Wednesday 30th July 2025
Blog Page 361

New day support venue for the homeless and vulnerably-housed opening in Oxford

Anvee Bhutani
-
0
New day support venue for the homeless and vulnerably-housed opening in Oxford

The Oxford Winter Night Shelter will be working with St Clement’s Parish Property to set up a new day support centre to offer respite, hospitality and encouragement to those who are homeless and vulnerably housed.

The new day centre, known as the “Living Room”, will provide support in a small and friendly environment to its guests, specially targeting those who may feel more able to engage in this setting. The Living Room is to be based in the St Clement’s area in a property owned by St Clement’s Parish Property, with its purpose being providing relief to those in need within the local community. The next few months will be spent in refurbishing the venue and finalising the operations and it is hoped that the Living Room will be able to open its doors during the summer 2021.

Through discussions with partner agencies, the Oxford Winter Night Shelter has established that there is a real need to provide support and companionship to members of the community, as the feelings of isolation and loneliness have increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Living Room will operate with high staff to guest ratios in order that the guests can be given the attention that they need to ensure a positive experience. The Oxford Winter Night Shelter will work closely with agencies to obtain referrals to the centre and to provide joint support.

The Oxford Winter Night Shelter was set up three years ago to provide overnight accommodation to the homeless and rough sleepers of Oxford during the winter months. Due to restrictions imposed by the Coronavirus pandemic it has not been able to operate the shelters this winter and rough sleepers are instead being given temporary accommodation under the “Everyone In” initiative. However, when it is possible to do so, the Oxford Winter Night Shelter intends to reopen its doors, whilst continuing the Living Room operation. The Oxford Winter Night Shelter operates through the support of its volunteers, donors and churches across central Oxford and wider afield.

Mary Gurr, Founder and Chair of the Oxford Winter Night Shelter and Chaplain to the Homeless said: “I am delighted the OWNS is able to work in partnership with St Clements and with our partner organisations. It is hoped this new initiative will address issues of loneliness and isolation and provide sanctuary and practical help to some of the most vulnerable and needy people in our community.”

Reverend Rachel Gibson, Chair of St Clements Parish Property further added: “St Clement’s Parish Property Trustees have been delighted to work with OWNS and its other partner churches and organisations since it began. We’re really pleased that we’re now also able to help in setting up the new day centre, which we hope will provide a warm welcome, companionship and support to its guests.”

Image Credit: Motacilla / CC BY-SA 3.0

The Conservatives’ attack on the ECHR: A Long Time Coming

Ciara Garcha
-
0
The Conservatives’ attack on the ECHR: A Long Time Coming

In 1951, the Parliament of the United Kingdom became the first nation to ratify the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The Council of Europe had drafted the document in Strasbourg in 1949, and two years later the UK became the first European country to formally commit itself to the embryonic concept of human rights.

A leaked recording, however of the Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, stating that the UK will not limit itself to striking trade deals with countries that have the ECHR as a minimum standard of human rights has exposed the strain under which the UK’s commitment to the principle European framework for human rights is. Proposals for the UK to withdraw from the ECHR and replace it with a ‘British Bill of Rights’, composed by the government alone, have arisen. But, in a more unstable and uncertain world than ever, it is clear that the UK must remain committed to the ECHR. 

In the recording, leaked to the Huff Post UK and published on 16th March, Raab can be heard advocating for Britain to trade “liberally around the world”. He goes on to add that if Britain should “restrict its (trade deals) to countries with ECHR-level standards of human rights”; the country would not be able to make “many trade deals with the growth markets of the future”. These comments followed a report by The Times that Britain was looking into doing a trade deal with China, to replace trade between the EU and China, worth $709 billion in 2020. Concerns were raised about the UK entering into a new economic partnership with China, given the latter’s poor human rights record, including claims of appalling human rights abuses against the Uighur Muslims and severe limits on the freedom of expression. Shadow Foreign Secretary, Lisa Nandy, declared the comments to be proof that the government was “entirely devoid of a moral compass and riddled with inconsistencies” and Amnesty International UK commented that Raab’s remarks would “send a chill down the spine of embattled human rights activists across the globe”.

Yet, only a matter of days later on 22 March, the UK imposed sanctions on four Chinese officials over the “appalling violations” of human rights against the Uighur people. Rather than talking up a trade deal with China, Raab described the mistreatment of Uighur Muslims as “one of the worst human rights crises of our time” and declared that the world “cannot simply look the other way”. China responded by placing retaliatory sanctions on a selection of British officials – including five Conservative MPs – whom Boris Johnson described, in a tweet condemning the sanctions, as “performing a vital role shining a light on the gross human rights violations being perpetrated against Uyghur Muslims”. 

Within the space of a few days, the government seemed both to undermine the importance of human rights, expressing disinterest in adhering to ECHR standards, and then staunchly defend them, following a tide of other European and western leaders to speak out against the genocide of the Uighur people. The Conservatives’ relationship with human rights seems more difficult to unpick and understand than ever.

In a British context, human rights have emerged in the years since World War Two as a European project. Though first drawn up by the United Nations into the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UNDHR) in 1948, the Council of Europe was assembled in 1949 to draw up a comparable European framework. Created by the Treaty of London and eventually centred in Strasbourg, the Council initially brought ten European states together to work for democracy, human rights and the rule of law. It was separate from the European Coal and Steel Community (founded in 1951) that would later morph into the European Union, and has continued to maintain its own distinct agenda and membership up to the present. 

The principles of the UNDHR agreed in 1948 were translated into a European context with the drafting of the ECHR the following year. The prohibition of torture, the right to liberty and freedom of expression were all included in the new charter. But these were not merely words; these human rights would be enforceable by the European Court of Human Rights. Established in Strasbourg, 1959, Article 19 of the Convention charged the court with ensuring “the observance of the engagements” undertaken by signatories of the ECHR. This distinct legal mechanism has continued to function in ensuring that signatories “secure to everyone within their jurisdiction, the rights and freedoms” set out in the Convention, though the 1998 Human Rights Act made it possible to bring a case involving the ECHR to a UK court, rather than Strasbourg. 

Even whilst it is separate from the EU, the ECHR and the European Court of Human Rights have both fallen victim to the rising tide of anti-European sentiment that culminated in the UK’s vote to leave the EU in 2016 and its eventual exit in January 2020. The ECHR and the very concept of Human Rights have become casualties of Brexit. It was David Cameron who first floated the idea of scrapping the ECHR and replacing it with a ‘British Bill of Rights’ back in 2015 in the same manifesto that contained his pledge to hold a referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU by 2017.

Whilst a ‘British Bill of Rights’ may bolster the importance of human rights within domestic politics, Cameron’s proposals represented an attempt to tap into the Eurosceptic sentiments swelling amongst many in his party and the population. Though a supporter of EU membership and the leader of the ‘Remain’ campaign, perhaps Cameron believed that a symbolic liberation from a different European legal structure would be enough to subdue the angry shouts for Britain to “take back control” by leaving the EU. In any case, ECHR and EU were merged in the creation of a powerful European adversary whom Europhobes could rail against in the bitter and hateful debates leading up to and following the 2016 Referendum.

On the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta in 2015, Cameron vowed to “restore the reputation” of human rights in Britain, as “the place where those ideas were first set out”. Celebrations in Runnymede Surrey, the location of the signing of the iconic English document in 1215, became a platform for Cameron to articulate his desire to repeal the 1998 Human Rights Act and introduce British-specific legislation. The occasion and the terribly distorted legacy of the Magna Carta that Cameron appealed to helped underline the British Bill of Rights as a nationalist project that would protect and reassert a mythical British (or English) legacy of liberty.

Cameron went on to tell The Sun that the Strasbourg court had given human rights a “bad name” and that he would fix the “complete mess” of human rights laws. Comments like this have served to divorce the UK from the ECHR, the very framework it helped to create and of which it was was at the forefront. Attacks on the ECHR were a crude way for the Cameron-led Remain campaign to score points: a measured form of anti-Europeanism, attacking various non-EU European institutions as a sign of their nationalist commitment, to help minimise and divert hatred from the EU to other European ventures. 

Yet, even as the ‘Remain’ campaign failed and the UK voted to leave the EU, the nationalist, anti-European narrative around the ECHR that the Cameron government had carefully cultivated and fed into would go on to take on a life of its own. Anti-European sentiment has not abated since the 2016 vote to leave the EU. The difficulties that successive governments have had over the past five years in extracting the UK from the EU has meant that Euroscepticism has become a powerful force in politics. Cameron exposed the vulnerability of the Human Rights Act and the ECHR in British politics, priming the topic of human rights to be seized on and weaponised by others.

Boris Johnson’s government has leapt on this opportunity, since winning a sizable majority in 2019, by ordering a review of the Human Rights Act and its use in UK courts in December 2020. Director of Amnesty International UK, Kate Allen, expressed fear at the review, arguing: “Tearing up the Human Rights Act would be a giant leap backwards. It would be the single biggest reduction in rights in the history of the UK”.  

In both standing against human rights perpetrated by China and dismissing ECHR standards, the government has put out a highly confusing message on human rights. However, the key variant in their attitude does seem to be the involvement and presence of Europe. Raab’s comments that the UK will not be bound by the standards of human rights set out in the ECHR in a post-Brexit era, seem to be a continuation of the nationalist rhetoric constructed around the EU that has since infused discussion over the ECHR and human rights. However, in coming out against China, the UK seems to be indicating that it still foresees a commitment to human rights in its future; albeit a commitment on its own terms and to a concept that it defines. The proposal of the creation of a ‘British Bill of Rights’, its contents dictated by the government, has once again arisen.

Recent events have shown us the folly of letting the government, and government alone, define the concept of human rights. The Police Crime Sentencing and Courts Bill show this anti-ECHR anti-human rights agenda in action. The bill would criminalise protests that create “disorder” and “serious disruption”, as well as placing severe limitations on the ‘noise levels’ and locations at which demonstrations can be held. Despite the Conservative’s assertions to the contrary, it is in direct violation of Articles 10, protecting freedom of expression, and 11, the right to freedom of association, of the 1998 Human Rights Act.

Grace Bradley, the director of civil liberties group, Liberty, warned: “parts of this Bill will facilitate discrimination and undermine protest, which is the lifeblood of a healthy democracy”. Bradley went on to add that the Bill risks “stifling dissent and making it harder for us to hold the powerful to account”. If the Conservative government, with a sizable parliamentary majority, was given free rein to determine what classified as human rights and what would make up a ‘British Bill of Rights’, it is not hard to believe that similar attacks on our existing rights and freedoms would be made.

Other issues on which the UK government has previously clashed with the European Court of Human Rights would likely be ironed out in any potential ‘British Bill of Rights’. Brexit-style attempts to “take back control” of human rights can be observed in the response to the issue of prisoner rights, an area where the UK takes a fundamentally different view to its European counterparts. The issue flared up in the 2005 European Court of Human Rights case, Hirst vs. United Kingdom, in which the UK was found to have violated the ECHR in denying convicted prisoners, serving a custodial sentence, the right to vote.

The ruling and suggestion that the UK should re-examine the state of prisoner rights was met with fierce resistance with many sections of parliament, marking the beginning of a lengthy and drawn-out confrontation with the European Court of Human Rights and Council of Europe. Significantly, the debate around the ruling largely ranged beyond the actual question at hand: whether prisoners should be enfranchised, and widened to represent, and instead became a question of sovereignty and where power lay.

A motion, passed by parliament in 2011, argued that the UK should flout the court’s judgment on the issue of prisoner enfranchisement. The text of the motion highlighted that such legislative decisions “should be a matter for democratically-elected law makers”, in keeping with the concept of parliamentary sovereignty that dictates parliament should be all-powerful and should not be subordinated to any other body. 

Dominic Raab, then serving as a backbench MP and one of the proposers of the motion, urged for the UK to send a “very clear message back” to the court, that parliament and only parliament would “decide whether prisoners get the right to vote”. Though he assured his parliamentary colleagues that the UK would not be “kicked out of the Council of Europe” for passing a dissenting motion, Raab was clearly employing the rhetoric of taking back control and bolstering parliamentary sovereignty that was synonymous with the debates around the EU referendum. His remarks that “this House will decide… and this House makes the laws of the land” (despite the fact that the UK parliament had used its sovereignty to ratify the Convention in 1951 and to pass the 1998 Human Rights Act) could be applied to numerous conversations held around the UK’s membership of the EU. From fishing to free trade, the sentiment of Parliament and parliament alone being able to “decide” and make “the laws of the land” ring true with much of what was and has been discussed.

Though the idea of a ‘British Bill of Rights’ was never fully fleshed out in the discourse around the 2015 election and 2016 referendum, the very concept of the UK being able to independently define what was and was not acceptable seems to have been, in itself, alluring. Even the epithet ‘British’ marks the Bill, and the rights protected in it out, as a nationalistic attempt at the ‘British exceptionalism’ that often placed the country at odds with the EU. Such a Bill would ‘return’ full symbolic sovereignty to parliament (some have questioned whether it was ever really lost, given that the UK incorporated the ECHR into law in 1998) and clauses that the UK has historically taken issue with would be modified, for example Article 3 of Protocol 1 of the ECHR, requiring “free elections” and “free expression of the freedom of the people” would be qualified. Scrapping the ECHR and starting afresh with a ‘British Bill of Rights’ would embolden the government with both symbolic and literal power.

The strength of the ECHR and the Council of Europe is rooted in the institution’s history and framework. After centuries of European warfare and the devastation of World War Two, which saw some of the worst human rights abuses in modern history, European nations came together in an attempt to forge a better future. In creating an alliance such as the Council of Europe, this better future was staked on continued cooperation between nation-states, binding them into a common organisation to combat the divisive and hateful forces that had led to war and suffering.

And though issue has been taken with the European Court of Human Rights impinging on parliament, the very effectiveness of the ECHR lies in having an institution in place to enforce the high ideas and eloquent words that made up the Convention. The creation of the Court was a continuation of the post-war desire for mutual cooperation and bonds, ensuring that protection of these liberties was a constant. 

In his ‘Message to Europeans’ drawn up at The Hague in May 1948, Swiss politician, Denis de Rougemont appealed to a brighter shared European future. “Europe is threatened, Europe is divided and the greatest danger comes from her divisions”. He went on to articulate the desire for “a Charter of Human Rights…(and) a Court of Justice with adequate sanctions for the implementation of this Charter” in order to create a “united Europe”. If the UK were to create a ‘British Bill of Rights’ and withdraw from the ECHR, the Europe that de Rougemont appealed to, united by a respect for fundamental human rights, would be lost.

Image Credits: Creative Commons – “Dominic Raab attends a remote G7 meeting during Covid-19” by UK Prime Minister is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

No neutrality in another tongue: translation and the ethos of cultural power

Irene Zhang
-
0
No neutrality in another tongue: translation and the ethos of cultural power

Nowadays, most people think of translation as an impartial, disinterested profession of fluent polyglots. Its history shows otherwise. In 1915, the renowned American poet Ezra Pound published Cathay, a short collection of literary translations. Except for one Old English translation, the rest were all taken from Classical Chinese: most were works of Li Bai (‘Rihaku’), the beloved High Tang romantic recited across the Sinosphere to this day. Pound was lauded for this highly unusual work: William Carlos Williams said that “[if] these were original verses, then Pound was the greatest poet of the day.”

Strikingly, Pound did not know any Chinese. He ‘discovered’ Asian poetry through befriending the widow of Ernest Fenollosa, an American Orientalist who left behind a large volume of manuscripts after two decades living in East Asia. In them were draft translations Fenollosa made of Chinese poems (despite limited command of the language). Pound based Cathay almost entirely on Fenollosa’s notes – so moved was he by Li Bai’s verses that he called them “unquestionable poems”.

Li Bai’s mythical greatness aside, are the translations unquestionable as well? Twice filtered through translators with little to no linguistic prowess, Cathay reads like a game of telephone at times. ‘Song of the Bowmen of Shu’, a piece from the Confucian Book of Songs, is misattributed to Qu Yuan (‘Kutsugen’) of the Warring States period. Some words mean different things altogether, while many other lines diverge significantly from Li Bai’s grammatical logic and nuance. However, perhaps fidelity is irrelevant to literary merit. Scholars with much richer knowledge of Chinese and English poetry have argued that despite factual errors, Cathay is great because Pound artfully captured Li Bai’s expressive poetics through a Modernist vocabulary.

Literary translation, however, is not simply an artistic act. Literature, built upon languages charged with specific cultural significance, inherits an inescapable legacy of transnational power structures, imperial encounters, and racialisation. To put away Pound’s fascism is to misread Pound; similarly, to read translations from ‘Oriental’ languages to English, in our neocolonial or postcolonial reality, necessitates understanding of voice and power. As a stand-alone work Cathay certainly has merit, yet Pound’s translation holds disproportionate influence over the English-speaking world’s knowledge of Classical Chinese literature. In a roundabout way, William Carlos Williams was right: translation work uplifted Pound’s own literary reputation and furthered his artistic ambition, probably at the expense of Li Bai. Cathay spotlights the translator rather than the poet; the white Western canon empowers itself by ostensibly taking foreign inspiration, always hungry for the aesthetics of Otherness.

Creative inspiration has no borders, but translation cannot claim neutrality. It can celebrate, admire, critique, and re-evaluate literary works, but if it fashions itself as disinterested representation of the original, the translator shirks cultural and political responsibility. In the same way, publishers make decisions about distributing power when they select translators. Amanda Gorman, the young African American poet who stole the show at Joe Biden’s inauguration, wasn’t offered the choice of a Black translator when her Dutch publisher approached her about translating The Hill We Climb, passing over many capable writers and translators from the Netherlands’ Black community. We can only speculate whether she would have chosen differently had that been an option, but this very choice reveals meaningful nuances in artistic purpose. In her poem Gorman uses ‘we’ to refer to all Americans regardless of race, but her language is steeped in the Black tradition of American letters. From rhyme and pronunciation in spoken word, itself intimately connected to African American Vernacular English, to her scriptural references rooted in liberation theology and the Black church, racialised language freely inhabits the poem’s cultural space. Whiteness, as threat or companion, is acknowledged but never dominant, and it is through the intricacies of language that Gorman reclaims cultural power.

Marieke Lucas Rijneveld, the white Dutch author originally selected to translate Gorman, might have been another Pound to Gorman’s Li Bai: last year, they admitted to having “very bad English”. As the youngest writer ever to win the International Booker Prize, Rijneveld’s literary accomplishments almost certainly swayed the publisher’s decision; like Pound, the translator’s career is lifted higher by translation’s inherent transfer of power. Unsurprisingly, white supremacy is at work in the languages and translation field. A translator of colour, particularly if they share cultural heritage with the original work’s author, would almost certainly not be employed if they confessed to any linguistic limitations at all. Diasporic descendants learning their ancestral languages never receive the same amount of credit as their white counterparts. As the sole translator, Rijneveld would have been able to weld an undeserved amount of power over Gorman’s work, in effect inverting Gorman’s original tenor.

Perhaps I’m being unkind. Amanda Gorman is more than equipped to make her own decisions, and Rijneveld appears to have understood the anger. However, those of us raised in racialised literary traditions have more than enough reason to be suspicious of white cultural interpreters, both within and outside the academy. Rijneveld said in their response poem that “the point is to be able to put yourself / in another’s shoes”, but I would argue that white egos already saturate literary culture: imaginary empathy, in erasing real distance and the role of power, is pretend justice.

Artwork by Zoe Rhoades

Discordant disenchantment: Hyperpop as the pandemic’s soundtrack

Dylan Kaposi
-
0
Discordant disenchantment: Hyperpop as the pandemic’s soundtrack

In 2013 when A.G. Cook founded the record label PC Music, he was on the precipice of popularising an entirely new sound. Musically, this synthetic, bright, and compelling genre has come to embody everything typical of youth culture during the pandemic. Hyperpop has drawn on the sounds of traditional pop music and amplified them drawing mostly on synthetically produced sounds. Though of course A.G. Cook was no clairvoyant, his ability (alongside pioneering artists such as the late SOPHIE) to cultivate a sound so appropriate for the current day is remarkable.

It is hard to define the Hyperpop scene. Existing largely in an ethereal and digital sphere, many critics wrongly view the microgenre as a parody. Hyperpop seemed to have reached the mainstream in 2019 when Spotify honoured its cultural significance by creating a curated Hyperpop playlist. In doing so, the microgenre began to receive more attention.

Despite the genre’s global pull, it remains particularly difficult to characterise the musical space that Hyperpop occupies. Such visual maximalism echoes the music that Hyperpop artists are creating. Its aesthetic, much like its sound, adopts garish, bright, and captivating forms. Charli XCX’s recent music video for her song ‘Claws’ epitomises the genre’s visual output. Sat before a green screen, the low-budget visuals have no relation to Charli’s mesmerising lyrics. You would be forgiven for viewing the song as satire.

Hyperpop is as much an aesthetic as it is a sound. Album covers are often busy, colourful, and meaningless: Bladee’s album 333, released in July 2020, epitomises this. Claire Barrow created the cover art, depicting a fanciful world of creatures ranging from talking frogs to anthropomorphised Broccoli trees. Mechatok’s Defective Holiday OST, the sound-track to Kim Laughton’s video game, provides a hypnotic backing to an equally hypnotic virtual experience. Developed as a piece of art, the game leads the player aimlessly through several eery, life-like scenes. For Laughton, the best way to experience the world was to place it within a digital sphere. Laughton also released the game in May 2020, amidst the height of the first wave of the Coronavirus pandemic. This timing speaks volumes to the meteoric rise of the genre: prior to the Coronavirus pandemic a minority of people existed predominantly online. However, as lockdowns were imposed across the globe, most of us turned to the internet to maintain some semblance of sanity. Within these conditions Hyperpop was able to thrive.

What does the distinct aesthetic of Hyperpop tell us about the cultural space that the genre occupies? The seemingly arcane clutter of Hyperpop’s musical and visual creations reflect a similarly muddled fanbase. The music appeals to a young, international audience and is uniquely ungendered. Reddit’s Hyperpop forum, created in March 2016, now has 3,299 members. It has grown at an increasingly fast rate in recent months. To contextualise that, Reddit’s ‘Hiphopheads’ forum has 2 million members. The forum reflects the diverse fanbase that the genre has been able to accrue. The posts range from memes to fans sharing their amplified versions of pop or hip-hop, to original low-budget productions. Those on the forum are acutely aware of Hyperpop’s digital footprint.

Hyperpop is too young for us to begin to consider its legacy. But we can consider its contribution to date. Though often misunderstood, the microgenre has matured into the perfect musical accompaniment to mood of the Coronavirus crisis. If anyone comes to produce a film about the pandemic, they would do well to call upon A.G. Cook, or perhaps even Mechatok, and ask them to produce the soundtrack.

3 HYPERPOP SOUNDS TO GET A TASTE OF THE MICROGENRE:

1.’Claws’ – Charli XCX
2. ‘Ponyboy’ – SOPHIE
3. ‘stupid horse’ – 100 gecs

Original image: hinnk via Wikimedia Commons (artwork remixed from original)

Happy 2021 Census day

W A Whitten
-
0
Happy 2021 Census day

A few weeks ago, Sunday 21st March to be precise, was Census day.

Though it has been and gone, the Census remains important after this date. The government Census website states, “your answers to the Census questions will help organisations make decisions on planning and funding public services in your area, including transport, education, and healthcare”; in short, the Census is something which allows for things to be done. The Mental Health Foundation uses Census data to produce a heat map of places and people most likely to suffer from mental health issues. This is a good example of how the Census allows those who can help to be in the best position to do so. Each individual Census is essentially a hyped-up survey, nothing more, though that doesn’t mean it isn’t important both functionally and culturally. Indeed, it allows for education, transport, and the emergency services to function better.

A little history. The Roman Census was used to measure a change in the demographics of Rome and allowed for a somewhat meritocratic society. Now I do not suggest that we use our Census in the same way to decide a rigid legal class structure — but this measuring of change over time is still immensely useful. It can show the epochs and points of stagnation of our history as a nation. 1841 saw the first proper Census and since then the UK has changed a lot. I mean, never mind the 1800s, even since the last census in 2011 a lot has changed. Austerity, Brexit and Covid are just a few of the happenings of the last decade; if the impacts of these things are to be measured then the census can offer this. Think of each Census as a point of data on an ever-growing Graph; the more accurate the data and the more standard the points of data, then the more accurate the conclusion which are drawn.

Now those of you who are worried about how your personal information will be used, you can find this all out on the government website linked above. I will not go into all of it here but, just to give you a brief outline of people who are specifically barred from accessing the information, there are: firstly, those who manage taxes and benefits; secondly, anybody who wants to find you or sell you anything; and thirdly, anyone enforcing the coronavirus restrictions or from NHS test and trace. So, that should settle some of the fears you may have over the collection of data and I hope this will help to put your mind at ease when filling in your Census.

The Census is also important for marginalised groups. If you fill in the Census with all this information then you have a voice, you have representation. This is of huge importance culturally because it means that the country is aware of who the country is made up of. Yes, marches, events, and festivals allow for each and all different groups to be seen and are a great sign of our diverse cultures. But they have a weakness in that they can never show the true strength of those groups and their identities because that criticism of the silent majority is always there. The Census does not have that problem. The more people who answer the various questions with the various answers, the clearer and more accurate the picture of our nation would be.

This is so important because no matter who you are, how you identify, what you believe, or who you love, the census will represent you as you are and as you choose to be. Like voting, it is a duty to participate in, but more so, it is just interesting to see the culture of our nation reflected in all of this.

So, all that is left to say is:

Happy 2021 Census day!

Image Credit: Pete via Flickr

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bahrain Grand Prix: a taster for “one hell of a season”

Josh Taylor
-
0
Bahrain Grand Prix: a taster for “one hell of a season”

After the almost religious repetition of platitudes like “pre-season testing isn’t indicative of race-pace” or “teams never reveal their hand until qualifying”, the Bahrain Grand Prix, the first of Formula One’s busy 2021 schedule, finally provided some answers. And what answers they were.

Years of unequalled dominance by Mercedes seemed to be hanging in the balance after a shaky run in pre-season testing. Literally, shaky. Hamilton and Bottas both failed to keep the rears of their cars under control following the new regulations introduced this year by the FiA, aimed at reducing downforce. Red Bull, ever the stoic pessimists, downplayed their advantage in the media running up to last Sunday; behind the scenes, they must have been licking their lips at the opportunity that had presented itself. This is the first time in the hybrid era that any team other than Mercedes look like real contenders for the Constructors Championship.

If the Bahrain Grand Prix is indicative of the races to follow, we are in for a hell of a season.

Max Verstappen qualifying in pole position by a hefty four-tenths of a second, with some floor damage, was the first real, trustworthy indicator that Mercedes’ tyrannical dominance might be wavering. Hamilton and Bottas had to settle for starting in second and third. An exciting podium race was promised by this subversive qualifying result, and I don’t know any F1 fan who wasn’t happy to see the pre-season pace of Red Bull convert itself into actual, true, Mercedes-weren’t-just-sandbagging pace last weekend.

The Grand Prix itself was, undoubtedly, one of the most exciting we have had in the past few years. Couple this with the fact that the exciting parts of it were often occurring at the front of the pack, rather than in the midfield teams (as was the case last season) and it’s no wonder that feverish whispers are stirring up and down the F1 paddock. 2021 may just be the year the hybrid era has been waiting for.

Various strategic shenanigans, undercuts, tyre-wear dramas, and contentious track limits decisions all played their part in the race for first between Verstappen and Hamilton. The last 6 laps of the race were particularly tense. Verstappen, within Hamilton’s DRS range, regularly came within touching distance of an overtake. He did, at one point, manage to edge ahead, but had to go beyond track limits at turn 4 to do so. The FiA ordered him to give the position back, and a twitch of the steering in a later corner meant he fell out of touch with Hamilton for just a brief moment, but a brief moment long enough to grant Mercedes the race win. Bottas, in the meantime, was, boringly and unsurprisingly, miles off Hamilton’s pace. P3 was always where he would finish.

The track limits decision from the FiA is a contentious one and certainly needs clarification before future races. Turn 4 is easier and faster for the drivers if they run wide, and so many of them did exactly that in pre-season testing and free practice. For qualifying purposes, the FiA ruled that drivers could not run wide: any lap time where the driver went too deep in turn 4 would be deleted. Simple and clear.

The race rules, however, are far murkier: drivers can run wide in turn 4 as long as it does not give them a ‘significant advantage’. Obviously, in the case of Verstappen, an overtake completed by running wide is a significant advantage, and you are never allowed to overtake by leaving track limits. The murkiness of this ruling though, comes from the fact that Hamilton ran wide on 29 of the 56 laps. Why would you do this unless it gave you a significant advantage? Presumably, this gave Hamilton a few tenths over the course of the race, a few tenths that ultimately decided whether it was Red Bull or Mercedes on top of the podium. A judge would blush at the wiggle-room one can find in the term ‘significant advantage’ and so the FiA will need to clarify this for future races or risk descending into farce.

In other parts of the field, teams and drivers seemed to either exceed or fall short of expectations; no team had the weekend go fully to plan. McLaren had a solid start to a season where they will look to defend their constructors’ third of last year, with the additions of a Mercedes engine and unique diffuser (I don’t know what it does either, don’t ask, I just know that it’s important) combining to make an incredibly competitive car that, on the right day, might even be up there for podiums and wins. Ferrari surprised everyone with the decency of their pace. Indeed, Sainz had some of the best racing of the day: his three-way battle with Vettel and Alonso was redolent of the wheel-to-wheel drama that occurs in lower formulas where downforce isn’t as important, and the cars are much niftier. Conversely, Aston Martin, the team around which there was the most hype in the off-season (in part due to that erotic green colour scheme which is truly gorgeous) had an atrocious weekend. Vettel finished god knows where after rear-ending Ocon (Alpine) because he was attempting a one-stop strategy (the only team to attempt this) and Lance Stroll finished P10, only picking up 1 point for a team which last year had several podiums.

Without question, though, the race for first was RedBull’s to lose, and they managed to lose it. They weren’t helped by Perez’s difficulties (though he did have a stormer to come from dead last to 5th by the end of the race), but after two years of the second driver not being up to pace, one would have thought they could manage alright with only one car in the mix. There are no excuses: they had the faster car but squandered their own chances. Strategic errors, underestimating the Mercedes pit-strategy (and so choosing not to cover it by pitting early), and driver error, failing to close the gap to Hamilton quickly enough and that twitch of the steering which will no doubt haunt Verstappen’s for weeks to come, are what lost the race.  It was experience and grit that won it for Mercedes. It was the driver, not the car.

For some, this will be a disappointment, a bad omen of the season to come, an indicator that things, contrary to what we all wanted to believe after testing, might be similar to how they have been in the past. That is a little too pessimistic for my taste, not least because Bahrain has historically been a Mercedes stronghold. Looking forward to Imola in a few weeks’ time, the characteristics of the race will be of a decidedly different, more Red Bull shaped, nature.

Even if that weren’t the case, and Imola too were a Mercedes circuit, when was the last time we could say, in dry conditions, that a driver, and not the car or good fortune, won the race? When was the last time Mercedes were out-qualified by nearly half a second, by a damaged car? If this is a taste of the season to come, I cannot think of a more exciting year in recent memory to be a Formula One fan. Red Bull, who have constantly teetered on the edge of being true contenders, finally seem to have uncovered whatever issues were holding them back, while Mercedes have been suitably hindered by the FiA, to make this year truly competitive.

What a time to be alive. It is a shame we have to wait three weeks for the next race.

Image credit: Keisuke Kariya via Flikr

International break: a help or hindrance for Premier League teams and their players?

Caitlin Murray
-
0
International break: a help or hindrance for Premier League teams and their players?

This season’s Premier League fixture list has been jam-packed to say the least. Monday 22nd March 2021 was just the 10th day of the year so far that not one Premier League team played a game. For the millions of avid football fans around the world, like myself, the 2020-2021 season has been an all-you-can-eat buffet of sporting entertainment, with English teams competing in the Premier League, FA Cup, Carabao Cup, Champions League and Europa League. Yet, while this international break has offered football fans an opportunity to take a pause from football and reconnect with the real world, the same cannot be said for the majority of players in England’s Premier League. With FIFA World Cup 2022 qualifiers and international friendlies aplenty, these international stars have been whisked back to their respective home-nations, expected to continue performing without any significant time to rest and recover.

The necessity of international fixtures must be questioned, especially given the current climate within which they are being played. This view has been echoed by a number of Premier League managers, including Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp, with the former warning that this international break could lead to an increase in Covid-19 cases. More than this, a number of managers, such as the newly appointed Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel and Aston Villa’s Dean Smith went as far as to block their players from travelling to ‘red zone’ countries for international duty. The ‘blocking’ of players from travelling to these countries by Premier League managers was so influential that CONMEBOL decided to postpone World Cup qualifiers due to be played this month in South America. 

Given the number of games being played this season in quick succession, international fixtures only add to players’ fatigue. The first Premier League fixture following the break is a 12:30 kick off on Saturday 3rd April which grants some players as little as two days to recover and be ready to return their attention to domestic matches. Given that we are quickly approaching the crunch point of the season, many Premier League teams will rightfully see this international break as a disruption to momentum and will be hoping they can avoid the common post-international break ‘hangover’ that affects even the teams with the largest squads to select from.

However, the issue of fixture congestion is not unique to the Premier League, with fans of the Championship outfit Norwich fans hoping their on-loan star Oliver Skipp will be available for their upcoming fixtures as they continue their push for promotion. The midfielder is currently at the UEFA European Under-21 Championship with England and is expected to play on Wednesday 31st March in an all-important group stage clash with Croatia U-21, less than two days before Norwich’s game against Preston. 

For other teams, this international break could not have come at a better time and will likely be welcomed by managers and players alike. Such is the case for Newcastle who have a number of key players out injured at present, including Allan Saint-Maximin and their top scorer this season, Callum Wilson. With a tough list of fixtures awaiting them in the coming weeks and months, not to mention a battle to stay in the Premier League, Steve Bruce will surely see this break as an opportunity to get his star players two weeks closer to a return. 

This break offers some international team managers an opportunity to witness their players in action before finalising their squads for the upcoming UEFA Euro 2020 championship scheduled for this summer. Equally, many players will be hoping to impress their managers as they target a place in their managers squad for this summer’s tournament. Therefore, while for some players this international break and its associated fixtures may be more of a chore and burden than anything else, for some European players the break is an opportunity to raise their profile by representing their country on an international stage.

Only time will tell whether this international break was successful, or indeed a wise decision at all. What is for sure is that Premier League managers will be keeping a keen eye on these international fixtures, desperate to ensure that their stars return fit and Covid-free ready to complete this long and arduous 2020-2021 season.

Image credit: jarmoluk via Pixabay

Oxford City Council makes plans to pedestrianise the city centre

Matilda Gettins
-
0
Oxford City Council makes plans to pedestrianise the city centre

Oxford City Council is planning multiple initiatives to pedestrianise streets in Oxford, including launching a Zero Emission Zone Pilot (ZEZ Pilot) in Oxford City Centre starting August 2021. Between 7am and 7pm, access to the ZEZ will be subject to a road charge based on the vehicle’s emissions. The maximum charge will be £10 per day while emission-free vehicles will face no charge. 

The ZEZ Pilot will include Cornmarket Street and Queen street (from Waterstones to Westgate), as well as Ship Street, St. Michael’s Street (Location of the Handlebar Cafe and Kitchen), Ship Street and New Inn Hall Street (just after Gloucester Green to Westgate).

Image credit: Oxfordshire County Council

“A 100 per cent discount” will be offered to students with “acute financial hardship” when moving in and out at the start and end of university terms, with requests for exemptions made via colleges. Further reductions are available for residents and businesses in the zone, blue badge workers and care and health workers.

The ZEZ Pilot is part of a wider envisaged Zero Emission Zone, which will be launched in Spring 2022 based on the level of the pilot’s success and public consultation. It is planned to span from the entrance to University Parks to just past the main entrance to Christ Church Meadows, and from just before Oxford train station to Magdalen Bridge.

Oxford City Council has also applied to pedestrianise Broad Street between Magdalen Street East and Turl Street from late June 2021 through to autumn. Councillor Tom Hayes, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Green Transport and Zero Carbon Oxford says that they want to give Broad Street “back to people” and “make more streets safer to walk and cycle”. 

Many Oxford streets have already been temporarily pedestrianised, particularly to provide more space for outdoor seating. From 12 April onwards, hospitality businesses will be allowed to reopen their outdoor seating. To support them, the City Council has recently launched a funding scheme offering £3,250 per business to recoup costs incurred in infrastructure changes. 

Jane Campbell-Howard, owner of Society Café in St Michael’s Street, said that Oxford City Council had been “incredibly supportive” and that they were looking forward to serving coffee and “gently and carefully creating a buzz in St Michael’s Street”.

Image credit: Palickap, distributed under a CC-SA 4.0 License

Oxford City Council responds to concerns raised over Oxford street lighting

Flora Dyson
-
0
Oxford City Council responds to concerns raised over Oxford street lighting

CW: Sexual assault, death 

It Happens Here, an Oxford Student Union group tackling sexual violence, recently released a statement arguing that “street lighting in Oxford is currently very much imperfect, and that areas of Oxford remain poorly lit. Many women feel unsafe walking home after dark, especially in light of recent events, and this anxiety must always be taken seriously.” 

Two of sixteen street lights on Merton Streets and one of four lights on Magpie Lane were found to be out of order. Oxfordshire County Council has said that a “contractor will be attending these and treating them as a priority fault”. Students at Oxford Brookes University have also campaigned for greater lighting in South Park. A petition has been handed to Oxford City Council by members of the university, following a failed 2019 petition. South Park, the site of sexual assault in 2014, instills a “sense of apprehension” in students when they cross the path through it. The petition’s website reports students have “a quickened pace to traverse the path as quickly as possible”.

Oxford City Council told petitioners that there is “already a fully-lit, safe route” near the park, and the County has said they will endeavor “to keep streets that are adopted highways well-lit and streetlights in good repair to contribute and make the streets of Oxford safer. We treated the recent issues in Merton Street and Magpie Lane as priority faults which have now been repaired, and our staff were in touch with the Oxford Student Union to update them about the repairs”.

The UK government has pledged to double safety measures to £45 million as part of an effort to protect women and girls in light of the killing of Sarah Everard. This increases greater funding for street lighting and CCTV. In 2018 a £40.8 million cash boost was granted to Oxfordshire County Council to upgrade over 50,000 LED street lights, deemed more energy-efficient. No mention of increasing street lighting can be found in the Oxfordshire Plan 2050, apart from reducing light pollution.

In response to the update from the Council, It Happens Here released a further statement: “After conversations with both the SU and the council, Oxford County Council who have responsibility for the lights has reassured us that the lights will be repaired within 7 working days and are being prioritised.”

“Lights in the area have recently been inspected by the council this week [and] they were happy that the rest of the lights were working along Merton Street and Oriel Square and that there is functional CCTV coverage across the street. We’d like to thank the County Council for their swift response on this issue.”

The Oxford University Sexual Harassment and Violence Support Service can be reached by emailing [email protected] and offers free support to any student at the University who has been impacted by sexual harassment or violence.

OSARCC is also available as a free support service which is distinct from the University.

It Happens Here can serve as an unofficial and informal point of contact for students with any concerns about the issues discussed in this article.

Image Credit: Dark Dwarf/CC BY-ND 2.0

EU countries resume administering Oxford vaccine with EMA backing

Charlie Hancock
-
0
EU countries resume administering Oxford vaccine with EMA backing

Several European countries – including France, Italy, and Germany – have resumed use of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine after the European Medicines Agency said its benefits “outweigh the risk of side effects”. Portugal, Spain, and the Netherlands resumed over the week beginning on March 22nd. This comes after multiple European countries, along with Thailand and Indonesia, temporarily suspended use of the vaccine after blood clots were reported in a small number of patients who received the vaccine.

As of March 16th, 20 million people in the UK and European Economic Area had received a dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine. Seven patients developed blood clots in multiple vessels, while a further 27 developed cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST), a clot which prevents blood draining from the brain. Nine people died as a result of blood clots after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine.

The EMA concluded that the vaccine was not associated with an increased risk of blood clots. They added they would continue to investigate whether the vaccine was associated with CVST caused by low platelet counts. However, the regulator stressed that the benefits of receiving the vaccine – including preventing death or hospitalisation from COVID-19 – outweighed any small likelihood of developing blood clots.

David Spiegelhalter, Winton Professor of the Public Understanding of Risk at Cambridge University, suggested that cognitive biases may have lead people to connect the vaccine with an increased risk of developing blood clots. “It’s a common human tendency to attribute a causal effect between different events, even when there isn’t one present”, he told The Guardian. Deep vein thromboses (blood clots) occur in 1 in 1000 people every year, with older people at increased risk. According to Professor Spiegelhalter, if 5 million people were vaccinated “we would expect significantly more than 5,000 DVTs a year, or at least 100 every week. So it is not at all surprising that there have been 30 reports”.

The UK Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has also concluded that the “he benefits of the vaccine in preventing COVID-19 far outweigh the risks”. From reviewing available data from GP records and hospital admissions, they found that the evidence did not suggest a link between the vaccine as blood clots. A separate review into a link between the vaccine and the vaccine and five cases of CVST is ongoing. However, since CVST has been reported in “less than 1 in a million people vaccinated so far in the UK” and can also occur naturally, no causal connection with the vaccine has been found.

Chief Executive of the MHRA, Dr June Raine, said: “We continually monitor safety during use of all a vaccines to protect the public, and to ensure the benefits continue to outweigh the risks. Our thorough and careful review, alongside the critical assessment of leading, independent scientists, shows that there is no evidence that that blood clots in veins is occurring more than would be expected in the absence of vaccination, for either vaccine.”

As a precautionary measure, patients whom after receiving their vaccine develop headaches which last for longer than four days or bruising away from the part of the body in which they received their jab are advised to seek medical attention.

Image: Steven Cornfield via unsplash.com

1...360361362...2,516Page 361 of 2,516

Support Student Journalism

Cherwell is Oxford’s oldest independent newspaper, established in 1920. We are entirely student-run. By supporting us, you will contribute to keeping our paper in print and online. Every donation makes a difference.

Donate

Explore

Follow us

More

Oxford Student Publications Limited © 2025 - All Rights Reserved | Privacy Policy

Website by James Ashley