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Debate chamber: Are Oxford’s political party societies fit for purpose?

Ti-Jean Martin and Elizabeth Millett
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Debate chamber: Are Oxford’s political party societies fit for purpose?

Ti-Jean Martin: Oxford’s political party societies are not fit for purpose

Entering Oxford University as a left-leaning student, word-of-mouth references and a Cherwell feature quickly gave me the impression that its party-aligned political societies did indeed constitute “a drifting elite with few ideas”. This didn’t put me off the concept entirely – I was in favour of the move to create a Green Party society, a feat that, this Michaelmas, has been accomplished alongside a Reform UK-aligned equivalent. 

Yet whilst these moves will diversify a stagnant atmosphere in terms of party allegiance, it seems unlikely that they will break the mold of the political society. Neither will they move the Oxford political scene any closer to the relevance it sorely lacks. 

One needn’t look as far back as 1968 to see the potential of campus politics to catalyse change. At Oxford, however, the idea that political action can actually change things seems to have been forgotten, or perhaps never thought of. Members of the Labour Club (OLC), Liberal Association (OSLA), and Conservative Association (OUCA) – or all three, as many political BNOCs seem to be – themselves would probably acknowledge that the ‘big three’ do more drinking and Union connection-making than political action. 

If they are breeding future prime ministers, as the reputation goes, they’re doing it the old way, serving as old boys’ networks-to-be between their many shared members. This is demoralising in a place with the potential to create future leaders, a place with the power to turn a generation’s disillusionment into meaningful, different politics. It doesn’t do anything to help Oxford’s reputation as an elite bubble, cut off from political issues that actually matter, either. 

It would have been nice to think that creating two new societies could remedy these issues, yet change can cut both ways. Concerns have already been raised about the implications of the Reform Society’s affiliation with Reform UK, a party that has been accused of Islamophobia, for the safety of Muslim students at Oxford. The society has also recently invited the controversial self-described “race realist” Nathan Cofnas to speak at Oriel College in November, spawning the announcement of a protest by the campaign group Stand Up to Racism. It remains to be seen who will constitute the Oxon Universities Reform Society’s membership, but it is quite possible that many of them will carry OLC, OSLA, or OUCA cards – the same may well be true for the Oxford Student Greens. 

This cannot be the price we pay for an ostensibly more diverse partisan landscape. But where does Oxford’s politically-inclined student body go, then? To the ‘big three’, which the aforementioned feature labelled the “stand-up comedy clubs” of a faded elite? To the new societies on left and right, whose potential for both harm and good remains to be seen? And should we abandon partisanship altogether? Something like the October Club, which in theory constitutes a left-wing space without party alignment, could be replicated across the political spectrum, but this model has its own problems – the Oxford Social Democrats’ (formerly Left Society) attempt to create such an environment appears to have fizzled out. 

Within the current system, there seems to be no answer to these questions. Unless the party-aligned political societies start actually doing politics, they will remain unfit for purpose.

Elizabeth Millett: Oxford’s political party societies are fit for purpose

Oxford’s political party societies have a dual reputation. On one side of the coin, many boast long-standing histories and influential alumni, from Clement Attlee to David Cameron. Flip to the tail end, and you find a termly reality of boisterous drinking socials and inconclusive debates that are, in the words of Cherwell’s Stanley Smith, “more fixated with personality than party”. But does this reputation really disrupt the confines of what these political party societies are made for?

The recent establishment of Reform and Green Party societies has prompted a return to analysing the state of Oxford’s student political groups. A predictable flurry of apprehension has followed this broadening of a scene that currently appears both contradictory and relatively subpar. Though understandable, I feel these criticisms have lost touch with the actual purpose of political party societies.

The self-proclaimed objective of the Oxford University Conservatives Association (OUCA), penned by the current President Harriet Dolby, is to “provide a forum for students to discuss politics and policy” and encourage the “fostering [of] open and rigorous debate with those of all political persuasions”. Other groups’ intentions are similar. The Oxford Labour Club (OLC) expresses a commitment to a “conviction that ideas matter, that argument is worth having, and that a fairer society is worth working for”, while the months-old Oxon Universities Reform Society sets out in the opening statements of their website a strive towards “providing a space for free speech”.

We appear to have deluded ourselves into viewing these political societies, like all student societies for that matter, as more than what they are designed to be: a place for amateurs to channel and discuss their interests. At what point were student societies discouraged for being merely recreational? University environments are defined by members undergoing a process of growth and learning; they are not a final product. An unjust amount of pressure is placed on these student groups to provide term cards and socials of the calibre that might produce our next generation of leaders. This expectation is purely based on the careers of a few outstanding predecessors that are, bluntly put, anomalies. While politics should certainly not be considered a mere pastime (I have no intention of being satisfied with low-quality debate in these forums), these societies are certainly in an adequate position to carry out their self-proclaimed purpose of having passionate and engaged discussions.

Whether they do this well is a different matter. There is no denial that the list of zero-tolerance “Terms & Conditions” set out by the Reform society for their fourth-ever speaker event (chosen to be with controversial academic Nathan Cofnas) makes one wince. Similarly, the Green’s “lemonade and leftism” sessions are destined to lose any sliver of prospective zest when debates on nuclear energy and climate change are bound to become an echo chamber when held amongst students of the same political disposition – there is a clear distinction between being functional as a society and remotely impressive.

These societies can admittedly be disappointing in their execution, allegedly devolving into sessions of networking and natter. Their wavering relevance is not, however, symptomatic of being unfit for their purpose, but a case of often not living up to what they could do with the frameworks already in place.

How books are burned today

Romilly Ireland
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How books are burned today

It is a worrying thought that what sits on your bookshelf today could be out of reach tomorrow. You might believe book banning to be a thing of the past – the stuff of Nazi Germany or Mao’s China – but restricting public access to books still happens today; you may be affected without even realising. The issue has recently resurfaced in the UK after UK markets and eBook platforms removed Sally Rooney’s books. The content of her novels was not the reason for their removal; it was her pledged support of the proscribed organisation Palestine Action. Furthermore, the decision was made with Rooney’s agreement to avoid legal risk. This self-censorship by a celebrated author has unsettled the UK media and should draw attention to the quieter instances of censorship around the world.

There is some confusion surrounding what it means for a book to be ‘banned’. The American Library Association describes book censorship (or banning) as the act of restricting access to books due to images, ideas, or information contained that is found to be objectionable. It can also involve relocating books to less accessible sections, requiring special permission to access a book, or obscuring sections of materials from readers. It is these latter, more subtle methods that usually go unnoticed. But, they are just as problematic as outright removal.

If you are a historian like me, mass book bans are all too familiar. Examples can be found as far back as 213BC, when books were burned by the Chinese Emperor to strengthen the dominance of the governing philosophy. Most famously, tens of thousands of books by Jewish, socialist, and pacifist authors were burned by the Nazis in the 1930s for being un-German. 

Today, Russia and China sit at the extreme end of book censorship. Russian law enforcement has raided major publishing offices and detained executives with charges of extremism, for the content of the books they publish. Often books are removed from shelves, given black-and-white wrappers, or text fragments are physically blacked out. In China, the CCP censors books through a state-mandated system. Problematic books are categorised as either black (political works that criticise the CCP or its history) or yellow (immoral, obscene, or ‘spiritual pollution’). This runs on a case-by-case basis, and authorities frequently order school and public libraries to destroy books – in 2019 books were actually burned in Gansu province. Ironically, this article itself most likely could not be published in China. These countries, however, have historically been notorious for a low tolerance for criticism and high levels of censorship. What may be more surprising is its existence in the ‘Land of the Free’.

In the US, social media has recently fixated on sensationalised stories of nationwide lists of proscribed books. The reality is not so absolute, but it’s still more alarming than you might expect. PEN America describes current censorship in the US as being the worst wave of book bans since the Red Scare of the 1950s. Its most recent report from the 2025-2026 school year found 12,000 instances of book bans in public schools and libraries nationwide – the most in a single year. The states with the most bans were Texas, with 8,100, and Florida, with 3,200, both far outranking the rest. In the majority of districts (72%), state legislation drives removals, though encouraged by politicians’ campaigns, pressure groups, and parents. Following Texas’ Senate Bill 13 in September 2025, books are removed from its public schools on the pretext of being harmful, sexually explicit, vulgar, indecent, or profane. This has made hundreds of renowned works of fiction become inaccessible in the name of safeguarding. These include Jane Eyre, A Clockwork Orange, The Handmaid’s Tale, and practically every work of Stephen King.

Across the pond, the UK has its own controversy around school libraries and their contents. An investigation by the Index on Censorship found that 53% of surveyed UK school librarians reported being asked to remove books from their shelves. Following the report, the Minister of State in the Department of Education reaffirmed that no books or genres have been banned by the government, and schools are free to make their own choices about which resources and books they hold. Anyway, the sample was small and in just a few cases were books actually removed. Thus far, the country seems safe from the Bible-belt style morality bans. However, Reform UK councils have also directed libraries to remove Pride displays, and discussions around what is ‘appropriate’ for the public are ongoing. We should be wary of what could be on our doorstep.

Having limited access to certain books on a larger scale can impact your worldview and ideology. It is a form of propaganda and control that nowadays goes unnoticed. In schools especially, book bans cut students’ access to diverse perspectives, and so hinder the individuality of their thought. Under the guise of limiting books to their age and maturity, this rhetoric has removed pivotal works of modern literature from their education. What is more, those that rely more on public libraries and schools are more susceptible to the effects of these bans. Diversity of viewpoint should not be only for those who can afford it. Independent minds will not grow from greater control; creativity does not come from gaps on the shelves.

The burden of the face: Why are so many singers wearing masks?

Leandro Landolina and Francesca Lamberti
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The burden of the face: Why are so many singers wearing masks?

We can all name at least one musician who has performed behind a balaclava, helmet, or hood. Whether to preserve anonymity, cultivate mystery, or construct an entirely new artistic identity, masking the face is common among those under the limelight.

Mask-wearing among musicians is hardly new. The French electronic music duo Daft Punk famously traded their faces for futuristic robotic helmets in 1999 – certainly an upgrade from the black fabric bags they donned in their early days. Similarly, the oversized, two-tone wigs the Australian pop singer Sia is known for have become a hallmark of her style, while the American music producer Marshmello fittingly sports a white, marshmallow-shaped helmet punctuated by a black, cartoonish face. Names like Deadmau5, MF Doom, Planningtorock, and Angine de Poitrine might also spring to mind.

One of the most recent faceless sensations, EsDeeKid, is a Scouse rapper who has exploded out of the UK underground scene. His meteoric success has seen him allegedly signing the biggest-ever record deal for a UK rapper, all while keeping his face obscured.

From late 2025, rumours that the rapper was actually the actor Timothée Chalamet made it as far as The Guardian, GQ, and Rolling Stone. This theory, often but not always tongue-in-cheek, eventually led to Chalamet featuring on a remix of EsDeeKid’s ‘4 Raws’, with the accompanying video accumulating over 40 million views on TikTok and over 15 million on YouTube. 

Fascination with EsDeeKid’s ‘true identity’ – synonymous with his government name and facial features – reveals a curious assumption: that the obscuration of his face is deemed an obscuration of his identity as a whole. Yet there is actually a great deal we know about him: that he is from Liverpool, that he grew up with a single mum in a council house, that he has a penchant for marijuana, that he hates when the plug uses AI art. Without a face to tether them to, these details are somehow insufficient. The face rules all: conceal it and identity melts away.

For many musicians, the unavoidable anatomical fact of the face is a burden, and masking up hardly eliminates the public’s fixation on it. The rumours surrounding EsDeeKid expose this thirst for the face, with one user on the r/EsDeeKidd subreddit confessing that their “head is churning out crazy ideas about who he really is … I can’t stand the desperation”. Rather than accepting the concealed face, fans claw at the mask, superimposing recognisable faces onto the void it creates, even if only as ironic placeholders. On a societal level, it seems that we cannot look away, that we are pathologically incapable of laying a face to rest. 

Yet, is a faceless singer such a surprise when the voice is supposedly the locus of transfixion? Most listeners familiar with an artist can instantly identify them at the sound of their vocals. The face, however, remains the seemingly irreducible nucleus of identity, even in its absence. EsDeeKid’s balaclava is arguably as iconic as his Scouse accent, the absence of his face equally as remarkable as his music.

The desire to conceal one’s face extends far beyond the music industry, and while it may evoke associations with criminality, it can also stem from entirely innocuous motivation – think of the self-described intergalactic space warrior and UK politician Count Binface, frontline healthcare workers, and religious veil wearers. Yet beyond political satire, medical necessity, and religious motivation, facial concealment is a growing response to increasingly pervasive surveillance in the UK and beyond. With extensive CCTV networks, commercial biometric authentication, and the rise of facial recognition technology, faces are no longer merely means of expression and communication but sources of data from which identity can be constructed, recorded, and tracked. Perhaps, then, in the 21st century, masks offer relief from the omnipresent gaze which renders faces readily observable and knowable objects.

Here lies the paradox of the modern face: at the same time as identity is seen to crystallise on its surface, this surface is increasingly malleable and transformable. The musician SOPHIE, for instance, leans into the plasticity of the 21st-century face in her well-known music video for ‘Faceshopping’, in which her digitally rendered face is twisted, remoulded and spliced. As both surgical and digital technologies make faces ever easier to transform, the notion of the all-telling face becomes increasingly difficult to sustain. Vis-à-vis the unknown, the question remains of whether the facial imaginary will warp accordingly.

And so, we wonder: will tomorrow’s musicians hide their faces or invent entirely new ones, polyfaciality trumping the mask? If so, what exactly would a ‘face reveal’ reveal if yet another is ready to take its place?

Proctors’ Office investigations into AI plagiarism rise 46% in a year

Ned Remington
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Proctors’ Office investigations into AI plagiarism rise 46% in a year

Oxford University’s investigations into suspected academic misconduct involving artificial intelligence (AI) have risen 46% in a year, Cherwell can reveal, with most investigations in the last three years occurring in the Social Sciences Division. 

Data obtained by Cherwell through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request shows 35 investigations into unauthorised AI use in university assessments in the 2025-2026 academic year, a rise from 24 in  2024-2025. Only one such investigation occurred in 2023-2024, the first recorded since the emergence of large language models (LLMs) and generative AI in 2022.

The data comes from records held by the Proctors’ Office, which is the central University body responsible for handling cases of academic misconduct. Investigations by the Proctors’ Office only involve summative assessments by central university faculties and departments, and do not involve college-administered assessments such as collections. Unauthorised AI use is recorded as plagiarism.

Responding to the figures, a spokesperson for the University told Cherwell: “Oxford takes academic integrity extremely seriously, and the number of recorded academic misconduct cases remains low.” The university added that there were 1.3 such investigations for every 1,000 Oxford students, telling Cherwell that “comparable published data suggests that such offences are relatively rare at Oxford compared to UK universities more widely”. 

Graph Credit: Ned Remington

Social Sciences responsible for majority of cases

Out of 60 investigations into suspected plagiarism involving AI from September 2023 to the end of the last academic year, 31 (52%) were from the Social Sciences subject division. An average of 27% of Oxford students across the same period took social science subjects, and the division is home to the Faculty of Law, the Department of Economics, the Saïd Business School, and the Blatavnik School of Government, among others. 

Another FOI obtained by Cherwell revealed that of 20 completed and ongoing investigations into suspected plagiarism in the Social Sciences division in the 2025-2026 academic year, 19 involved suspected AI use. In the humanities division, six out of ten completed and ongoing plagiarism investigations in the same period involved suspected AI use. An expanded definition of plagiarism in the 2025-2026 Academic Disciplinary Procedure included “use of material generated wholly or in part through use of artificial intelligence” without prior authorisation. Whilst Cherwell has not seen similar data for previous academic years, the high prevalence of AI in suspected plagiarism suggests advancements in artificial intelligence have placed a significant burden on the Proctors’ Office’s academic misconduct procedures.

According to data received through Cherwell’s original FOI, the Department for Continuing Education conducted eleven investigations in the past three academic years, with nine in the Humanities and eight in the Mathematical, Physical, Engineering and Life Sciences (MPLS) division. Only one such investigation occurred in Medical Sciences, which includes Medicine, Psychology, Biomedical Sciences, and Biochemistry, despite the division accounting for an average of 16.7% of the university’s students across the same period. Twelve investigations (20%) were into research-based assessments, whilst the remaining forty-eight (80%) were into non-research-based assessments. 

The prevalence of social sciences reflects broader trends spotted in the misuse of AI in university-level assessment. A 2024 UC Berkeley survey of over 95,000 US university students found that 9% admitted to cheating on exams using AI, with the figure rising to 13% for business and management students and 17% for economics or journalism students.

The Social Sciences Division was contacted for comment. 

Capped exam re-sits most common punishment for AI use

Of the concluded investigations into suspected AI-related academic misconduct from September 2023 to the end of the last academic year, three led to students’ permanent expulsion. No temporary suspensions from the University were issued. 

By far the most common result was a capped re-sit, which was enforced on 28 occasions, where a student was required to resit an examination but with a limit on the grade they could achieve. According to the University’s Academic Disciplinary Procedure 2025-2026, for a “Category 4” instance of “gross plagiarism”, it is not usually possible to receive a grade higher than a pass in a resit examination. On two occasions, students were required to take an uncapped resit, whilst on three occasions students received mark reductions to work without undertaking a resit. 

On 13 occasions, investigations resulted in cases being returned to the examination board with no further action taken. No students were given written warnings in place of other penalties. Three appeals to the results of investigations into academic misconduct involving AI were received over the same time period, with one resulting in a lower penalty being given whilst the other two were dismissed. 

Graph Credit: Ned Remington

Oxford continues use of Turnitin

Once a report of plagiarism is received against a student, evidence is submitted before a Proctors’ Office caseworker decides whether to investigate. Oxford confirmed to Cherwell that reports from the plagiarism detection software Turnitin are still used to decide whether to investigate, under the latest Academic Disciplinary Procedures which came into force on 1st September 2026. 

This is despite several UK Universities, including Newcastle, Westminster, and Southampton, announcing an end to their use of Turnitin over an updated End-User License Agreement (EULA) that could potentially allow Turnitin to use student work to train AI models. In a statement published a week after Oxford’s latest Disciplinary Procedures came into force, Turnitin announced a year-long postponement and re-drafting of the EULA, and confirmed that “no student or staff data has been used to develop generative artificial intelligence (AI) models or large language models (LLM)”. 

Oxford noted that not every report into suspected plagiarism involves use of Turnitin. Under Oxford’s 2025-2026 Disciplinary Procedures, any investigation into suspected plagiarism is presented in a report to the Proctors, before an appropriate penalty is decided, with the student given opportunities throughout to admit wrongdoing or accept an agreed penalty. The University “aims to conclude its consideration of any Report (sic) within 90 calendar days” of the report being made, with 20 of those days usually left for the evaluation of appeals to any penalties imposed. This timeline can prevent students from continuing into more advanced education programmes or graduate jobs that depend on receiving a final degree grade.

The wider picture

The rise in investigations at Oxford into academic misconduct involving AI comes as more UK students report using artificial intelligence in assessments and examinations. The UK’s Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI)’s 2026 Student Generative AI Survey revealed that 12% of students at UK Universities “included AI-generated text directly in a piece of assessed work”, up from 8% in 2025, whilst 15% believe such use of AI is acceptable. The report also revealed that 25% “used AI to generate text, which is then edited before incorporating into assessed work”. The report also found that “being accused of cheating by my institution” was the most commonly given reason that would make a student less likely to use AI for their studies, with 42% of respondents fearing accusations of misconduct. 

The figures also come a year after The Guardian revealed that almost 7,000 instances of cheating using AI had been recorded by UK universities in 2023-2024. This was equivalent to 5.1 cases per 1000 students, at a time when Oxford University investigated only one similar instance for a student body of over 27,000. 

However, the rise to 35 such investigations at Oxford in the last academic year comes after the University’s rollout of access to ChatGPT Edu for all Oxford University students last September, amongst a “range of enterprise-level GenAI tools… with agreements in place so that data is not used to train external AI models.” 

The University spokesperson told Cherwell: “We are committed to helping students use AI safely and responsibly while upholding rigorous academic standards… The University offers a variety of AI training and academic skills support to students. We offer guidance on the safe and responsible use of AI tools, set out clear policy on our expectations on their use, and our AI Competency Centre offers a range of dedicated student workshops. Critical thinking and independent learning remain at the heart of an Oxford education.”

The University also pointed to Oxford’s tutorial system, which it described as “particularly valuable in the age of AI… through regular, small-group teaching and focused academic discussion, students are challenged to explain their ideas, defend their arguments and demonstrate their own understanding”.

Additional reporting from Timothy Blackburn.

Unity is the antidote

Freya Robson
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Unity is the antidote

At a recent march in Oxford against the far right, one speaker’s words really struck a chord with me: “We need unity irrespective of our differences on other issues.” This declaration was all the more poignant given the eclectic mix of political groups represented at the protest, including those campaigning to keep Campsfield Immigration Removal Centre closed, the Oxford Labour Club, and Women Against the Far Right. An unshakeable sense of togetherness bound the groups together, and it was then that the antidote to the mess that we call British politics became clear: unity.

I’m aware that simply throwing out the word ‘unity’ as a quick fix to political turmoil seems ridiculous, as if proudly offering up a singular sandbag when a tsunami comes rolling in. What we don’t need is another ideological proposition, the likes of which can be discussed at length in a tutorial as the world falls apart around us. But unity is so much more than that; it is a rallying cry for anyone who can get behind a common goal. A goal that, in this case, is the protection of our communities from the far-right threat that is slowly but surely seeping in.

For too long, British politics has felt like an unending roundabout of infighting while the world falls apart around us. I am reminded of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s analogy of intellectuals as flies in a jar, endlessly talking over ideological minutiae rather than ever actually getting anywhere. Whilst I recognise the irony of referencing a philosopher when criticising unsatisfying conclusions, this analogy really does seem to resonate.

Following what The Guardian called “the worst unrest seen in the UK for a decade” during the wave of anti-migrant riots in the summer of 2024, it was found that nearly three-quarters of the British public felt worried about right-wing extremism. However, in the two years since this statistic was produced, we have nothing to show for how we have countered these fears. If anything, these concerns have been strengthened and intensified, with groups like Patriot Platform filling the streets to preach about women’s safety, while clad in black balaclavas and chanting “stop the boats”. I’m left wondering where our collective terror of the growing extremist ideologies has disappeared to. Or, rather, where it has been channelled instead.

Whilst it is true that a large proportion of the UK fear the far-right, the recent action that has been taken speaks for itself. The Labour Party has been battling it out with the Conservatives in government in a treacherous game of who can seem the toughest on immigration, attempting to claw back lost voters. As a result, MPs from both parties are discussing immigration in a more hostile way than at almost any other point in the past century, according to a recent study by The Guardian. Meanwhile, despite their consistently anti-far-right rhetoric, the Greens are busy redefining Zionism and dividing their party supporters along the way. And to top it all off, Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey is describing the surge in far-right ideologies and change in UK political opinion as a “historic opportunity to win many more seats”, rather than a threat to our nation’s diverse community. The people might agree on the issue, but finding the solution is a completely different story.

As it turns out, constant bickering about party politics doesn’t actually get us anywhere.

So what does? Saying that we should all work together to counter the rise of the far right is easier said than done – and feels a little too High School Musical-esque. But having political cohesion across parties is really not so far-fetched. We only have to look across the Channel to France to see how cross-party collaboration can be accomplished. In the French political system, elections involve two rounds of voting, with the first round eliminating candidates with the fewest votes. A benefit of this system is that between the first and second rounds of voting, it is common for parties to join forces to compile their votes. For example, in the 2024 legislative elections, between the rounds of voting a broadly left-wing party arose called Le Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP), made up of over six smaller parties hoping to combat the far-right party, Le Rassemblement National (RN). The result was a success: 182 seats for the NFP against 143 for the RN and its allies.

While French politics are clearly not flawless, and this system does mean learning a ridiculous number of acronyms for newly formed parties in every election cycle, it does teach a valuable lesson. Acting as a collective does not mean thinking as a hive mind, nor does it mean having exactly the same views on every issue. But what it does mean is showing unity in the face of opposition, particularly when that opposition threatens to push our fellow citizens out of the country.

And making governmental change is just the beginning. The reality of implementing unity in  political action is something that can be done both day-to-day and in Parliament. Opening up conversations with peers about the far-right without veering into irrelevant discussions, and engaging with people from different political leanings to find common ground; these are the ways in which we become a collective.

So whilst the antidote of unity may not be a quick and easy fix, it can certainly help us in the long term. Our wonderfully diverse community is under threat, and our fears need to be channelled to inspire collective change. Maybe, after all, High School Musical was right  – we truly are all in this together.

A sport inspired by Harry Potter has come into its own

Gavriella Epstein-Lightman
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A sport inspired by Harry Potter has come into its own

It isn’t often that fiction becomes reality. But that is exactly what has happened to Quidditch, now named Quadball. 

The sport originated in the pages of the Harry Potter books in the late 1990s. A few years later, in 2005, two students at Middlebury College, Vermont, decided to transform an imaginary sport into a real one. Devoid of flying broomsticks and magical spells, the students nonetheless created a sport fit for muggles. Since then, it has grown rapidly and is now played in more than 40 countries worldwide, with over 20 teams currently competing in the UK. 

Quidditch arrived at Oxford in 2011. The Oxford University Quidditch Club (OUQC), founded by student Angus Barry, was one of the first of its kind in the UK. One of its earliest competitions was a cuppers match between Worcester and St Edmund’s Hall. In time, the club’s membership grew large enough to accommodate two teams: the Radcliffe Chimeras and the more relaxed second team, the Oxford Quidlings. The Radcliffe Chimeras quickly attained national dominance, winning the first and third British Quadball Cups in 2013 and 2016. Currently the OUQC competes as a single team, the Chimeras, winning the 2025 British Quadball Cup to become the first team to win the tournament three times. 

The first Quadball World Cup was held at Oxford in 2012, with just five teams. The tournament has since grown: the most recent World Cup, held in Belgium last summer, featured 31 teams. The 2027 World Cup is due to be held in London in July. 

The rules of Quadball might appear complex but are, in reality, surprisingly simple. There are seven players per team, each of whom plays with a broomstick (or PVC pipe) between their legs as a handicap. The keeper guards their team’s three hoops; three chasers try to throw a volleyball (or quaffle) through the hoops to score; and two beaters throw bludgers (or dodgeballs) at opponents to immobilise them. Twenty minutes into the game, a referee acting as the snitch, wearing a yellow flag, enters the field, and each team’s seeker must catch it.

Watching Quadball for the first time, I was taken aback by the chaos of the sport: with four balls in play simultaneously, it is akin to watching three different sports at once. To seasoned Quadball players, like current OUQC Captain James Kramer, the chaos is what makes the sport so enthralling. “Once you’ve played for a while, you get a better reading of a game, and the chaos becomes a tactical opportunity,” Kramer tells me. “There’s so much opportunity for tactical depth, exciting plays and innovation.”   

Recently, the sport has distanced itself from Harry Potter. In 2022, the sport’s international governing bodies announced it would change its name from Quidditch to Quadball, citing Rowling’s “anti-trans positions”. This came in response to JK Rowling’s controversial comments about transgender people, but also as part of an effort to establish an identity for the sport independent of its fictional origins. 

“We clearly were Quidditch when the sport was founded, but I do think the sport has moved as far away as it can from that,” Kramer tells me. Whereas a decade ago, 90% of players were Harry Potter fans, now “in the two years I’ve been at the club, I don’t think we’ve had a single person join who is a Harry Potter fan,” Kramer adds. “We have built an identity as Quadball, and we have a very LGBTQ+ inclusive community,” he says. “We’re not going to shy away from our origins, and there’s plenty of people still in the community who were massive Harry Potter fans, but it’s also not who we are today.” 

Kramer tells me that he was initially uneasy about trying out Quadball as a fresher because of its connections to Harry Potter. Its Quidditch origins were a “barrier to entry” rather than what drew him to it in the first place. “It was only when I did see it for what it is as an actual sport with its own community and own identity that I joined,” he says. 

At a recent Quadball training session, I spoke to star performer Thomas Yates, who began playing the sport only last year. As he began his second year at Oxford, he chose to play Quadball because everyone starts at university as a beginner, with the same level of experience. Since then, his rise in Quadball has been dizzyingly fast. At the British Universities Quadball World Cup, he played well in a match defined by muddy, wet conditions, and he was scouted by Team England. He subsequently attended England training sessions and played his first international match over the summer. “It’s quite weird to get a message from a coach saying, ‘Hey, do you want to go and play a sport internationally?’” Yates tells me. “I felt like I can’t really turn that down, can you?”

The OUQC has enjoyed a surfeit of incredible moments, but one match in particular elicits excitement at its mere mention at Quadball training. It was the final of the British University Quadball Cup in 2026, pitting arch-nemeses Oxford against Cambridge. The latter entered the final in imperious form, having bludgeoned past their previous opponents, whereas Oxford had faltered along the way. This was a match defined by delicate skill, fierce tenacity, and tactical nous. After a hesitant start, Cambridge rediscovered their form, inching ahead of Oxford in goals. They had control of the dodgeballs, and momentum was in their favour. There was one snag: Cambridge did not have the yellow flag (or snitch). 

At twenty minutes, the flag runner entered play, confounding seekers on both teams with his unyielding athleticism and nimble speed. As he avoided capture, Cambridge surged ahead on the scoreboard, leaving Oxford staring down defeat. After 23 minutes of fruitless pursuit, Oxford had just three minutes before the game’s time cap would automatically hand Cambridge victory. Yet, in those final precious moments, Oxford’s seeker caught the flag. Two more goals in the last 90 seconds sealed Oxford’s victory. It is no overstatement to call it a nail-biting finish. 

“It is one of the highlights of my playing career,” Kramer says.  “I would say that’s probably the most intense, exciting game I’ve played.” He stresses that this was a very abnormal game – the time cap is typically applicable in just one per cent of games.

A more representative Quadball game was the semi-final against Edinburgh at the same tournament. It was played in terrible conditions – the ground was a mudbath. Oxford was three or four goals behind throughout, and was desperately trying to wrestle its way back into contention. Despair quickly became delight when the Oxford seeker caught the yellow flag, propelling the team to victory. “It was just so dramatically perfect,” Kramer says. 

With a formidable Quadball team and a close-knit community of players, OUQC looks set for another dramatic, exciting, and successful year. In March, the club will host an international development tournament, bringing in teams from Norway, Belgium, Switzerland, and Scotland. 

As I left the Quadball training session on an incredibly cold October afternoon, I felt that there is a magic to the game that owes less to its Harry Potter allusions than to the bonds of community it creates.

A decade worth celebrating: Spiced Roots turns ten

Priya Burrow
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A decade worth celebrating: Spiced Roots turns ten

Ten years ago, a small Caribbean restaurant opened its doors on Cowley Road. This year, Spiced Roots celebrates its tenth anniversary, and Oxford has every reason to join the party. In that decade, it has given the city warm welcomes, packed evenings of music and rum, a home for its Caribbean community, and, not least, an octopus salad I have not stopped thinking about since.

Ask yourself when you last went to a Caribbean restaurant. Now consider when you last went to a French or an Italian one. For most of us, the latter comes far more easily, and that is a shame, because Spiced Roots is one of a kind. There is nothing else quite like it in Oxford, and a meal here makes a joyful case for why Caribbean food should take its place among the cuisines we ordinarily celebrate most.

Its success is no accident. Since opening in 2016, Spiced Roots has taken the overall prize at the Oxinabox Food Awards and become one of the city’s most cherished independent restaurants. Its owner speaks about it with infectious pride. The name honours his heritage, and he wants the restaurant to be a hub for people, as well as a place to share his culture.

What is striking is how little credit he will take for any of it. He sees himself not as the author of his menu, but as the custodian of recipes long shared communally in Trinidad and handed down through his own family, in which his grandmother cooked and his aunt catered. “It’s not innovative,” he insists – rather, it is authentic and cooked the way it is supposed to be. Time spent across the islands explains why the menu celebrates the whole Caribbean, instead of just one corner of it.

The experience starts the moment you arrive. We were welcomed with a hibiscus ginger beer, and every drink that followed matched its quality. The homemade ginger beer was unlike any other I have ever tasted – sweet yet startlingly fresh. Rum lovers are spoiled here too: the bar holds well over 100 sipping rums, and the team runs masterclasses for anyone who suspects, rightly, that rum deserves the reverence we usually save for cognac.

My friend and I shared a Kingfish Steak (£19.50) and the Boneless Curry Goat (£20.50). The Kingfish was extraordinary, with bold, beautifully judged flavours. The Curry Goat, marinated for 48 hours and cooked in goat bone stock with curry leaves, coconut milk, carrots, and potatoes, was hearty and warming in a way that felt almost familial, as though it had been made with care for generations. Both portions were generous, as were the doubles (£6.95): piled with chickpeas cooked with garlic, cumin, and curry leaf, finished with cucumber, tamarind, and hot sauce.

Then came the Grilled Octopus Salad (£8.95), the dish that made the evening. The octopus is steamed, marinated in garlic, coriander, Scotch bonnet, and lemon, then finished on the grill and served over avocado, baby leaves, cucumber, and tomato beneath a bright pineapple chow. It arrived beautifully presented and tasted vividly fresh. It was the best dish of the night, the best I have eaten in Oxford, and genuinely one of the best things I have ever eaten.

Yet the food is only part of the joy. The staff are kind and hospitable, plainly delighted to see you and proud of what they serve, and that warmth is why people keep coming back. Spiced Roots works as well for a single drink as for a full dinner, and the team caters for larger events too. Its calendar is a celebration in itself, with live music, Saturday sip-and-paint evenings, and cocktail-making sessions.

Above all, Spiced Roots is a sanctuary for the wider community, and especially for Caribbean people in Oxford. It is a place to connect with heritage: the owner grew up in the Caribbean, and he wants those in the diaspora to reconnect with their roots. The restaurant works in partnership with the Oxford African and Caribbean Society and, most significantly, is involved in the Cowley Road Carnival, where town and gown come together. We, as a community, have an obligation to support the sanctuaries of Oxford, and few are as worth celebrating as this one.

Ten years in, Spiced Roots is looking firmly ahead: to the carnival, to its work with charities, and to making the restaurant a place where Caribbean history is learned, as well as tasted. Visiting is about far more than trying something new. This is a restaurant whose impeccable food is somehow the least impressive thing about it. It has given Oxford a great deal, and the next ten years promise even more. The argument is settled: Caribbean food belongs at the very top of Oxford’s table, and so does Spiced Roots.

What the UK can learn from threats to Canadian student journalism

Emma Heagney
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What the UK can learn from threats to Canadian student journalism

Now, more than ever, British people turn to social media, rather than traditional broadsheets or broadcasters, to access the news. A 2025 Ofcom survey found that 51% of adults used social media for this purpose, with Meta and Google dominating the list of most-used platforms. However, while studying in Canada this summer, I found this trend was unexpectedly much more complicated in the Great White North than in the UK – hoping for a quick scroll through the main Oxford newspapers on Instagram, my access to The Oxford Blue was blocked. In fact, almost all news sources were blocked, instead yielding the result “People in Canada can’t see this content.”

I quickly learned that the vast majority of online news content in Canada had been blocked by both Meta and Google, due to a controversial piece of legislation passed in 2023: Bill C-18. The Bill, also known as the Online News Act, seeks to regulate these platforms, as the Minister of Justice describes it, by introducing a bargaining framework for news businesses to claim fair compensation “when their news content is made available by dominant digital news intermediaries and generates economic gain”.

It seemed straightforward enough – that is, until Meta and Google responded by imposing a blanket ban on news content, a ban that largely remains today. If you are in Canada, whether a resident or tourist, you cannot, in most cases, view the news on Instagram or Facebook. Similarly, Canadian newspapers found their content removed from search results, news pages, and Google Discover.

A similar incident occurred in Australia in 2021, when the introduction of the News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code led Meta to ban news from its platforms. A week after the news blackout, restrictions were lifted due to a deal struck between Meta, Google, and the Australian government, but the reason for the different outcomes in Australia and Canada may be due to the nature of the legislation – the Australian law did not necessarily designate the exact platforms to which the rule applied, unlike Bill C-18.

In Canada, larger broadcasters with strong funding models survived the impact of Bill C-18, and Google did eventually reach an agreement with the Canadian government. But Université Laval in Quebec found that a large number of young people changed their news consumption habits in response to Bill C-18, mostly by shifting away from Facebook and Google. Some smaller publications – like student newspapers – suffered, remodelled, and had to find alternative tools for growth.

Three years on, I met with student journalists at two of Montreal’s most prestigious universities – Concordia and McGill – to learn just how much impact the Bill has had on their operations. However, enveloped in each interaction was an immense culture shock, and a realisation that North American university systems are vastly different to those in Britain.

I headed to the Concordia University campus on Canada’s Labour Day, expecting an office roughly equivalent to the shared Oxford Student Publications Limited (OSPL) space on Folly Bridge – modest, but functional. Greeted by Tamara, the Creative Director of The Concordian, I was welcomed into a lively office, fit with podcast equipment and working Wi-Fi. The workspace was given to The Concordian team by their university. In fact, the entire street was lined with tall office buildings exclusively used by Concordia student associations. Even more radical was the fact that working for The Concordian was a paid role, offering a huge incentive for involvement. Admittedly, it may not pay the bills, but it was a far cry from British student journalism, where participation is most often completely voluntary.

Sitting in on a pitch meeting, I was struck by the sheer enthusiasm of the team. This is not to say Cherwell is particularly stress-inducing behind the scenes, but it is naturally a side hustle for busy Oxford students, who often balance multiple essays, tutorials, and classes in just one week of a degree which has very little to do with journalism at all. Having a dedicated journalism programme, as at Concordia but not at Oxford, goes a long way to attract competent and passionate student reporters.

This enthusiasm is only fostered by the fundamental optimism that underpins North American culture, in opposition to the UK. Aidan, who spent two terms abroad in London, compares both sides of the Atlantic for me: the UK simply does not have the same funding or attention for its student journalism. The Harvard Crimson, for example, raised $15 million dollars in 2024. The job market for journalism students is also relatively healthier across the pond than back home, with the Canadian Summer Jobs scheme providing businesses with funding to employ young people aged 15 to 30, a programme which Aidan tells me has allowed him to undertake internships with various newspapers across the Canadian provinces. In fact, The Concordian does not print at all in the summer term, precisely because the team hopes that they will be too busy with their internships to publish biweekly. You would be extremely hard-pressed to find such confidence in the UK – media and journalism in particular are, by far, the most competitive sectors for internships at Oxford.

It is this kind of structural support that left The Concordian relatively unscathed in the aftermath of Bill C-18. Their former Instagram account had been blocked by Meta, but thanks to Tamara’s knack for social media, the growth of their new page has been impressive. Nevertheless, the passing of the bill has also meant the introduction of new obstacles to maintaining an online presence. Tamara gives me a whistle-stop tour of Canadian journalism on her phone, showing me the various hoops publications must jump through to avoid being blocked. The Concordian is very careful not to refer to itself as a newspaper on its social media channels, and many regional broadcasters have circumvented the changes by encouraging their reporters to post articles on their personal pages instead.

Despite being blocked, The Concordian is not eligible to negotiate with Meta. Part of the problem, according to City Editor and former Editor-in-Chief Aidan, is that Canada has no official, government-affiliated regulatory body for newspapers. Student publications therefore occupy a grey area – functioning just like ‘real’ newspapers, but not having the same legal expertise or government funding as regional or national outlets. The same is true of the UK’s Online Safety Act, coincidentally passed in the same year as Bill C-18. Journalists are exempt from the “duty of care” imposed on online platforms, but the current criteria for “journalism” do not map neatly onto existing regulatory bodies like IPSO, of which Cherwell is one of the first student-run members.

On the other hand, a lack of institutional support can exacerbate the damage done by Bill C-18. Speaking to the Editor-in-Chief. Mairin and Creative Director, Zoe, of The Tribune at McGill University, I discovered a vastly different situation. The Tribune’s funding model allows them to maintain editorial independence from McGill University – when paying their tuition fees, students contribute a small subscription charge to the various clubs and societies at McGill, including The Tribune. However, it has often been at odds with the central university, a relationship which Mairin and Zoe believe has been problematic in the wake of Bill C-18.

In particular, The Tribune’s political leanings and history of holding McGill accountable have been difficult to reconcile with the university’s own affiliations. Having published stories on the restrictions faced by Palestinian offer holders, the historic use of blackface at McGill, and the lack of diversity among McGill academics, The Tribune often reports stories that may provoke outrage towards the university. While there are many ways to get around the Bill C-18 social media bans, it is also possible for news outlets to be reported to the relevant platform for distributing such news content – an innocuous charge which may seem utterly ridiculous to British journalists, but can be weaponised against Canadian news outlets, especially student-run publications which do not have dedicated legal teams. The Tribune’s editorial board has, time and time again, been subject to such reports, and while the perpetrators cannot be confirmed, it is perhaps a natural conclusion to assume that high-risk stories come with high-risk consequences. Mairin tells me: “We just want to reach students and show them what is really going on at their university, but without a stable social media presence, it is so incredibly difficult to be seen by them.”

Nevertheless, like the hard-working team behind The Concordian, The Tribune has not been discouraged by Bill C-18, perhaps due to the doors that a long-term position on a student newspaper can open. Mairin and Zoe explain to me that internships and society committee positions are seen as absolutely essential at Canadian universities – the expectation is that you commit to them as a path either to “grad school” or a lucrative career. Coasting on the prestige of your university’s name – or the honorific MA (Oxon), in our case  – is simply not enough.

When I first reached out to The Concordian and The Tribune, I anticipated a much more dire response to what I deemed an absurd situation. Student papers would be hit hard, I thought, with social media bans being huge obstacles to obtaining readership and funding. In some ways, they were, as several Canadian publications have had to migrate from one blocked account to another. A sense of caution has certainly become part of the newspapers’ operations, for fear of being reported to Instagram for simply publishing the news.

But the most striking difference I discovered in Canada was not the lack of news available to me. Instead, I had never even considered the sheer amount of structural support offered by the government, universities, and other bodies to these ambitious student journalists, support that instilled hope and protected the papers against Bill C-18. The perseverance of The Concordian and The Tribune in the face of Bill C-18 demonstrates just how impactful institutional support can be, not least for allowing these student journalists to believe that their work is worth fighting for.

New Oxford Windrush generation exhibit opens for Black History Month 

Madison Garrett
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New Oxford Windrush generation exhibit opens for Black History Month 

Amidst recent political tension provoked by the government’s refusal of slavery reparations to the Caribbean, this year Black History Month is celebrated uniquely in Oxford. The inaugural exhibition at the newly opened African Caribbean centre, The Island, honours the thousands of Caribbean constituents the government invited to the UK in post-war efforts to rebuild the country. The exhibition at 16 Park End Street offers an Oxonian perspective on the historical transit of the Windrush generation. 

The path to opening Oxford’s African Caribbean centre has been lengthy, as Euton Daley, a curator and community researcher of the exhibition, shared: “The idea of The Island concept has come about over many years with us as a community not having a place.” Spearheaded by a group of organisers for the last four years, the passion project A Place for We sources and shares the history of the Black community in Oxford. The main objective is not only to share the suffering endured across the Oxford community, but also to immortalise it in an archive, as the organisation aims to map spaces no longer available to the community and to advocate for a permanent cultural centre. 

As The Island launched, it was with the support of an Oxford college that allowed for its historical presence. Owned by Nuffield College, the Park End Street location was previously a Staples. However, having been vacant for over a decade, the stationery store space has been transformed into a realm of Caribbean culture for community use. With a two-and-a-half year lease, the aspiration is that the exhibition’s success will guarantee the permanence of a global cultural centre there, serving as a communal workspace and public forum. 

Now serving as an archive of Caribbean-Oxford history crafted by descendants of the historically oppressed, rather than a story woven by colonial enslavers, the community space provides an opportunity for communal fun and historical engagement. The exhibition serves as an anthropological backdrop of West Indies living, staged as the interior of a 1960s Caribbean home. Throughout the space, informative posters educate viewers about Oxford’s Black history, such as the Windrush generation nurses who served for the NHS in Oxford, staffing local hospitals and GP surgeries. Displayed on the chestnut living room table is a community collection of artefacts, photographs, and stories donated by Windrush-descended families and cultivated by researchers at Oxford Brookes University. Interactive activities are also available, including a passport postbox and map where Caribbean community members can pin their local neighbourhoods across Oxford. “We’ve made it such that people can actually sit here and relax. We’ve got a selection of books that people can read and browse through. Some people even come in here to work during the day. They volunteer [or] work up doing their own admin work. Rather than sit at home on their own or go to a cafe, they come here. We’ve got Wi-Fi so people can sit and work and do things,” Daley adds, highlighting the importance of community building he hopes will stem from the space. 

The first weekend of The Island’s opening launched with a social gathering featuring a talk led by Michael La Rose, the director of New Beacon Books. The North-London-based bookshop is one of England’s first Black publishing houses and specialist bookshops, with longstanding community activism across the Black Parents Movement, Black Youth Movement, and Supplementary Movement, as well as advocating against communally-believed racially-motivated atrocities such as the New Cross Massacre. Alongside the talk, New Beacon Books held a bookstand selling a selection of Caribbean novels. Acknowledging the recent hostility between the government and Caribbean islands regarding the debate surrounding reparations, La Rose said: “Britain is a special place in Europe, and that is because Black people have struggled here in Europe, in Britain, and has changed the society. But it is a constant struggle because we know Prince Charles don’t want to say nothing [sic]. Andy Burnham wants to keep things the same, so we got to have a constant struggle. We got to reinvent ourselves and use the tools we have nowadays to battle for the new battles ahead [sic].” 

In a similar tone, Daley, whose parents are members of the Windrush generation, calls for progress through unity within and beyond the Caribbean diaspora: “If there’s one thing I’d like us to be a bit more united together, we’re all doing lots of different things in our own patch and for different people. But as a group, as one community, we don’t always come together. And that’s hopefully by having a space, I think that will make a big difference. Oxford students should visit to be informed, to help support it, to help advocate for a permanent space and a permanent building for the community.” 

The community space, open to the public free of charge,  featured events including workshops, community talks, and performances until the end of October. It is a collaboration also involving Oxford-based arts and social justice charity Fusion Arts, African community-led group African Caribbean Cultural Heritage Initiative, UK charity Oxfordshire Community Education Group, and theatre and cultural arts collective Unlock the Chains Collective.

“There’s a play in that”: interview with ‘The Gang of Three’ playwright Robert Khan

Saul Grenfell
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“There’s a play in that”: interview with ‘The Gang of Three’ playwright Robert Khan

It’s Budget Day as I sit in the foyer of the Oxford Playhouse. Down in Westminster, Chancellor Healey faces his first major test. But up here, another Chancellor Healey faces his own, as the tour of acclaimed political drama The Gang of Three comes to Oxford. Robert Khan and Tom Salinsky’s play dramatises the political and personal rivalries between Labour heavyweights Roy Jenkins, Denis Healey and Tony Crosland. I sit down with co-writer Robert Khan to discuss political friendship, the enduring appeal of the ‘70s, and what today’s Labour Party might learn from its predecessors.

Khan and Salinsky have been writing together for years. After a successful run of their play Brexit at the Fringe, it transferred to the King’s Head Theatre. A producer asked them to “pitch me some more ideas, boys”, and asked whether they’d read Giles Radice’s Friends and Rivals, the comparative biography of three modernising men of the Labour Party after Harold Wilson’s surprise resignation. Khan had. “There’s a play in that”.

Initially worried about how to make it relevant to a modern audience (“Does anyone under 50 know who these duds are?”), concerns were quickly dispelled. The play’s debates are hardly confined to the 1970s: do the ends justify the means? Can political allies really be friends? And what happens when personal ambition gets in the way of a shared political project?

There are clear parallels between then and today. Khan’s clear that the piece needs to stand on its own, but there’s no denying the resonances: geopolitical issues, price of oil and cost of living crises throughout the 70s. It is 50 years since the IMF crisis. Jenkins’ resignation as Deputy Leader in 1972, at the Shadow Cabinet’s decision to back a referendum on Britain’s entry into the European Economic Community, offers another reminder of how easily political disagreements can become personal divisions.

The Labour leadership election earlier this year carries particular echoes of 1976. I ask what lessons he’d want Burnham to take away if he were in the audience that evening. Khan is quick not to put down the new PM – “It’s not for me to give lessons to our Prime Minister!” – but if there’s one thesis of the play, it’s to avoid infighting. The divisions between Jenkins, Healey and Crosland ultimately prevented any of them from becoming Prime Minister. Callaghan won against all three in 1976. Michael Foot narrowly beat Healey in 1980. Because three politicians “who basically believed the same thing” “couldn’t come together”, none became leader or PM. 18 years of Tory government followed.

Yet the three were formidable figures. Healey championed the term “hinterland” in discussion of politicians, and Crosland drew up the seminal work The Future of Socialism. For Khan, they are “heavyweight figures who we don’t get in politics anymore”. They fought in the war, something he wonders may have given them a particular perspective on political life. 

Could a similar play work in 50 years’ time about Burnham, Healey, and Mahmood? Maybe, Khan says, but they’d need to be tested. Or have strong personalities. Johnson would work, and did for Khan and Salinsky’s Kingmaker. Truss might, if only as a farce.

Staging such big figures seems to present a challenge. How do you capture the essential qualities of such well-known figures? Khan recalls a particularly useful piece of advice when going over the script with Bill Rodgers, who, alongside Jenkins, formed the ‘Gang of Four’ who split from Labour to form the SDP in 1981. “The thing about Roy Jenkins was that he was an Edwardian. He needs to be played as an Edwardian”. 

Other things changed when dramatised. Tony Crosland loses a “so posh” RP accent. Some less palatable comments Healey made in the House likewise aren’t represented. But the one thing that makes the transformation convincing, Khan says, is actors who can completely inhabit the characters.

Though this evening there’s an understudy in the house: co-writer Tom Salinsky steps in for a role. It’s a big night. Denis Healey’s son is also in attendance (decked out with a similarly glorious pair of eyebrows, apparently).

Khan and Salinsky seem to have a far more harmonious relationship than that of their protagonists. They met at Southampton in 1990, but, as Khan jokes, “it only took us twenty years to come up with our first good idea”: Coalition at the Fringe in 2012. Since then, they’ve written plays on Murdoch, Houdini, and the post-Brexit Tories, and even audio dramas for Doctor Who’s Tom Baker and Peter Davison. “We don’t sit together and write it like Galton and Simpson”, Khan tells me. Instead, they draw up character developments together and write scenes by themselves, which the other edits. “It’s like magic fairies have come along and improved it by the morning”.

What’s next for the duo? At the King’s Head next week, they launch Saving Alan Turing. “What hasn’t been done is the last two years of his life”, according to Khan. With the 75th anniversary of Turing’s conviction for gross indecency approaching, the production also promises to revisit a story whose significance extends well beyond its historical setting. Turing’s pioneering work in computing and artificial intelligence gives the play an especially contemporary dimension.

But for now, The Gang of Three is here in Oxford, apt for a play with a connection to the city. All three were contemporaries here – Healey and Jenkins at Balliol, and Crosland at Trinity – with Jenkins and Crosland briefly being lovers, as explored in John Campbell’s 2014 biography. Cherwell itself gets a mention or two (Robert says the actors’ pronunciation had to be corrected). And just as his ambitious real-life politicking never got him the top job, Healey is the object of a gag about an imagined unsuccessful run for Union President. How little some things change.

‘The Gang of Three’ is running at the Oxford Playhouse until 31st October.

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