Balliol JCR has become the first common room to sign up to pay a Living Wage to its staff.

The Junior Common Room has agreed to increase its core levy charge on members by £1.33 to pay a living wage to five of its staff. The motion presented in the last JCR meeting argued, “If members of the JCR support the payment of a Living Wage to JCR staff in principle, they should be prepared to support it in practice with a direct increase to the JCR core levy”.

Hannah O’Rourke, a Balliol student, campaigned in favour of the motion. “Living wage is a very important issue especially in times of recession. A job should keep you out of poverty, not keep you in it”, she said.

She added that the move was “a useful way to apply pressure on colleges and the university. If we, as student employers, can pay a living wage, then surely they can to.”

JCR President Iain Large praised the principle that has been turned into practice. “The JCR has shown its support for the Living Wage Campaign for many years in principle. It is good to see that it supports it in practice too, by agreeing to fund a living wage for the staff it employs.”

Felix Flicker, the campaigner and a student at St Catherine’s college commented on the motion. “This is a vital step towards achieving a Living Wage in both Balliol College and the University as a whole. It is a further demonstration that student support for the campaign is very strong. Students aren’t content to be provising poverty pay salaries: nor should Balliol College be.”

The Living Wage Campaign argues that the £5.15 minimum wage is not enough for Oxford residents to live on. It suggests that all workers in the city should be payed at least £7 per hour to reflect the city’s housing, transport, and groceries costs.

Next week The Living Wage campaign is to hold a ceremony honouring institutions that pay the sufficient amounts to their staff. President of Oxford UnionCorey Dixon, OUSU President-Elect Stefan Baskerville and the Oxford Mayor will all receive a certificate of recognition.

Corey Dixon said the Union “was already a living wage employer and the event was conducted to publicly show our support”.

Oxford Council last week guaranteed all employees a minimum living wage, while OUSU has supported the campaign since its inception in 2006.

Social Sciences Library and two colleges nearby were hit by a power cut on Tuesday evening.

At about 5pm, the lights and the electronic equipment in the library suddenly turned off. After 15 minutes, the staff decided to close the library. This caused inconvenience for many revising finalists.

Mansfield and St Catherine’s colleges also were hit by the power cut. At St Catz, electricity was restored only the next day.

tudent political societies have been vigorously campaigning in preparation for the upcoming local elections.
On Thursday, those eligible to vote will choose two local councillors and one member of the European Parliament. All British, EU and Commonwealth students can vote. With heavily contested seats in the centre of the city, the student turnout can make a significant difference in the outcome.
Oxford University Liberal Democrats president Mark Mills argued that central Oxford constituencies will be a battleground between the Lib Dems and Labour. He emphasized the activism of the society. It has been knocking on doors, pidging leaflets and held street stalls. He himself will be standing for re-election in the Hollywell ward.
Oxford University Conservative Association has held three campaigns this term. Anthony Boutall, the society’s president said, “We are proud to be supporting the party whose record on value for money at a local level is unrivaled across the country – something maybe that University students don’t care too much about, but that the hardworking people of Oxfordshire do and should care about, especially given the financial hardship that many of them are facing at the moment.”
Jamie Susskind, the co-chair of Oxford University Labour Club stressed the continuous political activity taken by the club: “What makes us unique is that we have members out canvassing every single week of the academic year, not just at election time – listening to people’s concerns and feeding them back to the local party.”
The last election in 2005 saw the majority of seats taken up by the Conservatives, following by the Liberal Democrats. The Green party representation also increased dramatically. BNP and UKIP were not represented at all, although they are currently parting with the Greens for 4th place in European Parliament elections.
In a city where 26% of the population are students, the local vote bears huge significance. In 2005, approximately 50,000 people voted in the Oxford area, but university students were vastly under-represented. Most Council seats were separated by a few hundred votes so higher student turnout could sway results.
In their manifestos, all candidates unanimously support pedestrianising the city centre and improving biking facilities. Both Labour and the Conservatives have stressed the improvement of Oxford’s academic ability as high on their list of priorities.
The Liberal Democrats aim to increase representation and diversity in the University.
Labour Candidate Susanna Pressel reminds that at the local level personal ability is everything. “Try to meet the candidates first, rather than simply voting for a party.”
Current Green County Councillor Sushila Dahl urges, “vote to leave a legacy for future students”.

Pro-Palestinian students staged a protest last Sunday outside a branch of Marks & Spencer’s, demanding that the chain stop importing goods from Israel.

Activists leafleted shoppers and passers-by urging a boycott of goods of Israeli origin, such as dates, carrots, potatoes, and herbs. The leaflets stated that their aim was “to pressure Israel to respect human rights and international law.”

Habiba Islam, a student at Somerville College and one of the organisers of the protest, said: “As far as I’m concerned Israeli Marks & Spencer food is not just food, it’s blood-soaked food – the implicit endorsement of Israeli apartheid sickens me.”

“In the West Bank, the illegal settlements, the illegal wall, the segregation and home demolitions are clearly apartheid policies.”

Other student groups voiced opposition to the protest. Lorna Fitzsimmons, joint head of the Stop the Boycott campaign, said “Boycotts of any kind do nothing to promote peace and moderation in the Middle East.”

“A boycott has never been the right answer for those looking to genuinely help Palestinians and Israelis. The way forward must be to build bridges, encourage dialogue and allow ordinary Israelis and Palestinians the opportunity to engage with each other.”

Islam, however, disputed this, saying “The inhumane siege in Gaza prevented people from receiving life-saving medicine, and starved the ordinary men, women and children into a humanitarian crisis.

“Israel tries to call itself a fair democratic state and yet, again and again, it shows its utterly inhumane disregard for international law and human rights – we have to act to stop this.

“Boycott of Israeli goods is now a widely accepted ethical stance to adopt. It’s supported by Oxford City Council, as well as the Scottish, Irish and South African TUCs.”

Islam asserted that the activists would be campaigning outside M&S again on Sunday, and again in the future. also mentioned that the group had joined a campaign urging the Co-operative supermarket to cease to sell Israeli produce, and had sent over one hundred letters.

Marks & Spencer has a long-standing affiliation with Israel. Former Chairman Lord Marcus Sieff wrote that support for the economic development of Israel was one of the fundamental objectives of the chain.

The manager of Marks & Spencer Oxford said he was not authorised to comment on the protests, or the issue, but one member of staff who was working on Saturday evening said that she was “unaware that there even was a protest”.

The heads of two University societies have been accused of breaching their society’s constitutions.

Anthony Boutall, the President of Oxford University Conservative Association, has been fined by the Disciplinary Committee for failing to produce the term card on time. The president of Engineering Society, Sisi Zhou, has been accused of recruiting students in breach of the constitution.

An OUCA disciplinary committee held last Friday concluded that Boutall’s failing “to produce a printed Term Card and have it distributed by Saturday of Third Week was a substantial failure of office.”

Under the OUCA constitution, the President of the society is obliged to produce a term card by Saturday of first week, or risk the deduction of two “activist points”.

Further delay results in a disciplinary committee.

Anthony Boutall, OUCA President confirmed that he had known about the rule, but argued that the delay was due to the term card being returned late from the printers. He added that the details of all OUCA’s events can be found on the website, and that an alternative electronic term card was available on the internet.

He said, “I was told that the printers would only take three days…they should have been out a long time ago.”

Members of OUCA have been critical of the association’s attitude towards the constitution. One first year PPEist commented, “To be disciplined over a term card is ludicrous. Could there be a bigger signal that the association takes the constitution too seriously?”

Will Seligman, another OUCA member, stated that this situation portrays OUCA as “petty” and “lacking in understanding”.

Meanwhile, Oxford University Engineering Society has come under fire from members who claim that it is violating its constitution by recruiting members through an interview process rather than elections.

Frankie Fan, the society’s Marketing Officer has sent a Facebook message to 200 members of the society in which he called the recruitment process unfair and threatened to involve the Proctors in the matter, concluding that “the whole society needs changing.”

However OUES’ President, Sisi Zhou has explained that elections for members had not been taking place for the “past few years at least”, due to the “unfair nature of it being more a popularity contest than a fair process”.

She stated that the proctors have advised her to try to resolve the issue within the society before their involvement.

A General Meeting last Friday ruled that the committee members who had already been appointed for next year would be considered legitimate despite not being elected. However, the President and Vice-President will be selected through committee vote.

A new mobile telephone comparison site was created by Oxford scientists.

“Science has been put to work for struggling consumers in a free service to help them lower their bills,” said Stelios Koundouros, the co-founder of BillMonitor.

The UK mobile phone market currently offers almost 119,078 tariff variations and, the watchdog Consumer Focus says there have been almost 100,000 complaints concerning mobile phone services in the past two years.

Ofcom’s chief executive Ed Richards confirmed BillMonitor’s accreditation saying, “It’s important that consumers are able to access clear mobile pricing information.”

Schizophrenics who also abuse alcohol or drugs are four times as likely to commit a violent crime than the average person.

In contrast, among those who are clean the risk is only 1.2 times the average.

Dr Seena Fazel, researcher from Oxford’s Department of Psychiatry said, “we found that the risk of violent crime committed by people with schizophrenia is a lot lower than people might expect.”

The findings suggest that substance abuse treatment may help control the rate of violent crime among schizophrenics. Currently, up to 5% of violent crimes in society are committed by schizophrenics, among whom 30-40% are alcoholics and 10-15% abuse drugs.

The Telegraph has reported that Adam Smith, Labour MP for Oxford East, used his expenses account to makeover his house.

Mr Smith defended his spending, saying, “My mortgage interest costs are much less than the mortgage or rent for many other MPs, but I have had to spend significant amounts on repairs.”

One of his claims from February 2006 includes the cost of a new dishwasher, oven, fridge, microwave, gas hob, and a 50p carrier bag from Ikea.

Oxford West’s Dr Evan Harris MP has published his expenses record on his website. “I consider this job to be a privilege and not an exercise in income generation,” he said.

Oxford University has been criticized for spending of £300,000 of taxpayers’ money researching what type of water ducks like the best.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has carried out a three-year study “to ascertain the importance of bathing water to ducks by quantifying their motivation to gain access to water in which they can bathe.”

After offering the ducks a variety of water supplies including a trough, shower, water pond and a nipple drinker, it was concluded that the birds preferred standing under a shower.

The research has sparked anger among farmers and taxpapers alike, who have viewed it as a huge waste of money.

Anthony Rew, Devon chairman of the National Farmers’ Union, said the use of taxpayers’ money on the research “just proves that Defra is quackers”.

He added, “They need to get out of London and get on a farm to see how the countryside works, to put policies in place that are practical.”

Susie Squire of the Taxpayers’ Alliance agreed, viewing the research as a “bonkers waste of money”.

“It is common sense that ducks like rain and water. The last thing the government should be allocating scarce resources to is this sort of nonsense”, she said.

A spokesperson for Defra defended the research, saying that it was carried out “to help determine the most appropriate method of providing water and maintaining hygiene in the duck-rearing industry.”

Marian Stamp Dawkins, professor of animal behaviour at Oxford added that it would be unfair to portray the study as finding out simply that ducks like water. It had been carried out to find the best way of providing water to farmed ducks because ponds quickly became dirty.
Oxford students have expressed mixed views on the research.

Jess Bolton, a first year student at Worcester expressed her support for the research.

“I think it’s fantastic that the government is taking the initiative to work towards a situation where the animals we farm are raised in the most comfortable conditions possible. The fact that the government is allocating such sums to the general cause of animal welfare shows a surprising level of moral integrity in the face of potential public criticism”, she said.

However, Daniel Lowe, the OUSU Environment and Ethics officer expressed his surprise at the sum spent.

“£300k seems quite excessive for research of this nature, and I wonder how the bill managed to get so high”, he said.

“However there is some environmental benefit of finding out that ducks prefer showers as a shower provides a more hygienic source of water for farmed ducks than ponds.”

Oxford University’s Humanities Division is facing wide funding cuts despite an improvement in the quality of its research. This is believed to be a result of the government’s stressed commitment to funding scientific development.

One of the hardest hit faculties is Modern Languages, which will see a £1 million drop in its funding, despite being awarded top ratings in the recent Research Assessment Exercise (RAE). Both the French and German departments were ranked number one in the country according to the Research Fortnight’s Power Index.

Professor Michael Sheringham, Marshal Foch Professor of French Literature described the situation as “lamentable”.
“It suits no one that Oxford University should have this imbalance; a beleaguered humanities alongside boosted sciences.” He added, “It’s not good for the [Oxford] brand.”

The cuts will take the form of a drop in ‘quality research’ funding, supplied by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). Oxford receives one of the highest HEFCE monetary allocations out of all the UK universities, with this year’s grant exceeding £180m. How much money a university receives is dependent upon its performance within the RAE, which scores departments on the quality of their research output.

“Funding is calculated according to RAE ratings on a subject by subject basis”, explained Philip Walker, a spokesperson for HEFCE. “To do well, a department needs to improve the quality and increase the volume of its research.”

Yet Head of the History of Arts Department Professor Craig Clunas, whose faculty saw a substantial rise in its UK ranking this year, questions the very relevance of the RAE system in light of the cuts, “It is very disappointing that an improved RAE performance leads to poorer funding.”

The downsizing of the Humanities budget comes in the wake of government initiatives to boost scientific funding in higher education. Speaking at the recent Romanes lecture at Oxford in February, Prime Minister Gordon Brown committed to making science a priority. In line with this, while arts and languages at the university are suffering , funding for scientific research has seen a sizeable increase.

Professor William James, Associate Head of the Medical Sciences Division, denies however that the boost his faculty has received in its annual grant comes at the expense of the arts.

“The additional funds have arisen because of the continued increase in quality and quantity of medical research done in Oxford. In most areas of medical research, Oxford departments were rated as the top one or two in the UK.

“The government have decided to award a premium to subjects it is particularly keen to promote, including maths, science and medicine. As a result of both of these factors, the University has received a great uplift in the block grant it gets from HEFCE.”

When asked, a spokesperson for the University said that it is up to HEFCE to decide how it allocates its money.