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OPINION: The new foreign policy and international aid ‘super-department’ suggests the Government is choosing politics over people

Molly Simpson
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OPINION: The new foreign policy and international aid ‘super-department’ suggests the Government is choosing politics over people

Two weeks ago, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson, announced the merger of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and the Department for International Development (DfID). This merge will call into existence a ‘super-department’ to be formally established in early September: The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. 

At its best, the move comes at an inopportune time, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic and then as we begin to rebuild the economy in a vulnerable post-lockdown state – it comes with little surprise that the merger was not granted the attention it so desperately deserved. At its worst, this decision is indicative of a severe dereliction of moral and ethical reasoning: prioritising foreign policy interests above the needs of those most vulnerable in the world. 

During the announcement of the merge, the prime minister explained that UK overseas aid has been “treated like a giant cashpoint in the sky, that arrives without any reference to UK interests.” To justify this claim, he added: “We give as much aid to Zambia as we do to Ukraine, though the latter is vital for European security. We give 10 times as much aid to Tanzania as we do to the six countries of the western Balkans, who are acutely vulnerable to Russian meddling.”

Aid funds allocated to Zambia and Ukraine are matched, this much is correct. However, the level of acute poverty between the countries is not. 57.5% of Zambia’s population are considered below the international poverty line of $1.90 per day, in comparison to less than 1% in Ukraine. Similar disparities between the two countries emerge when exploring the demographics of various quality of life indicators, such as ‘access to electricity’, ‘people using basic sanitation services’, and ‘secondary school enrolment’. 

As enshrined in law, the PM has vowed to commit 0.7% of the UK’s Gross National Income (GNI) to aid. It is the distribution of this GNI percentage, however, that we should be concerned about. This new ‘super department’ will almost certainly grant the Foreign Office more jurisdiction over the allocation of aid funding, likely resulting in a higher fund allocation channelled towards countries which align well with the UK’s geopolitical aims. Think Ukraine, Belarus, and even Venezuela. Increasing funds to some regions prompts a decline in funds to others – the victims of which will inevitably be those who need it most. Think Zambia, Malawi, Lesotho – countries that face the most rampant rates of global poverty.

Aligning foreign policy interests with aid assistance is neither a new nor an uncommon phenomenon, but this does not make it the right one. Aid must be apportioned on the basis of necessity first and foremost, not dictated by foreign policy interest. Anything less is a shameful acceptance of an increasingly egocentric British sentimentality that seems to have contaminated our politics since the Brexit agenda infiltrated political conversation. We must move beyond this jingoistic concept that aid assistance need demonstrate a binding ‘quid pro quo’. 

Even more urgently, as we lay in the wake of a pandemic-stricken world, aid assistance in the most vulnerable of regions will be needed now and in the near-future more than ever before. Stephanie Draper, chief executive of international development network Bond, explained: “Scrapping DfID now puts the international response to Covid-19 in jeopardy and, at a time when we need global co-operation, risks a resurgence of the disease both abroad and here in the UK”.

Having been announced by a man who can be said to have a long record of making clear his nationalist impulse, there is little shock factor to the merger. It seems that for Mr Johnson, as is the case for much of his cabinet, alleviating rampant global inequality and poverty alone is simply an insufficient cause. If it does not impact the UK in some favourable way, it is not worth doing. 

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office will stand to epitomise the rise of potent insularity in British politics. It marks more than just the merger of two institutional bodies, but also the merging of UK policy interests to a rapidly waning sense of morality.

Review: Florence Given’s debut book Women Don’t Owe You Pretty

Margot Harvey
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Review: Florence Given’s debut book Women Don’t Owe You Pretty

CW: mentions of sexual assault

“WARNING: CONTAINS EXPLICIT CONTENT (AND A LOAD OF UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTHS)” is a near perfect summary of Florence Given’s debut book. Women Don’t Owe You Pretty is the permanent pep talk you didn’t even know you needed.

The book provides an introduction into Florence’s feminism, a feminism built on a foundation of recognising your privilege, unpicking your internal bias, learning to fall in love with yourself and battling dragons along the way, all on your own. It would only be a slight exaggeration to say that in the course of reading, my heart grew about seven sizes.

Given expresses one sentiment in particular early on and it is a sentiment I quickly came to share – this is the book I wish I could smack my younger self round the head with. The opening chapter, titled ‘Feminism is going to ruin your life (in the best way possible)’, perfectly encapsulates the fear many feel at starting to question the world around them, and worse still, the world within them. As Given quotes in her opening pages: “A comfort zone is a beautiful place, but nothing ever grows there.” Falling in love with feminism came to me long before Florence, and in some ways, there are swings and roundabouts. Over 50% of Netflix’s catalogue bores me beyond belief now, the acute awareness that many female characters could be replaced with a sexy lamp with no consequence to the plot bleeding out the thrill of an extra fight scene. Roughly 75% of my dinnertime conversation is fraught with debate and discussion and the occasional shriek of ‘MISOGYNY!’, and I am 100% sure my name will be swiftly followed by an eye-roll by a solid percentage of the people I have known. My father included.

Yet even for me, parts of Given’s book were uncomfortable to read. And that was bloody wonderful. Women Don’t Owe You Pretty compelled me to consider the amount of internal misogyny breeding within my very own brain. I am acutely aware of some of the bad habits I fostered growing up. It was a regular occurrence for me to find comfort in other women’s ‘flaws’, to fake orgasms, to put the people I fancied on a pedestal (and bulldoze through red flags) and to totally dismiss the fact I have never only fancied one gender. I look back at my younger self and cringe beyond belief. Even now, as ‘actual adulthood’ encroaches, I will catch myself linking women’s sex lives and fashion choices to their worth, evading accountability for my own contributions to this culture and assuming, as I always have, that the only way to win the game of life is to marry a man, have a child or two, and live happily ever after. These are tendencies we’ve been taught quite literally since birth that only upon quiet moments of ‘wait, what?’ prove themselves to be total nonsense. And in Given’s words: “Baby, once those goggles are off there’s no going back.”

The days after finishing the book were spent looking back on life experiences with my jaw on the floor, so flabbergasted and furious that it was almost funny. A male school teacher ridiculing me for dropping a spare tampon on a classroom floor, to the point I denied it was even mine. A female teacher calling me a slut to my face for the crime of kissing my boyfriend in her eyeline, without a second glance at his role in the scandalous affair. Teenage girls explaining to their friends that any kind of sexual encounter is totally unacceptable unless you have shaved your pubic hair that very morning, in order to avoid ‘spikey syndrome’. Teenage boys drawing up an ‘ugly list’ and placing bets on who they could nail, utterly baffled by any suggestion that was actually totally unacceptable. We have been raised on a diet of misogyny and remain blissfully blind to it. Where I grew up, it was mixed into our school dinners and announced daily in our assemblies. Racist and sexist jokes were a commonplace currency. Sexual assault was lunchtime gossip. And frankly, privileged is too polite a way to put it.

These experiences, likely familiar to many, feed into a culture which collectively skates over the oppression of women as well as various other demographics. Given writes eloquently about the prevalence of rape culture, and the male gaze as both a stepping stone and a spine for it. Looking back, I grew up seeing the filming of sexual encounters without consent, the sharing of deeply personal sexual stories without consent and the distribution of deeply private photographs without consent, as just a depressing consequence of the poor decision-making of women. The exploits of young men were laughed off and often lauded, while social detriment was reserved solely for those exploited. Girls were shamed and boys were bolstered, and the victim-blaming was not only evident but explicit. The disturbing stories of sexual assault and rape at the hands of my peers since graduation is something I wish I could feel shocked by. But this ‘slippery slope’ is in reality a natural and inevitable progression, and something someone, anyone, should have stepped up to put a stop to when it began.

I always had a gut feeling that the way my world was working was not right. I knew it didn’t make sense that I felt the need to dumb myself down or laugh at men who weren’t funny or have sex when I didn’t want to. But I didn’t have a word for it. I didn’t understand that immorality could be mainstream. I didn’t know how to reconcile a craving to conform and a desire to just be myself. Feminism was far from taught at school, it was a dirty word, met with bemused eye-rolls from teenagers and teachers alike. I would blag my way through debates and debacles, often spiteful and occasionally spineless, trying to find some kind of balance between being myself and being desperate to fit in. Given offers a much needed reminder that breaking yourself into bite-size chunks can only breed an awfully hollow type of happiness.

Florence Given sells feminism as what it is: freeing and utterly delicious. She affirms and articulates precisely the points it feels so hard to put your finger on sometimes. Her brand of feminism is undoubtedly not the be-all-and-end-all – but it is an excellent place to start. Sitting on the sofa with my sister, switching between drinking it in and discussing, the world made more and more sense to me. I relished in the realisation I can choose to never wear high heels again and the world will not end. I savoured the shock that if someone doesn’t like me because I think combatting social injustice is important, then I am perhaps not the problem there. I snuggled up in the sentiment the that the world will make more and more sense to me the more I learn, and that the phrase ‘be yourself’, a lesson we are taught aged three and then systematically untaught every year after, is actually the ultimate form of self-care.

If you are a veteran in feminist literature, read this book as bath time relaxation (and feel free to roll your eyes at those parts which seem a little simplistic). If you are an entry-level enthusiast, read it and kick-start your understanding of the world around you, scribble in the margins and call your loved ones to tell them all that you’ve learnt. If you think feminism is boring, read it and feel your sense of self come apart at the seams and do the work to sew it back together, jointly a little lighter and a little heavier than you were before. Just read the book. You will be far better for it.

Inaccessible: Why Oxford’s latest state-school statistics shouldn’t be celebrated

Marie-Ann Harvey
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Inaccessible: Why Oxford’s latest state-school statistics shouldn’t be celebrated

“Record numbers of state school pupils offered Oxford places” exclaimed The Guardian in January when the University released its preliminary admissions report for 2020. Headlines were again emblazoned with praise for Oxford and their access achievements when they released their final 2019 admissions statistics stating that 62.3% of offers were for state schools. Whilst this is undoubtedly an improvement on previous years, to champion these figures as a success would be a mistake. Oxford repackages these statistics in an attempt to demonstrate progress, without acknowledging what they really mean for state-school applicants.

Reports on the statistics stated 62.3% of Oxford offers went to state-schooled students. This is not true. The admissions report for state and independent schools only shows UK-domiciled students. State school students did not make up 62.3% of offers or Oxford undergraduate places, they made up 62.3% of UK offers.

In 2019, over 21% of offers went to international students. In reality, what these statistics actually say is from 79% of offers which went to UK applicants, 62% went to state schooled students. Or in simpler terms, 49%, of Oxford offers went to UK state school students. The state-educated 94% of the UK student population are given less than half of Oxford’s offers. This is despite the fact the number of state-school applications has risen dramatically. There were almost 40% more state-school applications in 2019 than there were in 2009 when state school students made up 45% of the student body.

Oxford has not released information on the educational background of international students in its admissions report. Cambridge, however, has released a more comprehensive report. They have been able to separate 179 of their non-UK domiciled offers into state and independent students. Of these 179 offers, just 9 went to state educated students. If we are to assume Oxford international students have similar statistics to Cambridge, it is evident that most of this 21% are not state educated. It is likely Oxford is just replacing a domestic elite with a global one.

That said, let’s put aside for a moment that overall, state school students account for less than half of the Oxford student body, and focus solely on the statistics for UK offer holders. In the UK, privately educated students make up only 6% of school children in the UK. If state schoolers make up 62.3% of Oxford students, then the top 6% of the most privileged students in the country make up almost 40% of UK students at the University. In this statistic, it would be hard to see how we could label Oxford as accessible.

The problem with these reports is that we measure Oxford against itself. The record numbers of students accepted are still proportionally far less than they should be. Being less elitist than it once was doesn’t mean Oxford isn’t still elitist; it is by no means a bastion of progress in the higher education of state comprehensive students. Nor does it mean it is admitting a healthy proportion of said students. These improvements are more about chipping away at a weight on an imbalanced scale rather than levelling it. 

There is also a myth surrounding these statistics that it means 62.3% of offers have gone to ‘the average student’. Most students in the UK are educated in state comprehensive schools. Oxford admission statistics do not separate the state school statistics into comprehensive and grammar distinctions. This is important as grammar schools often have more resources and take in fewer pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds than comprehensive schools. Clumping all state schools into one statistic is an easy way to repackage them to look more progressive than they are. 

Oxford champions state school admission as a sign of access for less privileged students and fails to acknowledge that ‘state school educated’ does not equate to ‘student from average background’. Hills Road, for example, sends more students to Oxford than any other state school. Ofsted noted that Hills Road “is in a prosperous area with low unemployment”. Lee Elliot Major of the Sutton Trust stated “it’s a college that has lots of children of Cambridge dons”. Even from a position where we take the state school admission statistics to be acceptable, we cannot use them as the main indicator of accessibility. 

Oxford is still not doing enough to improve access for underprivileged students. ACORN is the measure of disadvantage Oxford uses in its admissions statistics. Those in category 4 and 5 are considered disadvantaged. According to ACORN, 40% of the UK population fall into one of these two categories. In 2019, Students in these categories made up just 12% of Oxford offers. Not only is there a disproportionately high number of private school students at Oxford, there is a disproportionately low number of students from underprivileged backgrounds. Again, this statistic only uses a percentage of UK-domiciled students, not students as a whole.

These statistics feature only the percentage of offers. In 2018, “Only 76 per cent of Oxford offer holders from socio-economically disadvantaged groups were admitted compared with 86 per cent across the board”. The university fails to account for the disparity in grade achievement between private and state school students. Whilst cynical, it could easily be said the university can hand out offers to disadvantaged students, improving their statistics, whilst knowing they would not have the same support or teaching standard as their peers, and would be less likely to make these grades. 62.3% of offers does not automatically convert into 62.3% of Oxford students.

What is evident is that we shouldn’t be blinded by “record numbers” and “vast improvements” in these statistics. We need to look harder at the reports Oxford throws at the headlines before we congratulate improvements in tackling elitism that just don’t deal with the reality. There is only one clear message we get from the 2020 admissions report: it simply isn’t good enough.

In Conversation with Ken Loach

Raphael Zyss
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In Conversation with Ken Loach

CW: Racism, antisemitism

Kes (1968) – Miner’s Working Men’s Club. Rhythmic close shots of faces, the pub is filled with big smiles and small chat. The protagonist is absent from the scene. Energy is captured by the alternating long and short shots of faces: smiling, singing and slurring. For Billy Casper, the Bildungsroman hero, there is not much hope in life until he decides to raise a kestrel. Throughout the movie, we see Billy, his family and classmates, but never the mining. The pit becomes for us what it is for him; a source of underlying tension, an existential threat.

“Cinema,” says Ken Loach over the phone, “is predictably pretty right wing”. His voice softens, betraying a smirk he’s reserved for the ‘established’ film industry for decades. Loach, the loose cannon of English cinema, creates based on what he deems to be just. He has been a leading figure in socially committed cinema since his early movies, creating personal and intricate dramas which often shed lights on abusive systems. He is concerned with shaping reality and evoking empathy by use of his craft.

In times of pandemic, telephone is the only option. I’m slightly intimidated at first, but he talks slowly, with kindness, like we had all the time in the world. “We’ve got twenty-five minutes”, he tells me. His latest movie, Sorry We Missed You, depicts the heart-breaking ordeal of a family who have fallen victim to the 2008 financial crisis, barely surviving in an “uberised” society. The movie was released in the US recently, and Loach remarks that “not a word has been said about Paul in the latest review”. Paul is Paul Laverty, the screenwriter of his movies. As he is keen to remind me, his work is ultimately collaborative and thus individual recognition is not quite fair. A Loach film relies on casting, writing, and setting just as much as it relies on directing. Nevertheless, the film’s success in ‘the land of the free’, where Kes was once dismissed on the grounds that the Barnsley dialect was “less understandable than Hungarian”, is a testament to the power of his work.

Loach studied law at St. Peters College, Oxford, graduating in the late 1950s, not long after the war. “It was like being a kid in a sweetshop, we had such a beautiful city. For me, a kid from an industrial town in the midlands, it was another world.” Another world with another set of issues. “I first became aware of class in Oxford,” says Loach, remembering his posh classmates as “quite a comic spectacle”. Loach put on so many plays that he “almost got sent down for not attending a single lecture in four terms”. After Oxford he went into acting, then into directing.

Three decades later, Loach’s film Riff-Raff (1991) offered an eloquent display of class-solidarity by depicting a charismatic group of construction workers. Tragedies set in motion by a ruthless system are soon to destroy the love and comradeship built by the protagonists. In one scene, as some workers are chatting, a piece of scaffolding falls, almost killing one of them. The scene is short, but crucial. The audio builds up tension. First, comrades teasing each other, a concert of accents; they talk about dreams and travelling. Then a sharp sound of metal creasing, loud footsteps and deep breaths, he’s saved. But the boss comes in, “Give him a cuppa tea” before ordering everyone back to work. Characters are confronted by a wall: a system they are meant to serve but which values nothing. A drop of sweat is a drop of sweat no matter who sweats it.

There is no doubt about where Ken Loach stands politically. He is on the side of those who sit in the corners of society: the marginalized, the exploited, the forgotten. Loach portrays the tortured, widespread realities that still remain hidden in society through a natural and spontaneous lens. But reality is complex; films can only ever be condensed representations of people’s lives.

Movies are never free from the danger of romanticising social issues, something Loach acknowledges but doesn’t fear. “It begins first with the writing, that’s the bedrock of everything and then with the casting. You have to go back to real life and really experience being with people, listen to them and be part of their world. Then when looking for people to inhabit the films, you think, is there somebody I recognise from all the people I’ve met.”

His cinematographic technique seeks to be sympathetic but not intrusive, “as if you were an observer in the corner of the room, you should imagine the lens represents the eyes of an observer, so that you never get too close”. He remembers the Czech new-wave director Miloš Forman as an important source of inspiration when he started in the sixties, emphasising his “humour and simplicity”. 

The tone of his voice is full of wisdom and confidence. The political ideas he engages with at Labour Conferences are not far removed from the themes he dissects in his films. “The film should be as if you were a sympathetic observer,” he tells me, “you might be there and your heart might really break for someone, but you should allow the audience to feel that, but don’t push them into it with violence.”

When Loach talks about Forman, Kes, and Oxford, the sixties don’t seem so long ago. In his movies, though, the contrast is striking. Society, according to Loach, has become “much harsher”. His films have come to constitute a vibrant record of English social history: the struggles, the failures, and the hopes for change. The optimism of early Loach has almost completely disappeared from his later works: “we didn’t have food banks then, we didn’t have this really harsh way of judging people, poverty was not so much of a crime. The state has a harshness now that was unthinkable when I began.”

He sees in the current Coronavirus crisis an unexpected path to community building but warns that “the ways and expression of our solidarity with one another, that we are noticing now while we are in danger need to be transformed into political change, otherwise it will be back to normal.”

For Loach, the pandemic is a time to prepare for change because injustices are exacerbated now more than ever. “There are lots of analogies with war, we are fighting this and that, and the Dunkirk spirit, but to me it’s like the first world war, when young soldiers were sent over the top of trenches to face certain death from enemy, German bullets, knowing that they would be killed. The phrase at the time was ‘lions led by donkeys’, and I think that’s a good phrase for people working in the NHS now. They are lions led by donkeys, people like Johnson and co.”

In I, Daniel Blake, an old man is doomed when he sees his employment and support allowance denied, unable to face the administrative nightmare ahead of him. In one of the earlier scenes, Daniel is sat carving wood: he used to be a carpenter. On the phone no one is responding, he is calling administrative services, Spring by Vivaldi crackles through the phone line. Someone picks up the phone. It’s a human voice, but no face, no smell, no feelings either. The voice can’t do anything. Sorry. Daniel is powerless.

For Loach, cinema has the power to change reality. “It can leave you with a question,” he explains, “it can leave you with an insight of life that you might not otherwise know. It can describe conflicts and encourage solidarity with the characters. That’s what we try to do in our films.”

At this point, the conversation turned to the Labour Party. Ken Loach was a proud supporter of Jeremy Corbyn during the general election. He believes in political action, and his films are political in nature. Loach is outspoken in his views, showing little support for the current Labour leadership: “I hope to be proven wrong, but the big changes that Corbyn and McDonnell have introduced, and all the changes in the programme and all the ideas I have been mentioning, I don’t see endorsement of that from people like Keir Starmer.”

Loach has previously been criticised for comments he has made about anti-Semitism within the Labour party. Whilst he has acknowledged to the Morning Star that where there is evidence of anti-Semitism in the Labour party those responsible should face “appropriate sanctions”, he has also been critical and sceptical of the allegations the party has faced. In an interview with The Guardian, he described a BBC Panorama investigation into anti-Semitism in the party as “disgusting, because it raised the horror of racism against Jews in the most atrocious propagandistic way, with crude journalism”. In an interview with the BBC at the 2017 Labour Party Conference he was asked “There was a fringe meeting yesterday, which we talked about at the beginning of the show, where there was a discussion about the Holocaust: did it happen or didn’t it… Would you say that is unacceptable?” He responded, “All history is our common heritage to discuss and analyse. The founding of the state of Israel, for example, based on ethnic cleansing is there for us all to discuss”. He has strenuously denied allegations of anti-Semitism and later denounced Holocaust denial in letters to The New York Times and The Guardian. He recently stepped down as a major school competition judge for the anti-racism charity, “Show Racism the Red Card”, following criticism. However, the charity has maintained links with Loach, and he continues to be a member of their “Hall of Fame”.

I asked him what he would tell an admirer who has been saddened by his words. Instead he responded that, “This is the far-right trying to attack me because I supported Palestine and Palestinian rights and I stood against the Israeli attacks on Palestinians”. Loach also said he has been the victim of far-right violent actions as a result of claims that he was anti-Semitic.

However, controversy arose, not only due to the problem of anti-Semitism, but how it was dealt with. Loach says that allegations were overblown and public perception of the issue had been distorted by the media. “I think anti-Semitism should be investigated everywhere, racism should be investigated everywhere, but don’t exaggerate it, that’s all. There was an investigation by academics led by the Glasgow Media Group, and they found that last year, the public perceived 34% of Labour members to have been implicated in anti-Semitism, that’s what people thought.” In contrast, Loach maintains that, “The reality is 0.05. It’s infinitesimal. Why is this not in the public domain?”

When asked whether the party should investigate anti-Semitism, he again challenged the question: “First of all why do you investigate the Labour Party rather than the other parties?” He perceives the scandal as being “politically motivated”, insisting that: “Yes, every allegation of racism, whoever it is against, whether it’s against Muslims, whether it’s against Black people, whether it’s against Jews, every allegation should be taken seriously. Where there is evidence, and it is properly investigated and interrogated, then yes, that person should be sanctioned. No question.”

For him, the root of allegations lies elsewhere: “If you support both Jeremy Corbyn and you are vocal in the support of Palestinians, you will be targeted. That’s what will happen.” When asked whether the Israel-Palestine conflict had fuelled anti-Semitism he replied, “I can’t say that, I haven’t investigated enough”.

When asked whether in some cases anti-Zionism had simply become a more acceptable form of anti-Semitism, he replied, “I think that is a tendency, and I think that’s true”, yet continued that, “I think it would help if Israel obeyed international law. Do you not think?”

He later added: “I think that if you look at the fact, in the Labour Party that I know, the meetings I have been to, the discussions, the many discussions about Palestine, most of which are led by Jewish members and Jewish organisations which are the most vocal in support of Palestinian organisation. In those meetings that I go to, they are not about Jews, because Jews are leading the support of Palestinians, and leading the support against Israel’s politics. I don’t do social media; I am too old for that. You may well see stuff that I don’t see.” I was deeply surprised by his answer. Israeli policy should never serve to justify anti-Semitism or any form of discrimination.

Ken Loach is an immensely socially committed artist. When I hung up the phone, I was shaken by the last segment of our conversation. When thinking about a movie, there is something so far removed and mystical about a director. He is the unspoken, unseen creator. Yet, like any person, his opinions, like his films, are open for us to contest.

Photo credit: Paul Crowther

Charity Commission orders mediation between Christ Church Governing Body and Dean

David Tritsch
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Charity Commission orders mediation between Christ Church Governing Body and Dean

The Charity Commission has ordered the Christ Church Governing Body and Dean to enter into a mediation process without delay. This follows the most recent escalation of a 2017 dispute surrounding the Very Rev Prof Martyn Percy’s pay and his efforts to reform the college’s governance.

In a press release published on June 25th, the Commission voiced its concern “that the very protracted and public dispute between the College’s governing body and its Dean is damaging to the reputation of the charity, and affecting its ability to govern itself.“ 

The Charity Commission regulates registered charities and answers directly to the UK parliament. Its website lists all accounts submitted by charities in England and Wales. It also carries out general monitoring of charities and has powers to conduct statutory as well as regulatory compliance investigations.

A letter to the Commission last month, signed by 41 out of 65 members of the college’s Governing Body, called for the Commission to help remove the Dean from the board of trustees. The Governing Body’s academics stated that Percy had “hampered the day to-day-day operations of the institution” and that he was “not fit to remain a trustee”. One week later, a second letter to the Commission, signed by Percy’s supporters, including senior Church of England figures, stated: “Martyn Percy is a victim of gross injustice and malice. We wish to see this damaging business resolved justly, and with the minimum delay“. 

Helen Stephenson, Charity Commission Chief Executive was quoted in the Commission’s press release: “It is not our job, as charity regulator, to referee disputes. […] In these exceptional circumstances, we have told the parties to the dispute to enter mediation, without which it is difficult to resolve issues in the charity in any reasonable timescale.“

The conflict originally arose in 2017, when Percy complained that his salary was below the median for Oxford heads of college. He was subsequently suspended after a formal complaint by the Governing Body accused him of behaviour of “immoral, scandalous or disgraceful nature”. Under Christ Church’s statutes, this wording is required to justify dismissing a Dean.

According to Percy’s supporters, his efforts to reform the management of the college and revise its pay structures led the Governing Body to suspend the Dean. Sir Andrew Smith, a retired high court judge who was hired by the college to chair an internal tribunal, subsequently dismissed the complaint and ordered Percy’s reinstatement. Percy has since launched an ongoing employment tribunal against the college, claiming he has been bullied and victimised by its Governing Body.

Following the Charity Commission’s press release, Christ Church College published a statement on their website: “The ongoing dispute between Christ Church and the Dean has undoubtedly gone on for far too long. Its impact on Christ Church’s daily life, its staff, students, teaching and research, all risk being affected without the prospect of a resolution. We were therefore delighted to learn at our meeting with the Charity Commission today that it has now agreed to intervene.” The College further states: “We hope that the Dean responds quickly and positively to the Commission’s announcement and we look forward to attending the mediation it is facilitating as soon as possible.“

A university spokesperson told Cherwell: “Issues relating to the current dispute with the Dean, as with any college matter, are the responsibility of Christ Church and its governing body.”

The Commission confirmed it will not comment until the mediation has been completed. It has also asked both sides not to comment publicly or privately whilst the mediation process takes place.

Image credit to Mike Peel.

EU students lose ‘Home’ status from 2021

Maya Misra
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EU students lose ‘Home’ status from 2021

EU, EEA, and Swiss national students will be classified as ‘International’ and will no longer qualify for ‘Home’ fee status and associated loans and funding from Student Finance England, the Minister for Universities has announced. This is effective beginning with the autumn 2021 intake and applies to both undergraduates and postgraduates.

EU students who are currently studying and whose course will end after 2021 will see no change to their fee status.

Nick Hillman, Director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, said: “It is morally and legally difficult to continue charging lower fees to EU citizens than we already charge to people from the rest of the world once Brexit has taken full effect. So today’s decision is not a huge surprise.”

Currently EU students are given the same fee status as UK nationals, which means that for undergraduates tuition fees are capped at $9250 per year. They are eligible for student loans, and if they have lived in the UK for 5 years or more, can also apply for maintenance loans.

With the changes, students beginning a course in 2021 will pay international fees, which range from £25,740 to £36,065 per year, varying by course.

Oxford University says: “The University is bound by the government’s regulations in this area. As such we are only able to charge ‘Home’ fees to those students meeting the government’s eligibility criteria relevant for that academic year.

“It is important to highlight that these changes only impact students who apply for Oxford from the 2021/22 academic year onwards. Current students and those starting in the 2020/21 academic year will pay Home fees for the duration of their courses. Applicants from Ireland that those who have ‘Settled Status’ will also pay Home Fees from 2021/22.  

“While fee levels will change, the University is committed to welcoming and supporting EU students in the long term. The University of Oxford is, and intends to remain, a thriving, cosmopolitan community of scholars and students united in our commitment to education and research. The departure from the EU will not change this; our staff and students from all across the world are as warmly welcome as ever.”

Image credit to Andrew Shiva / Wikipedia / CC BY-SA 4.0

Oxford Botanic Garden reopens

Isabella Colletta
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Oxford Botanic Garden reopens

The University of Oxford Botanic Garden and Arboretum officially reopened to the public on 22nd June following their temporary closure in response to the COVID-19 crisis.

Both sites have introduced a pre-booking system through which visitors can book their time slot in advance to prevent overcrowding and allow for social distancing. However, certain groups are exempt from pre-booking, including: Friends, Annual Pass holders, University of Oxford or Oxford Brookes University students or staff members, registered disabled and carers.

The Garden and Arboretum have also introduced new health and safety measures to ensure the safety of staff and visitors. Hand sanitiser will be available upon entry and exit to the garden, and social distancing markings and signage will be present. Whilst the garden itself will be fully accessible, the shop, toilet facilities, Glasshouses and Herbarium Room will remain closed in the interest of public safety.

Social distancing markings and signage will also be present in the Arboretum, however its toilet facilities and shop will also remain closed. 

The Oxford Botanic Garden is the oldest botanic garden in the UK, and will celebrate its 400th anniversary next year. Last year the site welcomed over 175,000 visitors.

Professor Simon Hiscock, Director of the Botanic Garden and Arboretum, said: “We are thrilled to be able to welcome visitors back to the Botanic Garden and Arboretum.

“Thanks to the hard work of our staff over the last few months, both sites are looking glorious so I would encourage visitors to come to enjoy the experience as we enter summer. Measures are in place to ensure the safety of staff and visitors and we ask that all visitors respect the social distancing guidance.” 

Professor Louise Richardson, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford also commented on the re-opening, saying: “I am delighted to be here to reopen the Botanic Garden. The Garden and Arboretum are two of Oxford’s treasured resources contributing to research, education, conservation and inspiration,  as well as the simple pleasure of walking through the beautiful grounds. It has never been more important to our mental well-being to have a quiet space to relax, to reflect, and to enjoy the positive effects of nature.”

Further information about visiting can be found here.

Image credit to Jonathan Billinger.

Family, Football and Palestine: A Story of Solidarity

Helena Murphy
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Family, Football and Palestine: A Story of Solidarity

In the 1870s, Brother Walfrid, an Irish priest from County Sligo, emigrated to Scotland. It was there that in 1887, at a meeting at St Mary’s Church Hall in East Rose Street in East Glasgow, he founded Celtic Football Club. His intention: to alleviate the poverty of Irish immigrants in the city’s East End parishes. 

Between 1841 and 1851, the Irish population of Scotland had increased by 90%. Roughly a third of these immigrants, nearly entirely catholic, settled in Glasgow, where they came to be treated as second class citizens.  The narrative of blaming and resenting an immigrant community, a narrative that has been bolstered in recent years by Brexit and organisations like Britain First, was as true of Scotland’s Irish immigrant community in the 19th century as it is true of, for example, East European immigrants in Britain today. Brother Walfrid could not have ever suspected what Celtic football club would go on to offer the oppressed Irish community of Glasgow, let alone the persecuted communities all around the world. But in his very first action of setting up a club to alleviate poverty and suffering, the fate of Celtic football club was sealed. This is not just a football club, it is a community recognised for its solidarity, shaped by its history of oppression, and defined by its love of liberty.

Fast forward to Celtic’s first ever football match. It is May 28, 1888, my great grandad is among the crowd. The season ticket that he had bought was passed on to my grandad who in turn passed it on to my uncle. Fast forward again to 1941. My grandad, Joe Murphy, is 22 years old and playing football in a junior league with St Roch’s. By this point, Celtic was already a part of my family’s lifeblood, ingrained into the beating heart of Glasgow’s Irish community. For Joe, Celtic was everything. Well, nearly everything. His children, my Dad and his six siblings all say that there were three things that he cared about: ‘faith, family, and football.’ And not always in that order, so the joke goes.

In 1941, Joe is playing in a junior league in his spare time while working at a local steel factory. Out of the blue, one day he is told to wait at a church near the Celtic stadium. Who should turn up in a taxi but the Celtic manager at the time. With no explanation given and no explanation asked, my grandad jumps into the car. In the taxi, on the way to Celtic Park, the manager turns to Joe and asks if he has his boots. He wants him to play for Celtic that very same day. Not only did Joe not have his boots on him, but for him to play with Celtic would have been illegal, at least in the football world, as he had not been given the all-clear from St Roch’s. His chance to play for his beloved football club had slipped through his fingers.

Celtic and St Roch’s later agreed that at the end of the season Joe could sign with Celtic. But this was a deal that was reached behind closed doors. And no one told my grandad. When the end of the season rolls around, my Grandad signs with another club, Partick Thistle. Celtic was the only team that ever really mattered, and my grandad had missed his second chance. As cruel as such a trick of fate may seem, it did not stop him from attending nearly every single Saturday match for eight decades. Some loves never die.

***

When you are on the outside peering in at the world of football, the whole culture seems to be an incomprehensible cult. The passion and utter devotion exhibited by football fans is second to none. Of course, I have always loved the story of my grandad and his near misses. A story that is recounted every year at family reunions and that was eventually told at his funeral. But truth be told, I have never understood the obsession that my family has for Celtic. I’m not interested in football. I have three brothers who love it with their entire being and I can’t bear to be seen enjoying the same sport as them. Whist my brothers went to countless Celtic games throughout our childhood, I went to my first game at the age of 18. I couldn’t find it in myself to care.

But in August 2015, everything changed. Celtic was to play a match against Hapoel Be’er Sheva, an Israeli football team, in a Champions League qualifier game. And it was a match like none that I have ever seen before. When the players walked out onto the pitch to start the game that day, they walked out to a stadium painted black, green, white, and red with Palestinian flags. The sky fluttering with hundreds and hundreds of the flags held above the heads of fans. It was a beautiful declaration of solidarity, an unequivocal statement that ‘we stand with Palestine,’, and an outcry of support for the BDS movement. But the statement did not go unnoticed. According to UEFA, the Palestinian flag is a political statement and to fly even a single flag at a football match may warrant a fine. In the end, Celtic Football Club had to pay £8,619. But it was this protest that enabled me at last to view the club and its fans for what they really were: the crowning triumph of a community that has been enduring suffering for hundreds of years.

Football fans are among the most stubborn people in the world. Just try and convince any football fan of any club that their favourite team isn’t the absolute best team in the world. Regardless of objective success or ranking, a football fan will defend their club until the day they die. And if football fans are the most stubborn people in the world, then Celtic fans are the most stubborn of football fans. In the wake of the 2015 protest, The Green Brigade, Celtic’s very own Ultra group, launched a campaign to #MatchTheFineForPalestine. The fans raised £176,076. Over twenty times the original fine. All of the money raised was donated to two charities in the West Bank. And just like that, my love for Celtic was born.

For many, the extraordinary show of solidarity with a country, with a community, that most of the fans will never visit seems curious. Celtic fans and Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza have seemingly very little in common. There is a difference in language, a difference in religious demographic, differences in culture and traditions, in geography, in nearly everything. I can think of only one thing that is truly common between Celtic fans with the Palestinian community. Their shared history of oppression. It is the communal experience of being treated as a second-class citizen, of being treated as being less than someone else, of being treated as the feared and hated other. It is a truly powerful thing.

My own prejudices against the sport had blinded me to this whole side of the Celtic football club. One Google search later and I had a heap of examples of Celtic solidarity with Palestine and with other communities fighting for freedom. What happened in 2015 was not an isolated incident of profound empathy; Celtic fans have also supported the oppressed people of South Africa under apartheid, and they have been vocal in their backing of the Catalonian independence movement.

Celtic Park has seen countless banners flown: ‘Refugees welcome, a club founded by immigrants,’ ‘Celtic FC, Born of Famine and Oppression,’ ‘Free Palestine,’ to name but a few. Not only do fans regularly fly Palestinian flags, the club has also organised a charity match between the Celtic fans and a Palestinian team. To do this, the club arranged for a group of Palestinian teenagers to travel outside of the West Bank, a very difficult feat to achieve for most Palestinians.

***

At my first ever Celtic match, on a miserably cold and rainy night, out of the corner of my eye I caught a flash of red amidst the sea of green and white. On a frosty winter’s night, years after the ‘Match the Fine’ campaign and over 3,000 miles away from Palestine, football fans were still flying the Palestinian flag.

A lot of people think that there is no place for politics in football. The Green Brigade, often taking the lead among fans in activist actions, are controversial. Not all of the club’s fans are… well, fans of the ultra-group. Some think that sport should be for sport alone and politics should be left outside the stadium, so as not to interfere with the purity of the game. The thing is, it was never just about football when it comes to Celtic. This is not a typical football club. An entire community has been transformed and defined by the institution of Celtic. From its early days of aiding Irish immigrant families, helping to put food on the table and trying to lift people out of abject poverty, Celtic has stood for more than just football. And now that life has largely improved for the original Irish community, now that the Irish diaspora is spread across the world and Celtic is no longer the small time local club that it once was but an international team with global support (winning the Scottish League a total of 51 times), fans are turning to pass their good fortune on. For the fans who flew flags for Palestine in 2015 and the fans that still do, the liberation of one people is inextricably connected to the liberation of all peoples.

The Christmas Eve before last I was not at home with my family, I was in Bethlehem. A place most Glasgow-based Celtic fans will be unlikely to ever visit; my grandfather himself spent the first 90 years of his living within a 2-mile radius of where he was born. I could not help but feel incredibly proud. I felt proud to be connected to a community of people who were willing to fork money out of their pockets, willing to boldly declare their support for a people and a country that they have no connection to other than that of human empathy which binds us all together. The solidarity of Celtic fans for all oppressed peoples is a rare beauty, and the type of solidarity that this world is often sorely lacking. At a time when our planet is unrecognizable, we would all do well to take a pinch of the Celtic spirit and remember that all we really have is each other. 

Image credit: Phoebe White

Fact and Fiction: Where Should the Boundary Lie?

Rebecca Walker
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Fact and Fiction: Where Should the Boundary Lie?

Novels, TV shows, films. They are a form of art. And in art there is no wrong answer. Yet this becomes more complex for historical fiction. When historical events are brought to life on the page or screen, no longer does the writer have complete freedom of imagination, as the book or film must have some level of truth to it. But how strictly should historical accuracy be maintained to?

In our age of the internet, with news incoming and travelling in the blink of an eye, we are faced with a constant tidal wave of information. This, of course, has its benefits, but it also allows an epidemic-style spread of ‘fake news’. In our world today, fact and fiction become increasingly confused. Even governments buy into the view that facts are for interpretation. In 2017, shortly after Donald Trump became President of the United States, the new administration showed its blasé attitude towards the truth. His press secretary at the time, Sean Spicer, cited figures that were widely denounced as falsehoods. A White House colleague, Kellyanne Conway, defended him by claiming he was merely presenting “alternative facts”. So if there is a hazy line between fact and fiction in our present lives, how are we supposed to approach the past?

Hilary Mantel, acclaimed author of Wolf Hall, has considered this when discussing the life of Thomas Cromwell during his service to Henry VIII, and she questions “facts and alternative facts, truth and verisimilitude, knowledge and information, art and lies: what could be more timely or topical than to discuss where the boundaries lie?”

In the face of such confusion with an abundance of false information, do writers have a duty to ensure the validity of the history they present in their books and films?

Duty is the wrong word here. Good research is essential for a historical novel or production to write a believable piece, not because it is a duty to the readers and audiences. Fact and fiction are not mutually exclusive, but inform one another.

A certain amount of artistic licence will always be needed in writing a story set in the past. History as a discipline is about interpretation. Historians use sources are to build a picture of the past: mirroring what the novelist is also doing. But as Pontius Pilate asked, “What is truth?” And here it is clear there is never an answer. Historical sources themselves can be wildly inaccurate and historians constantly reinterpret history, reaching a huge variety of conclusions about the truth of the past. It is not possible for us to know the one true past.

Historical fiction can fill these gaps in history with imagination. Whilst the writing must be informed by the historical sources to create an authentic narrative, more leeway is needed to create a compelling, character-driven story. Novels, TV shows and films are not history books. If you want pure facts, then historical fiction is not the genre for you. It is first and foremost about entertainment, not instruction. The emphasis should be on bringing characters to life rather than precise facts and figures.

Tudor historian John Guy argues that Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall depicts Anne Boleyn almost as an antagonistic figure, an idea which which “historically is completely untrue” he says, and he argues “this blur between fact and fiction is troubling” for readers often take works of historical fiction at face value and assume their accuracy.

Whilst there may have been some clear historical accuracies, Mantel’s work brought to life long-dead characters and encouraged a popular interest in this period of history. Often history books seem inaccessible, and fiction allows a livelier and more vivid retelling of the past, capturing the attention of audiences who may not otherwise read history at all. Historical fiction provides a greater opening for generating interest.

Stephanie Merritt in the Guardian states that even though she may not have “learned ‘accurate’ history”, she has “acquired a love for the atmosphere of the past through the imagination of a great storyteller.” A love for history can be created by these works of fiction. I read Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, set during the Nigerian civil war between 1967-70. I was shocked to have never heard about this conflict before and made me question the Eurocentric focus we have in our school studies. I wanted to learn more, so went on to do a project about the Nigerian civil war, researching its history through sources. My interest in world history started with a novel.

The historical accuracy of Half of a Yellow Sun can be questioned, for it is told from the perspectives of those supporting the creation of a new nation, Biafra, that would secede from Nigeria. But it is impossible to write anything, even history books, without being influenced by personal bias. Personal bias is part of human nature. To take this away would cut out the heart of the narrative.

“Individual stories take root from the greater story of past events, and are constantly fed by it” argues novelist and online critic Ian Ross. This strikes at the core of the question of historical fiction: accuracy is certainly needed to create an authentic background for the narrative, but the writers have the ability to shape their characters and story around these facts, without being tied to them.

One of the most controversial historical decisions in a film recently was in Mary Queen of Scots, starring Margot Robbie and Saoirse Ronan. There was criticism levelled at the film for having Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots, meet when there is no evidence to suggest they did. However, the film presents their meeting as a secret. No one knew and there were no records of it, which meant there was a possibility it could have taken place. Historical sources do not tell us everything about history so there cannot be a rigidity to approaching it. The scene itself was presented with a dreamlike atmosphere, as if recognising the ambiguity of the facts. Historical accuracies aside, what is clear is that it has created a far-reaching discussion about the history behind the film.

Undeniably, a certain level of accuracy is important. Good research is essential in capturing the authenticity of a period. But historical fiction is more than this: it is a way for people to immerse themselves in the past through the accessible mediums of books, TV and film.

Ultimately, it must be remembered that historical fiction is and always will be what it declares: fiction.

Classic Letdowns: Proust

Lucas Jones
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Classic Letdowns: Proust

Disclaimer – I have not read the full 3000 pages of this story, nor do I intend to. The reasons for this will become abundantly clear.

In Search of Lost Time (A la recherche du temps perdu, to those in the know) is “the major novel of the twentieth century”. This hulking behemoth, our tutors tell us with tears of joy streaming down their faces, is the best that Western literature has to offer. French students are lucky enough to read the introduction for a narrative fiction module in first year, granting us a seductive taste of the novel to whet our appetites and persuade us to read the whole, grotesque thing. I’ll admit it, I was tempted. I’d heard great things. The premise, admittedly, is beautiful; the idea of unlocking unconscious memory is fascinating. There is just one tiny problem: it is unforgivably boring.

Reading the introduction to Proust’s colossal story recalls the final moments before you go under general anaesthesia, both in subject matter and lived experience. The opening lines appear to be a detailed instruction manual for falling asleep which, if obeyed to the letter, will have you out cold by page 4. Don’t worry though, it gets more exciting. After extracting ourselves from the quagmire of Proust’s subconscious, we’re treated to an agonisingly long description of mummy’s failure to kiss him goodnight. Then he eats a cake and it really kicks off.

It doesn’t help that the protagonist is deeply unlikeable. The reader finds himself desperately trying to stay awake as this pitiful child wanders from tantrum to tantrum, heaving with sobs at the thought of leaving the hawthorn bushes behind when he leaves his holiday home. Although this is obviously some extremely clever, obfuscated commentary on the development of personality, it is left to the reader to decide whether to press on into the shifting quicksand of the books in the hopes of answering the most important question raised by the introduction: will he ever stop being an annoying brat?

Perhaps I shouldn’t judge a book by its gruelling opening. Much of the brilliance of the introduction, assure the critics, is exposed by the entirety of the novel. Your reward for picking up on minor characters at the beginning, they explain, is their reappearance hundreds of pages later. That’s it. Characters pop up, then pop up again. Exhilarating. Even though there are ample opportunities to draw the reader into the hefty narrative at the outset, Proust never takes the opportunity to do so. He introduces minor characters who will come to play a critical role in the protagonist’s life without the slightest attempt to make them memorable. It’s as if he purposefully extracted anything that could possibly tempt the reader to continue in order to separate the men from the boys. Only the most persistent, dedicated readers are granted the fleeting ‘euphoria’ of spotting a character again later in the book; those who give up are pathetic worms who get nothing but disappointment and bush tantrums.

Of course, like any book, there are great bits. My favourite part was putting it down and reading something else. It makes a great doorstop, and you could use the full-sized edition to get rid of insects and small mammals in a pinch. In Search of Lost Time is also a tranquiliser on par with Ketamine, only I’m the miserable horse being sedated with it while my infinitely-more-intelligent tutors snort a line to get them ready for a night out in Bridge.

Asked my opinion on the novel in a tutorial, I grit my teeth and force out a “yeah, I thought it was great”, desperate to become part of the inner circle who actually get what Proust is on about. My initiation to that circle, to my horror, won’t come through a magic spell or ritual sacrifice. Unfortunately, my tutor informs me, I actually have to read the entire thing to fully understand it. He sweetens the deal by hinting at what awaits: descriptions of seagulls that change as the day goes past and strong homosexual undercurrents are both promised in abundance. Luckily, Brighton is a stop away on the train, so, safe in the knowledge I can experience both of those things there, I politely decline. I won’t be reading the rest of the novel any time soon. I’m not even sure I could without pinning my eyes open or sitting on a nail. If there’s even the faintest potential for it to get more boring than the introduction, then I’m afraid I’m going to go in search of something else.

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