Wednesday 2nd July 2025
Blog Page 2266

PCSOs on the beat

 

Police community support officers have begun to patrol Oxford University in an attempt to crack down on rowdy student behaviour.

Four new PCSOs spent their first day on the beat yesterday; they can enter colleges if they are invited to do so.

PC Martin Wizard stated that this was a Thames Valley initiative. He
said, "We are working closely with the university security. We will be
predominantly patrolling the centre of Oxford but will also be
patrolling the university parks."

"The point is to provide a visible police presence to reassure both residents and students."

Wizard said that students were generally well behaved but that around exams they tended to be a bit "excessive".

He continued, "Students can be a bit high-spirited at this time of year
and so the point of the PCSOs is to calm them down and prevent anything
dangerous from happening."

Chairman of the Domestic Bursars’ Committee, Elizabeth Crawford, said:
‘Any initiative that aims to improve the safety of students and staff
and supports security, in both the Colleges and the University, is
wholly welcome.’

Oxford University Spokesperson Maria Coyle was keen to stress that
PCSOs will not enter colleges unless given permission to do so as the
colleges will remain private property.

If the PCSOs are invited in by the colleges then they can issue fines or even arrest students for bad behaviour.

And they’re off…

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It’s that time of year again: the annual scramble to see who Rupert and his cronies will pick to be one of the chosen Murdoch scholars (PDF).

The scheme has an illustrious set of alumni. Well, not really, but a few of the recent scholars are in pretty decent meedjya jobs these days.

Last year saw four Cherwellites, two OxStuds, one from someting called Oxide (?) and some randomer that no one knew head off to Wapping, but in previous years it’s been weighted in the OxStu’s favour. They tend to only pick newsy types, and those with lashings of work experience, but anyone with a hanful of decent news cuts is in with a good chance. Maybe the wide-eyed young hopefuls would like to send Saint Aldate their CVs so we can sort out some odds: [email protected]

So the question is, who’s going for it this year? All the current editors (Kenber, Cox Jensen and Kuchler) are having a go. So’s Lolhouse, who spends so much time on the OxStu front page that he’s applied for citizenship. Maybe Cal Flyn is having a whack? Cherwell dog of old James Rogers was spotted at the pre-application talk last term.

Who else is in the running? In the words of the Stu, tell us what you know.  Except we won’t make it up if you don’t.

Colleges hit out at council

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All Souls and University Colleges, and Steve Howell, Head of Transport for
Oxfordshire County Council, have publicly taken swipes at each other over the
issue of signage and buses on Oxford’s High Street.

News that the Council wished to site more bus stops on the High Street,
including one possibly in front of All Souls main gateway, has prompted a
scathing attack on the Council’s "vandalism" of the street, with All Souls
bursar Thomas Seaman deriding the Council as being more concerned with bus
passengers than they are with the environment or those organisations situated
on the High Street. The Warden of All Souls, Dr. John Davis also expressed
concern over the pollution control monitor at the front of the college, that he
says the Council said was only temporary.

Howell’s reply cites the improvement in paving and road surfaces, and a claimed
de-cluttering of signage as evidence of the Council’s commitment to the welfare
of the High Street, and cites the reduction in Government funding as a reason
for the slow progress of improvements to the central part of the street. He has
also called on those opposed to the plans to offer more constructive feedback.

Union may cancel Langham talk

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Oxford Union President Ben Tansey

 

Oxford Union president Ben Tansey might cancel the debating society’s invitation to disgraced television actor Chris Langham following adverse publicity.

"I have literally spoken to about a hundred people to gauge their thoughts on Chris Langham speaking at the Union and am seriously thinking about cancelling the invite," said Tansey. "I’ll reach a decision by the end of today."

The Oxford Union invited Chris Langham, the BAFTA-winning comedy actor who had been jailed for downloading child pornography, to come to Frewin Court on May 29, to talk about his "vilification" in the media.

The actor, best known for his award-winning performances in BBC Four comedy The Thick of It was jailed for 10 months at Maidstone Crown Court last September after being convicted of 15 counts of downloading images of children.

Leading child protection charity Kidscape criticised the Union through the national press, calling the invitation a "publicity stunt" and "very disappointing."

Tansey said he has been receiving been both congratulation and condemnation for the invite.  Some have accused him of providing Langham platform to "justify his crimes," with others, while acknowledging the need for such a debate, concerned about the message the invitation was going to send.

Founder of Kidscape Michele Elliot told BBC News, "We are not calling for Chris Langham to be banned, because we believe in free speech, but we are very disappointed the Union has invited someone with this type of conviction."

The Union President said Chris Langham was invited not for publicity but genuine debate.  He explained it will be more a question of the judicial system and how the debating society feels about it.

"At what point do we turn around and say [to criminals who have served their time], ‘Yes, you are member of society again’?…The debate itself and the reasons for the invite are valid and I think people do recognise that."

But Tansey says he is worried about the message this debate might send to victims of child abuse.

"Having looked at Luke [Tryl]’s term in Michaelmas, we have learned that not all PR is good PR. We obviously did think about the message this invitation was going to send and I’m having to rethink our reasons for inviting him," he said. "The committee has worked very hard for an exciting term and I don’t want this to take over the term."

Chris Langham could not be reached for comment and his agent had refused to comment on the matter.

 


See also:

VIDEO: Protests against Union’s free speech forum in Michaelmas

VIDEO: Luke Tryl speaks about free speech forum

Fashion shootout

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While this saint wishes no animosity between our esteemed University and lesser other institutions, is the OXFORD Student not pushing its luck slightly with this week’s photoshoot?

 

It’s just that the photographer seems to be at Bristol , while one of the models goes to Loughborough.

 

(We know, we know, it’s all about the fashion darling.)

Cherwell vs OxStu: Round 0

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Cherwell wk0OxStu wk0

{nomultithumb} 

In the red corner:

Oskar Cox Jensen and Billy Kenber’s first issue

 

In the blue corner:

Hannah Kuchler and MattheHannah Kuchler’s first issue

 

Get your commenting fingers ready – what did you like and what would you spike in these honourable first efforts?

 

More astute readers may have spotted that the Stu’s front page is not quite what was delivered to JCRs on Thursday.  Our esteemed editor-in-chief* assures me that Miss Kuchler is consulting the powers-that-be in OUSU towers about copyright.  In the meantime, you’ll have to make do with our artist’s impression

 

* He also assures me that ed-in-chief "certainly wasn’t second prize you ****"

Welcome

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Ladies, gentlemen, journo hacks – welcome to Aldate’s blog about the incestuous world of Oxford’s media.{nomultithumb}

This corner of computer interweb will be dedicated to:


1) Filling the Bowden-shaped gap left by OxGoss’s weekly "Cherwell vs OxStu" threads.

Minus the "crack whore on crystal meth" comments.

 

Guess the journo hack2) Scattering sprinklings of derision upon Oxford’s more colourful media characters.

Which prominent journo hack is depicted here in her younger, more idealistic days (on the left, somewhat appropriately, of the picture)?  First correct email will win a free Cherwell delivered straight to their JCR.

 


3) Finding out if anyone actually listens to Oxide.

Have you?  Help is at hand.

 

 

 Got journonews?
[email protected]

Interview: Martin Bell

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Martin Bell is a troublemaker. He says so himself: ‘I go and make trouble because I can speak up against abuses in the way MPs can’t.’ This may explain why politicians like Blair, Brown and their cronies become so agitated when they hear Martin Bell is around.

 

A BBC war correspondent for thirty years, he reported from the conflicts in Vietnam, the Middle East, Rwanda and Northern Ireland among many others. In a change of career, Bell was elected to Parliament in 1997 as an independent MP in the previously thought safe Conservative constituency of Tatton, in Cheshire. He stood against the Conservative MP Neil Hamilton, who was at the time embroiled in the ‘cash-for-questions’ sleaze; Bell won the seat, overturning Hamilton’s majority of more than 20,000.

 

Reading Bell’s latest book, The Truth that Sticks: New Labour’s Breach of Trust, reveals why unscrupulous politicians are right to be wary of him. Bell sets out in no-nonsense terms New Labour’s deceptions in taking us to war in Iraq, the sleaze now endemic in the House of Commons and a multitude of other betrayals of public trust.

In March 2003, Tony Blair reported to the British public on the threat we faced from Iraq, based on Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs), which he warned us that Saddam Hussein possessed and which could be deployed within 45 minutes. I ask Bell about this. ‘We were totally misled. I can think of no public argument in my lifetime in which one side has won and the other’s lost more absolutely than here. We were misled. I’d never accuse Mr Blair of being a liar on this, except I think he lied to himself… He wanted to believe for domestic reasons and his political imperative of not separating himself from the White House that these weapons existed. And lo and behold: Alistair Campbell and others came up with a dossier that showed him that they don’t. It was false from start to finish, and as I say in my book I do not think it was a bad government in any other respect, but it made the worst mistake of any British government in my lifetime, by far.’

I put it to Bell that perhaps the war was justified in that some argue that it liberated the Iraqi people, but he will not countenance the idea. ‘No, no, no,’ he says, ‘One side benefit is that it got rid of Saddam Hussein and his sons, but it was not waged, this war, on the basis of regime change. It was waged on the basis of Weapons of Mass Destruction, which didn’t exist. They were wrong. What liberation? We’ve had close to 200 British soldiers dead, and somewhere between 150,000 and 600,000 Iraqis. I mean, what a disaster.’ I ask whether we would have had a chance of winning the war in Afghanistan if it hadn’t been for Iraq. ‘There was a war that was just about winnable in Afghanistan in 2002, but already in 2002 we were holding back equipment from the troops in Afghanistan (for the forthcoming Iraq war)… We can lose both wars.’

 

On why the government seemed so eager to take us to war, Bell explains, ‘There’s nobody in government now, not a minister or junior minister, who’s ever seen warfare; who understands the nature of soldiering or the nature of warfare. They are therefore more inclined to get into these fiascos. It’s not their sons [on the front line], almost in no cases at all. It’s other people.’ Bell describes Britain’s lack of success in Afghanistan and Iraq as partly due to politicians’ ‘ignorance of history.’

War has its casualties, of course, and I ask how Iraq has affected demand for resources such as Combat Stress, the ex-services mental welfare society. ‘There’s a great cascade of these cases now coming through from the Falklands war, more than 20 years ago. It’s delayed. And of course our British forces now, especially in Afghanistan, are subject to conditions and intensity of fighting the army hasn’t known since the Korean War, in 1953. This is going to become more serious as time goes by.’ He says of the government, ‘To some extent they’re in denial, because they don’t want to talk about casualties….The government certainly doesn’t want to think about the unseen casualties, the people who seem to be normal but are not.’ Bell is dismissive of Britain’s so-called ‘special relationship’ with the US. ‘You’ll never hear the Americans talk about it; it’s entirely a British illusion. If the Mexican president came and visited, the Americans had a special relationship with him.’

I ask Bell whether he believes that Gordon Brown and the Conservatives are now committed to cleaner politics – particularly Labour, as they did after all run their 1997 election campaign on an anti-sleaze, ‘let’s clean up politics’ basis. ‘I thought that they were. I now see they’re not… We now know that corruption in the House of Commons is widespread and endemic. It was a useful slogan in 1997 (‘let’s clean up politics’), and to be fair to the Labour government they put in place the electoral reform, which required a degree of openness in the matter of party funding; so we know now, who gave what money to what party… but the more we see of it, the more deplorable it is… The people are in a state of real rebellion about this.’ Bell describes the situation regarding cash-for-peerages as ‘blatant and outrageous.’

For a man who graduated with a first from King’s College Cambridge and has had a distinguished career, ‘the man in the white suit’ (Bell is well-known for always wearing a white suit) is remarkably modest about his achievements. When I ask him why he first wanted to become a war correspondent – when the risks were so great that he was once almost killed by shrapnel – he shrugs. ‘I never sought it out, it happened to me… I did a few wars then realised I was being asked to do nothing else, but it’s all I was qualified to do, couldn’t get out of it. It happened to me, rather like being an MP.’

As we reach the end of our discussion, I ask Bell to summarise the importance of a new kind of politics. He ponders, ‘I think there has to be someone to speak up for the people against the old kind of politics. People are in politics for what they can get out of it. The abuse of allowances. Political careerism. People go into politics who’ve never had a life outside politics, and they therefore end up taking decisions such as to go to war in Iraq, which was fundamentally flawed and false. We need a better kind of people in politics.’

 

Then, finally, my curiosity gets the better of any desire I have not to seem rude, and I ask him why he always wears a white suit. ‘Because I’m superstitious. Keeps me alive in dangerous places. During the war in Croatia, in 1991, I had a white suit, it’s summer, all this stuff was flying through the air – none of it hit me, so I ascribe my survival to the white suit.’ This is the end of the interview. Bell has been lively, incredibly outspoken and frank throughout, and I can see why in the world of politics this would lead him to qualify as a ‘troublemaker.’ Troublemaker or not, this is a man on a mission. Politicians, beware.

Zimbabwe: country without hope?

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Earlier this year, the international community was shocked as a former bastion of stability in eastern Africa descended into violence, leaving about 1,500 dead and 600,000 displaced. The final vote determined that Mwai Kibaki would remain the president of Kenya, a result that many supporters of the opposition saw as rigged.
Today, only three months later, the headlines are again dominated daily by fears for the region and fresh outbreaks of violence, as the relative silence concerning the elections in another former paragon of economic progress is almost deafening.

The results of the March 29 presidential election in Zimbabwe are yet to be released. The main candidates are Robert Mugabe of Zanu-PF, who has been in power since the country gained independence in 1980, and Morgan Tsvangirai, a former miner and trade unionist, of Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). A third candidate and former minister in Mugabe’s cabinet, Simba Makoni, failed to garner much support.

No matter the precise outcome, this election has already proved to be a landmark according to results released so far. Zanu-PF has lost its majority in the House of Assembly for the first time since independence, winning 97 seats against the MDC’s 99 in the 210-seat chamber. A smaller MDC faction has 10 seats. In the Senate, or upper house, Zanu-PF and the combined opposition have 30 seats each. In reaction to claims by human rights organisations and the MDC that Mugabe has unleashed a campaign of systematic violence against his political opponents, Gordon Brown said that he was ‘appalled by the signs that the regime is once again resorting to intimidation and violence.’ He also stated that he could not understand why it was taking so long to release the results of the presidential elections, and that ‘the international community’s patience with the regime is wearing thin.’

But international intervention has been tentative at best. The 14-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) held a summit in Lusaka, Zambia, over the weekend aimed at breaking the deadlock. It urged all parties to accept the election results and asked South African President Thabo Mbeki to continue his role as SADC’s ‘facilitator on Zimbabwe.’

Mugabe himself was conspicuously absent, sending a delegation of ministers instead. The 84-year-old is said to be unwilling to take advice from leaders a generation younger than himself. His pride is well documented and not unjustified, as he was hailed as a hero in his fight for independence and considered a highly educated leader. He has referred to Tsvangirai as an ‘ignoramus’ because of his humble origins and called Gordon Brown ‘a tiny dot on this world’ after the UK PM commented on this year’s elections.

Zimbabwe enjoyed a few years of accelerated economic progress during the 1980s under Mugabe’s leadership, but it soon became clear that he was on his way to building a ruthless dictatorship. The tenacious leader has boasted that he has a ‘degree in violence’ and he has certainly proved his credentials in this respect. From the campaign of repression in the province of Matabeleland in the ’80s, which aimed to stamp out opposition, to the invasions and forced evictions on white-owned farms in 2000, Mugabe has succeeded in maintaining a one-party state in which much of the foreign media, including the BBC, is banned.

Zimbabwe currently has the highest rate of inflation in the world, at 100,000%, with 80 per cent unemployment. Whilst many blame Mugabe’s corrupt government for draining the country of its economic resources and alienating the international community, Mugabe has consistently maintained that colonialism and former white supremacist rule are at the root of Zimbabwe’s problems. He justified the invasion of white farms and his land redistribution programme by saying the land belonged to African Zimbabweans, not white settlers. His decision might have been respected if some of this land had not later been found in the hands of his cronies, and if his loyalists were not consistently enriching themselves as his people starve in rural areas.

The results of this election have huge implications for Zimbabwe and the rest of the region (for instance, the exodus of refugees into South Africa is taking its toll), and it is difficult to be optimistic about the future of the former ‘breadbasket of Africa.’ Some say that the delay in the release of the results is a sign that Mugabe has lost and that Zanu-PF are now attempting to tamper with the results. MDC has already claimed that Tsvangirai has won the majority of votes, and many analysts believe he is set for success, if those who voted for Simba Makoni turn their support to Tsvangirai in the event of a run-off.

But Tsvangirai’s party, which split into two factions in 2005, has been beset by internal rifts as some of his closest allies accuse him of acting like a dictator. Tsvangirai, 56, has been brutally assaulted, charged with treason and routinely labelled a ‘traitor’ by Mugabe and his party. In March 2007, pictures of Tsvangirai’s battered and swollen face appeared in a number of Western newspapers after he spent two days in the hospital following an attack by Mugabe’s riot police. Nonetheless, Tsvangirai used to blame many of Zimbabwe’s economic woes on the IMF’s structural adjustment programme. Now, he is working closely with industrialists who argue that market forces should be left to solve Zimbabwe’s economic problems on their own.

In the latest developments as of April 13, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) has ordered a recount of ballots in 23 constituencies. A change in the parliamentary result by nine seats could see Zanu-PF regain its lost majority in the assembly. The MDC claims that it will mount a legal challenge to the recount, as they believe accepting a recount would mean accepting rigged results. As tension and speculation mount about the political future of Zimbabwe, we can only hope that when the results are finally released, we won’t see the same sort of internal strife that followed the Kenyan elections. If the final results are believed to be rigged, one can only hope that the international community will not hesitate to intervene. No matter who is to blame for the current state of the country, only a democracy, not a dictatorship, will allow it to move forward.

May-be not

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Next Thursday, if I dare to venture beyond the Cowley area for a night out in the city centre, I will be unable to return home by my usual route. Instead of walking back over Magdalen Bridge, a fifteen-minute journey at the most, I will have to take a detour that forces me to circle Oxford, adding a ridiculous amount of time (at least forty-five minutes) to my walk home.

 

And why? Because once upon a time, some bizarre celestial committee decided that Oxford, with its college marriages and ‘time ceremonies’, just didn’t have enough stupid traditions.

 

Spotting the potential of the start of May, it concluded that a ‘pinch and a punch for the first of the month’ was in no way satisfactory for celebrating one of the more purgatorial times of the year. And so, we flock to Magdalen at the most god-forsaken time imaginable to hear a choir provide a soundtrack to the sunrise. A choir. In Oxford. As if we’ve never come across such a phenomenon.

 Perhaps the idea of such an event wouldn’t be so abhorrent to me if it wasn’t for the closing of the bridge, which so inconveniences me and many others. Oxford City Council takes great trouble to make using the road impossible, and yet last year a couple of individuals managed it, a truly moronic group with no thought for their safety or, perhaps more appropriately, the well-being of their shins.

 

Oxford’s reputation for being stuffed to the brim with arrogant arseholes is in no way aided by the actions of such people, and if you’re going to attempt to leap into the Cherwell when its water-level barely reaches that of a Tesco Value paddling pool, then frankly I wouldn’t mind seeing your lifeless form bobbing past the Botanical Gardens.

Last year, the impending threat of English exams led my eager tutor to schedule classes which ran for two weeks, between eight and ten in the morning. However, such an arrangement far from dampened our spirits, and so when we stumbled into class that morning, the first of May, we did so after an all-night party and a trek down to hear the madrigals. Unsurprisingly, half of us didn’t manage to retain consciousness for long, falling asleep, head on table, one by one.

 

With Trinity perhaps the busiest term of the academic year, isn’t there a more convenient time to celebrate the first day of a month? What about February? Why is May any more noteworthy? Surely no month is worth such frivolities, nor losing one’s dignity by partaking in a quick Morris dance or maypole session. There are some pointless holidays in the world, a fact that most people acknowledge while ignoring this one, and it’s about time that our ever-so-self-consciously-kooky University realises this fact.

 

May Day may provide a fantastic opportunity to spend the night drinking and then watch the sunrise, but since when do we need an excuse to do such a thing – we’re students, aren’t we? I thought that’s what we were supposed to spend our loans on?

So if you must partake in such celebrations, for I’m sure that I can do little to dissuade you, then do refrain from spontaneous bridge-based gymnastics, and please ask the choir at Magdalen to keep it down. Some of us are trying to sleep.