Thursday 14th August 2025
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Lady Pat. R. Honising – Mumps Mayhem …

Lady Pat R. Honising
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Lady Pat. R. Honising – Mumps Mayhem …

Dear Lady Pat,

I thought I was safe, I thought my parents had set me up to go into the world well loved, rounded and fully vaccinated. Alas, I have recently found out that they may not have fully vaccinated me properly.

At first I just felt a bit ill: headaches, tiredness, loss of appetite. Just your average Oxford week. However a couple of weeks later things took a turn for the worst. I woke up one morning and realised that my cheeks were feeling a bit sore, to my horror when I looked in the mirror, I found that I did indeed look like a chipmunk. My worst fears were confirmed. The plague had reached me. I have mumps. The social shame is at times too much to bear. My room is the only place I feel safe from the judgement of others.

However this is not the sole reason for me writing to you, Lady Pat. Things are indeed worse than this. A couple of days before I realised that I had mumps, those days of distant blissful ignorance of my socially crippling situation, I got with my cherpse. But the question is…. how do I tell this lovely sweet girl about my predicament?

I do not want to be the bearer of bad news that she too may be at risk, yet I fear I must. How do I do it? I really have no idea how to break it to her.

Please help me Lady Pat, you’re my only help!

Alvin (not one of the Chipmunks)

My dear Alvin,

First of all, get well soon. You can’t get mumps through email can you?

Ah well my health and wellness assistant will deal with that. But anyway, mumps. Doesn’t sound pretty. I feel very sorry for you dear, but not much can be done now. First of all you need to get yourself some rest – far, far away from any other humans please. Unless they go to Cambridge because we all know they don’t count. The bonus to hiding away in quarantine is that if you’re lucky, nobody else in college has to see your face!

I understand completely your embarrassment, it always takes a couple of days for my Botox to settle and I feel like… almost a normal person. It’s disgusting. Make the most of the lovely NHS (it’ll be gone by this time next year) and look after yourself – you’ll be right as rain soon.

The real crux of the issue seems to be your ‘cherpse’ however. I have to admit, catching mumps from one of my many lovers is not on my to-do list, but maybe you should see this as an important opportunity to see if she likes you for more than your structured jawbone and hygiene practices. If you get dumped because of the mumps she probably wasn’t the one anyway, to be honest with you.

The thing is though, mumps is highly contagious, and if she didn’t get the MMR vaccine (or even if she did) she might have got it herself. It’s one thing to be the bearer of mumps to your own college, but don’t end up being the reason it gets spread around the whole university. You’ll have to bite the bullet and tell her – before she wakes up with her own chipmunk cheeks and promptly blocks your disease-ridden number.

Don’t worry too much though. Although there is a chance you’ve passed it on, she might also not have got it, or already be immune. In fact, maybe this time next week she’ll be perfectly fine and able to carry out any of the typical Oxford activities like row a boat, head to Bridge, or even write an agony aunt response. Hard as it is, honesty is key darling, and if you don’t tell her she’s bound to find out another way, and unlikely to trust you as much as before.

Being ill is hard, darling. That’s why I pay for private healthcare. You should try it.

Live laugh love,

Lady Pat R. Onising

xoxoxox

Review: Frank Turner’s ‘Love, Ire & Song’

Simone Fraser
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Review: Frank Turner’s ‘Love, Ire & Song’

Frank Turner is an interesting character. Somehow famous enough to play Wembley and the Olympic opening ceremony, but not quite famous enough that you hear him on the radio; he straddles a middle-ground within music. This week however, the 38 year old Hampshire-born musician has proved that his appeal remains enduring, with his 2008 album, Love, Ire & Song officially Brit certified as gold. At nearly twelve years old, why has this album remained such a fan favourite?

Turner has been critiqued in recent years for moving away from his trademark confessional style of music to broader, more political statements. In contrast, Love, Ire & Song is almost uncomfortably personal. We watch Turner bleed out over a crashing guitar line in ‘Imperfect Tense’: “Naked and wretched and retching on a hotel bathroom floor/ somewhere in the City./ Three days not eating, not sleeping, not feeling good anymore/ drenched in sweat and self-pity”. The desperation in Turner’s voice is palpable, and even though it’s been many years since I first discovered the song it never fails to hit me: incredibly personal yet still remaining relatable.

This is a theme that continues throughout the album, notably in ‘Better Half’: another anthem that manages to capture Turner’s disgust in his inability to support “the lover who left me alone”, berating himself with the fact that “there must be a better half somewhere out there” for her, but he is unable to be the person she needs.

The album is not simply a list of Turner’s flaws by any means. Still with his trademark honesty, he jokes his way through ‘Reasons not to be an Idiot’, reminding us that we’re all the same: “you’re not as messed up as you think you are/ your self-absorption makes you messier.” This was a message I needed to hear when I first listened to the song as a melodramatic fifteen year old. Encouraging the reader to “get up, and get down, and get outside”, I frequently used it as a way to hype myself up when I’ve felt particularly bad or nervous about something, and it continues to be a personal favourite for its joy and celebration of everyday happiness.

Other songs move from self-loathing to resignation. Constantly on tour, Turner often talks about his inability to stay in one place, and thus put down any real roots. In ‘Jet Lag’, this is captured perfectly – a slow and melancholy piano melody is the backdrop to simple lyrics that capture his mood well. He’s not devastated, he’s not angry, he’s just okay, which he reminds us is “not the same as being happy”.

That’s one of the remarkable things about Turner’s music, which particularly applies to Love, Ire & Song. Although he has the occasional true love or heartbreak song, his power lies in the ability to translate into lyrics the mundane prickles of emotion that we all go through on a daily basis: the guilt that you’re too busy to spend quality time with your friends; the shame of realising you’re using sex as a coping mechanism; and the mixed emotions of realising you’re not the person your parents hoped you would be, but you’re happier for it.

One of the biggest reasons why I love Frank Turner’s music is because it has been able to uniquely translate emotions that I hadn’t even quite processed myself at the time of listening. As clichéd as it is, as a teenager growing up with lots of feelings, having them realised by someone else was reassuring. Although this is often in relation to the more simple emotions, it also extends to mental health. Turner has been and continues to be candid about his experiences with depression, as well as drug and alcohol addiction; helping to break down fears and stigma alike.

An honourable mention must be given to the first track , ’I Knew Prufrock Before He Got Famous’. Turner raises a toast to the ‘B-list’ careers of him and his friends: name dropping Dave Danger of The Holloways, and folk singer Jay ‘Beans on Toast’ McAllister. Despite it being for the most part a light-hearted song, he still came out with a line that struck me at the time, and continues to inspire my (somewhat impulsive) attitude to life: “Life is about love, last minutes and lost evenings,/About fire in our bellies and furtive little feelings, /And the aching amplitudes that set our needles all a-flickering, /And help us with remembering that the only thing that’s left to do is live.”

The most touching song of all lies three spots from the end of the album: ‘Long Live the Queen.’ A touching tribute to his friend Lex, who had recently passed away from cancer, Turner recalls a conversation they had before her death, where she told him: “now you’ll have to dance for the two of us”. Musically, it’s one of the most joyful songs on the album: rather than expressing grief, Turner celebrates Lex’s legacy in a way that captures the theme of the album, reminding the listener to embrace life and everything that it throws at you.

BREAKING: Climate protesters end occupation of St John’s

Rachel Cordery
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BREAKING: Climate protesters end occupation of St John’s

Climate protesters, camped out on St John’s front quad, have announced the end of their protest.

Direct Action for Divestment (DAD), a large group of students from across Oxford University, set up camp last Wednesday in protest of St John’s College’s investments in fossil fuel companies.

St John’s currently invests £8.1 million in Shell and BP, two of the corporations most guilty for worldwide ecological destruction.

After five days of action, DAD announced they would be leaving St John’s via Facebook. Their exit statement read: “Vulnerable communities across the Global South have long been suffering the effects of climate change. We cannot accept a system in which those with wealth and privilege – like St. John’s College – continue to profit off this. As a result, we will continue to hold the College, and the University as a whole, to account.

“During our occupation, the College disabled the keys of St. John’s students seen to be assisting the protest. They have prevented us from bringing food, hot water, and blankets in from outside, and even responded to our demands with trivialising suggestions that the College switch off the central heating.

“In contrast to the antagonism from College administration, Oxford has united in a show of heartening support and solidarity. Students inside the College have brought food and hot tea; tutors have made our case to senior College officials; alumni have spoken out in support of our cause. We would like to express our deepest gratitude, and crucially to thank college staff for their understanding. This gives us confidence that the discussions around divestment will continue after we leave, on every level of college life.

“We are also delighted to have received many expressions of interest from students at other colleges, who want to see similar escalations elsewhere. Anyone interested in lobbying the University and colleges on their investment practices should contact Oxford Climate Justice Campaign, who has been working for many years to encourage intersectional system change in Oxford.

“Yesterday, our representatives met with President Maggie Snowling to discuss our demands. The President acknowledged that our occupation had brought divestment to the top of the agenda, and we are pleased to say that she has promised to make some small steps in the right direction. She agreed to increase student representation in their Ethical Investments Working Group, and will no longer invite BP and Shell employees to advise on College investment practices. Finally, she said that the working group plans to put forth a recommendation to the Governing Body by the end of the year – two years after St. John’s students first raised divestment. The College has already failed in its duties to its members. If the recommendation is not a strong commitment to divest, the College will have failed in its duties to the world.

“In our five day occupation, we brought divestment to the forefront of people’s minds. We have reignited a conversation not only within St. John’s, but across the University. We will continue to hold the College accountable throughout the divestment process. We are glad that the College has recognised the importance of this issue. We hope that the College will continue to make this a priority. If they do not, we will be back.”

More to follow.

Nigerian English words added to Oxford English Dictionary

Rachel Cordery
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Nigerian English words added to Oxford English Dictionary

The most recent linguistic update of the Oxford English Dictionary has expanded their record to include a number of Nigerian English words.

According to the OED: “The majority of these new additions are either borrowings from Nigerian languages, or unique Nigerian coinages that have only begun to be used in English in the second half of the twentieth century, mostly in the 1970s and 1980s.”

Some of the words and usages added include: ‘to put to bed, in put, v.’, ‘chop-chop, n./2’, ‘buka, n.’.

The OED commented on their decision, saying: “By taking ownership of English and using it as their own medium of expression, Nigerians have made, and are continuing to make, a unique and distinctive contribution to English as a global language. We highlight their contributions in this month’s update of the Oxford English Dictionary, as a number of Nigerian English words make it into the dictionary for the first time.”

Speaking exclusively to Cherwell, a spokesperson for the OED said: “The OED has added Nigerian English words as part of a wider effort to broaden our coverage of World Englishes in the dictionary. We believe that including words from all world varieties of English enables the OED to tell a more complete story of the language. The sheer number and variety of these words reflect not only the global reach of English, but also the unique culture, history, and identity of the various communities all over the world that use English in everyday communication.”

“The OED acknowledges that with the current status of English as a world language, no longer is British English to be regarded as the dominant form of English – it is only one of the many individual varieties of the language that share a common lexical core but develop their own unique lexicons. Each World English is a living, changing variety, whose distinct vocabulary encompasses all sorts of lexical innovations, from borrowings from local languages to new abbreviations, blends, and compounds. They give a flavour of what its speakers have contributed to the development of the English word store.”

“In recent years, the OED has published particularly large batches of new entries for English varieties spoken in Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, and now, Nigeria. For each project, our inhouse research has been enhanced by expertise from linguists in each region. We will continue to work on these varieties, as well as on other Englishes in West Africa, East Africa, and the Caribbean. We are also working on a targeted survey for our core academic audience, in order to better understand the specific requirements of our users with regard to our World English coverage.”

Physics Department hosts Stargazing Night

William Atkinson
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Physics Department hosts Stargazing Night

On 25th January, the University Physics Department held a special stargazing night at the Denys Wilkinson Building on Keble Road. Running from 2 PM to 9 PM, it was a chance for over 1,000 people of all ages to see both inside the Physics Department, and out at the stars. 

Running annually since 2012, the event acts as an open day for the Physics Department and provides opportunities for families to learn about space and the night sky. Activities included a series of child-friendly talks, arts and crafts stalls and a new virtual reality experience designed to bring users closer to the Universe. 

Lectures ran throughout the day. The topics embraced were suitably eclectic, ranging from “Dark Matter and His Dark Materials”, via “How do we know the Milky Way galaxy is a spiral?” to “Giant Galaxy Burps”. Talks were given by University lectures and researchers, including Dr Becky Smethurst, who also runs the YouTube channel Dr. Becky designed to bring astrophysics to a wider audience. 

The event also featured a diverse array of ways of observing space. Attendees were provided with the opportunity to use the Roswitha Wetton telescope, located on the Denys Wilkinson Building’s roof, in order to find neutral hydrogen in the Milky Way. Later, tours of the night sky were hosted in the planetarium for visitors. For seasoned amateur star-gazers or those who wanted to give it a go for the first time, hints and tips about viewing the universe were given in workshops from local experts from Oxfordshire’s amateur astronomy groups, as well as from members of the Department. 

Aside from observation, plenty of opportunities were provided to explore the department and its work. Astronomers were on hand to answer questions on space in the “Science Café”. Games were hosted in the lecture theatre, and a series of astronomy-themed craft activities were run. These “Astrocrafts” were newly themed this year around the theme of upcycling and the transformation of old cereal packets and CDs into spectrographs. 

The University Physics Department was unavailable to comment on the night’s success, but with now nine years under its belt, it’s likely the event will continue in future. 

Research England funds Oxford Creative Destruction Lab

Catherine Dema
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Research England funds Oxford Creative Destruction Lab

The Creative Destructive Lab (CDL), a new business centre which opened in the Saïd Business School, will be funded by Research England and promises to create 4,000 UK jobs and raise £1 billion in private finance. Oxford CDL will support hundreds of science-based early-stage startups, with a specific focus on artificial intelligence, healthy ageing, alternative energy, and quantum technologies.

According to the CDL website, the program “is an objectives-based program for massively scalable, seed-stage science- and technology-based companies.” 

Research England, a part of UK Research and Innovation, claims the project will support 225 UK businesses and aims to raise £225 million in capital in addition to generating £900 million in equity value. 

“The scheme will help transform some of the UK’s pioneering research ideas into viable products, improving the UK’s entrepreneurial and finance ecosystem, and build on international best practice,” states Research England.

Oxford CDL aims to bring the best international practices for creating and supporting startups to the UK. The program brings a Silicon-valley mindset and approach to funding and encouraging startups. The startups are paired with successful mentors, including entrepreneurs, investors, scientists and business professors – including Google’s former Chief Financial Officer, Patrick Pichette; Elizabeth Caley, Chief of Staff at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative; and Shivon Zilis, Project Director at Elon Musk’s Neuralink.

Chris Skidmore, UK Science and Innovation minister, said the Research England investment “draws in Silicon Valley expertise and business knowledge to inspire the next generation of UK entrepreneurs to create the technologies of the future.”

Skidmore said, “This innovation Hub – the first in Europe – will help our start-ups get the support they need to take their ideas to market and scale up their businesses.”

Referencing the success of the postgraduates who created Google, Skidmore said he hoped CDL would foster the same ingenuity and success among world-class UK researchers.

Of the collaboration with Research England, Patrick Pichette of Inovia Capital, Google’s former Chief Financial Officer, and Founding Partner of CDL-Oxford, said, “The CDL is a fantastic transition point for UK scientists, academics and developers coming out of the university setting. Productising research can be hard — so it’s really rewarding to help with mentoring and funding their first steps in the business world. Research England will be a great partner in helping build a new generation of tech leadership here in England.”

According to a recent report published by Research England, the UK is a world leader in research commercialization. Research England states that Oxford CDL will build upon this success through cooperation between university researchers and commercial startups.

The Oxford location for CDL allows the centre to be in close proximity to innovation hubs in London. Research England said “The University of Oxford is an important leader and convenor for CDL in the UK given its international brand necessary and capacity attract high quality North American partners, and it has developed its own highly dynamic entrepreneurial ecosystem. The university has formed more spin-out companies than any other UK university and now has over 160.”

Oxford CDL is the first European location for the lab. CDL has also run successful programs in the United States and Canada. Since its establishment in 2012, companies that have participated in CDL programs have created over £2 billion in equity value. Such companies include North (Waterloo), Atomwise (San Francisco), Deep Genomics (Toronto), Automat (Montreal), Kyndi (Palo Alto) and Heuritech (Paris).

The first cohort of businesses began the program in September 2019 and a second cohort session took place on January 24.

Council strengthens focus on private housing

Joe Stonor
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Council strengthens focus on private housing

Oxford City Council is planning “the largest change to rules around private rented accommodation in Oxford for a decade,” as it seeks to improve safety standards across the sector.

Subject to government approval and a public consultation in the summer, the Council aims to expand its current licensing scheme to incorporate all 20,000 rented homes in Oxford in order to maintain a minimum standard. If all goes to plan, the Council hope that the scheme will be enacted by the end of the year or the start of 2021.

Landlords will have to provide proof that their properties have the legally-required gas, electrical and fire safety certificates. The license will also seek to establish that every landlord is a “fit and proper” person, namely that they have not committed any housing-related offences or crimes involving fraud, violence, drugs and certain sexual offences.

Last week, the council received £71,000 from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to fund the implementation of the plans. The money will go towards the development of an algorithm that will be used to identify unlicensed properties, as well as a solicitor who will work for 3 months on a guide for enforcement officers to successfully retrieve money from fine-dodging landlords.

The proposal comes after inspections carried out by the Council uncovered rogue landlords renting out garden sheds as rooms and placing toilets in showers, among a broad range of clear infringements of safety standards. 

Deputy Council Leader Linda Smith said that the Council “have found countless examples across Oxford of homes where even the most basic of standards have not been met and vulnerable tenants have been left in illegal and dangerous conditions.” Of the 243 inspections undertaken in 2018/19, 32 per cent were given notices warning of unsafe condition.

However, there are fears that the proposals could in fact have a negative impact on Oxford tenants living in the city’s most precarious situations. Gavin Dick, a local authority policy officer for the National Landlords Association, warned: “The reality is Oxford will become more expensive and push the most vulnerable out again as we’ve seen before.”

Under the current plans, all landlords will have to apply for a license costing approximately £600 over five years, and will also be liable for further miscellaneous costs, costs that could be passed on to renters.

Pro-EU candlelit vigil held on Brexit Day

Imogen Duke
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Pro-EU candlelit vigil held on Brexit Day

A ‘Proud to be European’ event will be held by pro-European Oxford groups this Friday, to mark the date of the UK’s exit from the European Union.  

Oxford for Europe, Oxford European Association, and European Movement (Oxford region) are organising the event to “celebrate nearly 50 years of EU membership, and to reaffirm our European identity and future.”

A candlelit vigil will be held on the steps of the Town Hall at 6:45pm, followed by a public ‘Proud to be European’ meeting in the Town Hall. This will be opened by the Lord Mayor, Cllr. Craig Simmons and Oxford MPs and MEPs will also contribute.

At 11pm, when the UK officially leaves the EU, there will be a “final vigil by torch and phone light.”

The next day, a street stall will offer croissants on Cornmarket and the Town Hall will fly the EU flag over the weekend. 

During the first week of February, the Town Hall will also be flying the flag of twin city Grenoble, and vice versa. 

Organisers of the event said: “The pro-EU movement will not just fade away. Oxford is and will remain a European city, open, welcoming, and supportive of our fellow Europeans.

“We want the light from Oxford to be a sign of our hopes for the future as a genuinely international city.”

The controversial referendum result in Oxford three years ago was 70% Remain, with a 72% turnout. Since the referendum in 2016, Oxford for Europe has organised many major public events and street stalls. 

Review: The Pillowman

Joanna McClurg
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Review: The Pillowman

Martin McDonagh’s jet black comedy is brought to life (and sentenced to a gruesome death) by Tom Fisher and his stellar cast.

I coughed, continuously, throughout Tom Fisher’s production of The Pillowman; it would be fair to say I had a coughing fit, the kind where your eyes stream. The kind where you are scared to swallow, to clear your throat, for fear that even the smallest movement of the mouth might set off another bout. The last time I can remember having had such a fit of coughs was when sitting my eleven plus exam (the standard in Northern Ireland). Long division questions speckled with phlegm. I had to be removed from the examination room and placed in a nearby box room in which I could not distract the other kids. Almost ten years later and the throat fiend was back to tickle my larynx, during a play I was reviewing no less. A particularly intense play. A play full of quiet moments, distressing moments, moments when coughing loudly, repeatedly is not acceptable. But there I was, completely enthralled and somewhat embarrassed, holding my breath and my pen and my leaking nose, occasionally breaking into ill-timed rounds of barking.

It must be a stress thing, the coughing, like a stress-induced nose bleed. I don’t have a cold and haven’t coughed once since leaving The Pilch Studio. I suppose my outburst was a visceral, physical reaction to the sickening stories being graphically narrated and enacted on stage in Fisher’s production of Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman.

The blackest of comedies, this play sees good fun and bad taste merge, both delighting and molesting its audience. A table and three chairs sit on stage set against a backdrop of child-like drawings; strange, nightmarish visions communicated in colouring pencil. A figure, their head covered with a black cloth bag, takes the central chair. Another cast member enters through the audience, shining a torch at the anonymous figure and skimming the drawings arranged at the edges of the far wall, framing an empty black space in the centre. The hooded figure is revealed to be our protagonist, Katurian, a writer under investigation by two detectives working for a totalitarian state government. Some of Katurian’s twisted short stories bear striking resemble to recent child murders. When Katurian hears that his cognitively disabled brother Michal is also being held in police custody and has confessed to the murders, implicating him, he resigns himself to being executed and spends his final hours attempting to save his stories from destruction. 

Several of these macabre modern fairytales, all linked by their focus on extravagant, torturous violence inflicted upon children, arere-enacted throughout the course of Tom Fisher’s production. It is these re-enactments that really bring the production into full colour (a lot of peachy pinks and baby blues spattered with deep reds and fleshy tones). Marionettes, shadow puppets, masks, music and choreography are all employed by to great effect. They work well to dramatize the depraved tales turned all-too-real horrors. The most affecting storytelling device used is a great big, pink Pillowman puppet. Resembling a creepy-yet-cute Tim Burton creation, the gentle spectre gestures, tilts his head and glides around the room mounted on actors’ arms. The spectacle is deeply moving. While most of Katurian’s storiesdisturb, that of The Pillowman blows the heart open. 

Our emotions pulled the fore, we are all the more susceptible to the play’s numerous laugh-out-loud moments. Some dreadfully funny lines are delivered expertly.  Gavin Fleming’s magnetic and more than slightly psychopathic‘good cop’, Tupolski, is a prime culprit in this respect. Repulsive little chuckles embellish his every sentence, even the most threatening of which are delivered with a perverse buoyancy and unplaceable grin. Ariel, the resident ‘bad cop’, brought to life by Jake Rich, appears at first a totem of unbridled rage, impatient to raise a fist and brandish the electrodes. However, as the play progresses, Rich is able to explore his character’s vulnerabilities and shows some great humanity. For much of the play the detective duo leer and quiz and quarrel at opposite ends of the interrogation table, sandwiching Katurian. As her positioning on stage suggests Marianne James’ Katurian is central to the success of the production. The emotional journey James unfolds is compelling. In both tender moments and when in despair her performance is consistently strong. With a confident, controlled voice, she leads us through grim scenarios like a true storyteller. 

Stepan Mysko von Schultzeis, perhaps, the stand-out member of this skilled ensemble. His performance as Michal is as hilarious as it is heart-breaking. Each of his lines arrive like a fresh thought. Idiosyncratic behaviours and speech patterns are used to convey Michal’s cognitive disability but, crucially, are not overplayed.His relationship with his brother Katurian is made entirely believably by their natural, witty back and forth. This provides a welcome break from the intensity of the interrogation scenes. This break is, however, cut short when, without warning and in his usual light-hearted and playful tone, Michal confesses to the murder of the children.: “I thought I’d hidden it [the body] really well”. Chilling.

The Pillowman is a play that ponders the relationship between an artist, their works and their audience. The power of storytelling is a theme encoded within the play’s text but it is also a notion reinforced by Tom Fisher’s masterfully crafted production. When the house lights turned on I, like everyone else, applauded enthusiastically. But, in my opinion, my coughs were my real show of appreciation, evidence of how much I was affected by the play. Each one a testament to the play’s intensity. I left the Pilch with wide eyes, dazed, enlivened by what I had seen. I hope you will too. I recommend you bring Strepsils.

Cherwell profiles the Labour leadership candidates

Sam Jones
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Cherwell profiles the Labour leadership candidates

Following December’s devastating election defeat, Jeremy Corbyn has announced his resignation and the leadership race to replace him has begun in earnest.

The current candidates are Keir Starmer, Rebecca Long-Bailey, Lisa Nandy and Emily Thornberry. Clive Lewis and Jess Phillips have already dropped out of the race.

Though all the candidates have committed to maintaining the Party’s policy platform created under Corbyn, Long-Bailey remains the candidate of the Left; the other three candidates are on the soft left of the Party.

Provided they receive the requisite nominations from Trade Unions and Constituency Labour Parties (which may not happen for Thornberry), the candidates will proceed to a membership vote, in which they will be ranked in order of preference. The candidate with the least number of first placed votes will be eliminated in each round, with their votes redistributed to the candidate ranked second on each ballot. This process will continue until a candidate receives a majority of the vote.

Starmer and Long-Bailey are the most likely victors, polling showing both having a significant chance of winning.

Labour is also undergoing an election for Deputy Leader after Tom Watson opted not to stand for reelection in 2019. The candidates include the frontrunner Angela Rayner, along with Rosena Allin-Khan, Richard Burgon, Dawn Butler and Ian Murray.

Voting will commence on February 21, before the results of the election are announced on April 4.

Here, Cherwell profiles the major candidates, their strengths and weaknesses.

Keir Starmer

The Shadow Brexit Secretary is widely seen as the frontrunner in the race, appearing as a ‘safe pair of hands’ to Party members who have experienced four consecutive election defeats.

The MP for Holborn and St Pancras received the most nominations from MPs with 88; his closest challenger was Long-Bailey on 33. Among his supporters is the Anneliese Dodds, the MP for Oxford East, who hosted him in Oxford a fortnight ago. 

His left-wing credentials have been questioned by some within the Party. He backed Owen Smith “100%” during his failed attempt to defeat Jeremy Corbyn in 2016, and has since employed a number of Smith staffers on his leadership campaign.

Still, he stressed in his launch piece for The Sunday Mirror that Labour “must not lose sight of our values” and has pledged to unite all factions of the Party. More damaging may be his role in crafting the Party’s Brexit policy, widely seen as pivotal to December’s defeat, though attacks have yet to land. 

Emily Thornberry

Thornberry may be the candidate Boris Johnson most fears facing over the dispatch box at PMQs, ably deputising for Corbyn over the last few years in questioning both Johnson and Theresa May. She has been notably loyal to Corbyn, despite not standing politically on the left of the Party. One of the few who did not resign from the Shadow Cabinet in 2016, Thornberry served as both Shadow Foreign Secretary and Shadow Brexit Secretary for several months.

Nonetheless, she has been repeatedly dogged by claims of being the candidate of a liberal metropolitan elite. She was forced to resign as Shadow Attorney General in 2014 after she tweeted a picture of a house adorned with three flags of St George in Rochester and Strood. Thornberry has also been a key figure in the pro-European wing of the Party, wearing a necklace made of the EU stars at Party Conference last year.

Thornberry scraped into the next round with 23 MP nominations, and has largely failed to gain traction in the campaign.

Lisa Nandy

The Wigan MP represents perhaps the Party’s best chance at unifying its various factions. Nandy has a solidly left-wing voting record in Parliament, though is not seen as a Corbynite after she resigned from the Shadow Cabinet in 2016.

Nandy was one of the few Labour MPs to argue against a second Brexit referendum, and has based her campaign in attempting to reconnect with Labour’s traditional voters outside of metropolitan areas, many of whom were lost in the election.

After Clive Lewis failed to secure the necessary parliamentary nominations to proceed to the next round, Nandy is the only BAME candidate for Leader, though Dawn Butler and Rosena Allin-Khan are standing for Deputy.

Unlike the other three candidates, Nandy remains a largely unknown quantity, and could pose a potent challenge to Starmer and Long-Bailey as the campaign continues.

Rebecca Long-Bailey

Cherwell met with, and interviewed, Long-Bailey last week. Our profile of her can be found here.

https://cherwell.org/2020/02/01/rebecca-long-bailey-on-aspiration-and-going-further-left/


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