climate Camp.

Red tape surrounding OUSU elections has prompted some students to suggest that it may be off-putting to those who may otherwise want to nominate themselves, and could contribute to the image of OUSU as unapproachable.

But OUSU Returning Officer, Oliver Linch, has reiterated the importance of election rules, “Elections must be conducted according to Rules, and the OUSU Electoral Rules are designed to level the playing field and guarantee that everyone that wants to run has an equal opportunity.”

Elections are due to take place Tuesday – Thursday in 6th week, with all students being emailed personalised voting numbers to enable them to vote online. Last year, elections were beset by technical problems when personalised voting codes only arrived half way through the two-day window for voting.

The election itself was also set back an entire week after OUSU’s publishing arm failed to print the manifesto of presidential candidate John Maher in the Joint Manifesto Booklet.

Elections this year already got off to a flying start with a “technical glitch” meaning that candidates’ lists could not be published online until last Saturday, the day after they were released. However, Linch assures us, “We have spent hours ensuring that the list is accurate this time”.

A specialist care home for the elderly near Abingdon is to close after St John’s College, the landowner, raised the rent 900%.

Southmoor House, near Abingdon, which cares for 24 residents with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia, cannot afford the financial burden of both the college’s rent rise and the costly building repairs it needs to keep running. A spokesperson said it is “financially impossible” to keep the home open.

The family-run care facility has been open for more than 60 years, with some residents having lived there for more than ten. It employs 25 carers, who have specialist training in caring for dementia patients.

In response to the closure, St John’s College explained it “regrets the loss of any business tenant but, as a charity, the college [has] a duty and legal responsibility to make best use of its assets to support its programmes of education and research.”

According to Julie Dabrowski, a senior carer at the home, staff were given a month’s notice of the closure. However, it is now expected to stay in operation until February. She explained that the home had attempted to renegotiate the deal with St John’s, but this fell through.

Dabrowski went on to say that she was very concerned for the well-being of the patients at the home, given that specialised care of the type offered by Southmoor House is difficult to find. Some of the patients are in the home privately and some through the NHS, and she was particularly worried about the possibility of finding new homes for those on government funding.

In addition, the upheaval is likely to be harmful to some patients – one resident is too frightened to leave the building, and she is anxious the trauma of a move may lead to the death of one or more elderly patients. In light of this, she said losing her job was a “secondary concern”.

A DPhil student at St John’s, Jonah Rosenberg, expressed confidence in the college’s decision, saying that “though it’s certainly not the most pleasant transaction … [I] trust that this will have been a necessary part of keeping the college economically healthy. St John’s academic mission cannot be valued as more or less worthy than the care of the elderly; in an ideal world, both would be feasible.”

He added that he did not believe the ninefold rent increase was arbitrary, “but rather the result of the college not having revalued the property for some time.”