Monday 9th June 2025
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Introducing 2019 in colour: Living Coral

Ailin Cheng
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Introducing 2019 in colour: Living Coral

Before the start of every year, Pantone, the authority on colour-intelligence, reveals its prediction for the Colour of the Year. As of last month, Living Coral has earned the title for 2019. This warm, peach shade draws on earthy tones whilst maintaining a sunny intensity, making it a versatile one to represent a range of contexts.

On on hand, the earthy quality of this colour relates to the growing concern of climate change and pollution. The orange tones vividly recall their namesake: the coral reefs that are valued for their vibrant hues, all the more so now as bleaching and climate change become an inescapable reality. Living Coral optimistically relates to a need to reconnect with the natural world, and to emulate this in our lifestyles. On the other hand, the warm, sunny quality of this colour is particularly noteworthy at a time when technology and ‘social’ media is driving rifts through communities. Pantone’s Executive Director, Leatrice Eiseman, states: ‘with consumers craving human interaction and social connection, the humanising and heartening qualities displayed by the connival Pantone Living Coral hit a responsive chord.’

This is quite a development from the mood approaching 2018. The 2018 Colour of the Year was declared to be Ultra Violet, a bright electric purple that, as stated by Pantone, ‘communicates originality, ingenuity, and visionary thinking that points us toward the future.’ The violet hues were representative of modernity, and an era of innovation and ingenuity driven by technology. Purple has long been an important symbol for counter-cultural icons, with Jimi Hendrix, Prince, and Bowie being its key promoters. In 2018, this electric shade was brought to the fore by Tokyo’s youth. The shade was embraced for its gender-neutrality and futuristic hues, with Shinjuku and Harajuku-goers soon sporting the bright colour in alternative, androgynous silhouettes. Spreading out beyond Asia, from Hamish Bowles’ stunning ultra violet walls to the S/S18 collections of Gucci and Balenciaga, the shade has been a key one for all elements of design this year.

Reaching beyond design, these colours also infiltrated everyday life on a microcosmic level. Purple began re-colouring the food scene. Speared by the trend of clean-eating and Instagram-hyped colourful food, ingredients such as purple ube, taro, purple cauliflower, beetroot and anthocyanin-rich purple tea have been making appearances across healthy-eating cafes and restaurants.

All these examples go as far to acknowledge the accuracy of Pantone’s forecast. Given the almost monopoloid hold Pantone has over colour intelligence, the colour of the year may well be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Yet the colour of the year is more than a guiding forecast; it is through the careful mapping of macro and micro trends that current moods and atmospheres are translated into a visual form.

Our intuitive awareness of colour symbolism allows it to be a useful tool in expression. This dates back throughout history, when rich lapis-lazuli dyes were used exclusively for the highly-esteemed and royal. Meanwhile, the instantly recognisable ‘On Wednesdays we wear pink’ quote shines a spotlight on the subtle associations that can be evoked simply through colour choice. In the renowned TV show Breaking Bad, character development can be tracked in the colours they wear. As Walter White becomes further embroiled with his alter-ego, Heisenberg, his colors become stronger, moving from initial shades of neutral green towards red and eventually black. When faced with defeat or the return of his cancer, his khaki shades return.

Colour is more than a fashion statement, and has always played as much a role in shaping cultural and political identities as it has in personal identity. The clashing, angry red and blues of the Republican and Democrat battle in the US are but one example. The World Cup last summer saw people taking to the streets in proud display of their national colours. The Pride movement’s flag, meanwhile, proves that colours aren’t necessarily a means of reinforcing divides: the flag cleverly plays on the ideological divides denoted by different colours, including and representing all shades in a brilliant rainbow display.

It’s still too soon to tell what role Living Coral will play this year. A keen eye may notice its increasingly frequent appearances on the catwalk. Marc Jacobs led the charge with a collection dominated by pastel hues, featuring wearable coral and blush-toned looks. Meanwhile, Brandon Maxwell combines structured tailoring with the fiery coral shade in his collection of flared trousers and shirt-dresses. Within days of Pantone’s announcement, interior design and fashion magazines were publishing articles on how to prepare for the soon-to-be trend. On a superficial level, the significance of the colour of the year may simply be the need to jump on these bandwagons. But the wider symbolism of this shade and the reasons behind Pantone’s choice make colour a powerful tool for participating in and being aware of the social climate.

Saudi Arabia’s sporting mission

Cal Flintoff
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Saudi Arabia’s sporting mission

It is a small detail that has been glossed over in the face of more puzzling aspects to the story, but it is one that forms part of a larger and more uneasy trend that has been slowly developing. When Wayne Rooney was arrested at Washington’s Dulles Airport in December, his private jet had been returning from a presumably lucrative sojourn to Riyadh, the Saudi Kingdom capital; it would be a righteous tale, but it is rather unlikely that a mix-up with sleeping pills came about through Rooney’s sheer indignation at the humanitarian crises he witnessed, or the vivid imagery of a public execution, now forged indelibly into his mind.

 No, Rooney was an access all areas guest of Geox Dragon Racing, the American motorsport team who compete in Formula E: a relatively new, electrically-fuelled pursuit that has caught the eye, and the wallet, almost paradoxically so, of the prescient petro-magnates of Saudi Arabia.

Dubbed ‘Mario Kart’ of the streets due to the set of luminous blue LED lights affixed to each driver’s halo – fluorescing in a newfangled “attack mode”, each driver’s personal quiver of golden mushrooms – the concept has been incredibly successful. The spectacle is modern and attractive, the carbon footprint is diluted, pit stops are a thing of the past, and, more markedly in the eye of investors, there is no overriding sense of the engrained hierarchical structure that pervades through modern Formula 1. For Felipe Massa, the attraction as a driver is rooted in this mentality: “Maybe many drivers can win the championship.”

For the riches of a Saudi dictatorship, however, the seduction is of a more nefarious kind; eventually, the oil will run dry, and the economy badly needs to diversify and develop more sustainable, multi-faceted income. On the face of it, investing in renewables seems logical, innocuous even. The sovereign wealth fund has ploughed money into Uber, and more recently the American electric car start-up Lucid.

But Formula E is a good place to start because it represents the subtle dichotomy between the State’s public pontifications on infrastructure and access, and its private desperation to reverse a tarnished image in the West by opening up the Kingdom to the world of sport. Now wedlocked into a 10-year contract to host the season curtain call at the street circuit in Riyadh, the Saudi regime has handily positioned itself at the vanguard of a global sport just experiencing its revolution. Unsurprisingly, the official take adopts a different angle, and chooses to praise the “mission to accelerate the transition and uptake of clean transportation”, and to “inspire the next generation of technicians and engineers within Saudi Arabia.”

To entangle itself so inexorably into the global economy, to become a major player and a central trade hub even when the barrels are not so bountiful, the state must also radically overhaul an archaic, authoritarian society. Or, more appositely, engineer the impression it is doing so: Vision 2030 is perhaps the most well-documented transformation plan in history – its reformative roots promising to overhaul women’s rights and develop the education and recreation sectors – and well, that’s the point. Armed with a burgeoning portfolio of events, the sporting industry is the perfect global circus through which the Kingdom is purporting to have changed.

The story is already ten years down the line, next door in the Gulf, in the UAE. Under Pep Guardiola, Manchester City have become one of Europe’s putative powers, a genuine heavyweight and a home to the most attractive football in the land. In a brilliant analysis of the ownership last year, Nicholas McGeehan forensically unpicked the true and alarming scale to which the club is acting as a baby blue smokescreen to continued human rights violations. When British national Matthew Hedges was detained and psychologically tortured under alleged counts of spying in the Middle East, the polarised reaction was an uneasy snapshot of the process of sportswashing in action, betraying to the naked eye the conflict of interest that many sporting governing bodies have been welded to by prostrating so willingly to the Emirati cash.

https://medium.com/@NcGeehan/the-men-behind-man-city-a-documentary-not-coming-soon-to-a-cinema-near-you-14bc8e393e06

British flat horse racing is another pursuit locked enduringly into business, its entire revenue model increasingly subsisting on the affluent region’s penchant for the sport. European football is, quite literally, being engulfed by its thirst for tainted capital from the region; like a teenage foray into a Colombian narcos gang, it soon becomes apparent that these are deals of the interminable variety, with far-reaching consequences.

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Worrying, then, given the incessant and unabating stream of civilian deaths in Yemen through Saudi-led coalition air-strikes, how seamlessly Mohammad Bin Salman – The UAE crown prince Mohammad Bin Zayed’s trustee and partner in torture – was able to enter the market, brokering deals to bring each of the major sports to his country, one by one.

For the current generation of sports stars, perhaps being desensitised to the metropolis of Dubai, the UAE’s glorified tourist department, blinded by its beauty and attracted by its undoubtable allure, is at least a forgivable act; to turn a blind eye to what is happening in Saudi Arabia though, is reprehensible and irresponsible. No wonder Amnesty International labels the West “deeply hypocritical” in its dealings with the state.

As a society we must wake up and see how wrong this feels. England’s leading international goalscorer uploading his “unbelievable day” in the Saudi capital to his Instagram feed with the same rhetorical flourish as if it were Mykonos or Barbados; Richard Branson assuming directorship of the luxury new Red Sea tourist resort in exchange for not so discrete investment into his Virgin Galactica Scheme; the president of FIFA ceaselessly trumpeting a

virulent Saudi-led $12 billion plan to corrupt club football just after witnessing his predecessor thrown in jail for handing the World Cup to their arch-enemies Qatar, willingly placing the most popular sport in the world slap bang in the centre of its most politically turbulent war.

And yet, before the tragic murder of its most outspoken critic after a series of punishing columns in the Washington Post, there was curiously little introspection. The notion that Saudi Arabia may so brazenly purchase our compliance through our most-loved escape, sport, is ridiculous, but there are clear signs it can work.

Do our sports stars have a duty to speak out? To positively mould their sphere of influence? Surely, we too, as fans, ticket-holders, tweeters, commenters, have a duty to question, to resist, to inform. Our support has never need be unconditional, and never should be.

If you look hard enough, there are signs that it may be happening. The Italian SuperCoppa, an itinerant exhibition that also counts Doha and Tripoli among its more exotic destinations, has come under heavy fire for its proposed location in Jeddah. More importantly though, as the date nears, Italian fans are now discovering the true extent of the horrors that their league has plundered them into: a Saudi-imposed ban on unaccompanied women in the stadium forcibly segregating legions of support, a rupture through the very heart of the game. If money could talk, then it would almost certainly have the voice of Serie A president Gaetano Micciche, befuddling his way through the chaos with a robotic loyalty to his contract: “Until last year, women could not attend any sporting event, [this is a] historic first.”

It is not the only sport to touch down in the country in January. Golf is a pursuit that has willingly integrated Dubai into its standard fare, as a result making its stars richer than ever but flirting dangerously with a post-Tiger era where most would struggle to tell their Bryson DeChambeaus from their Xander Schauffeles, and only the majors and Ryder Cup retain their true aura. The European Tour is ploughing on with its decision to introduce Saudi Arabia to its gilded Desert Swing series; with a tournament structure that allows players to select the events they roll into town for, it leaves little to the imagination why such a stellar field has been assembled for the inaugural event.

Surely, then, Europe’s Ryder Cup golden boys, the iceman Henrik Stenson and the eminently likeable Justin Rose, could be relied upon to recalibrate their moral compasses to the real world from which sports stars are so often allowed to slip from. Instead, if you squint hard enough, you can just about make out the spinning black and white wheels where their eyes should be.

Henrik Stenson: “The course looks spectacular and I’ve heard a lot about the Kingdom’s plans to grow golf in the region and I’m excited to be a part of it,”

Justin Rose: “I’ve heard a lot of positive things about Saudi Arabia and I’m delighted to see a new tournament added to the European Tour schedule.”

Smile and wave boys smile and wave.

Bolsonaro’s most vulnerable targets: the Indigenous Brazilians

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Bolsonaro’s most vulnerable targets: the Indigenous Brazilians

1st January marked the inauguration of one of the most controversial figures in politics today: Jair Bolsonaro, the President of Brazil.

Bolsonaro is a man famous for despising almost every single identity group of which he is not a member, from gay people to via women to black people to immigrants. Calling him the “Trump of the Tropics” might be too kind – in many ways he has gone beyond even what the US President has said.

Anyone can watch Bolsonaro telling a congresswoman, “I wouldn’t rape you because you don’t deserve it”, or can look up his interview with Stephen Fry where he claimed “homosexual fundamentalists” were brainwashing children to “become gay and lesbians to satisfy them [the fundamentalists] sexually in the future”, or when he told Playboy Magazine that “I would prefer my son to die in an accident than show up with a moustachioed [i.e gay] man”. 

In this age of internet and easy access to information, the only thing more frightening than Bolsonaro himself is all the people who voted for him, fully aware of what he stands for.

Proudly pro-torture and pro-dictatorship, Bolsonaro is a self-declaring homophobe who considers his sons too “well raised” to date black women or to be gay. Yet he democratically won 55% of the vote and now occupies one of the most powerful positions on the world stage. 

As of January 1st 2019, arguably the group who are now most threatened are those within Brazil who have little, if any, idea of this election: isolated, indigenous tribes.

The Amazon rainforest contains “more uncontacted tribes than anywhere in the world”, according to Survival International. The government believes there are at least 100 isolated groups, who have survived hundreds of years of external threats including slavery, logging and disease.

Bolsonaro goes beyond viewing the indigenous tribes and the quilombolas (the protected, black descendants of Afro-Brazilian slaves) with racist contempt. He does not believe in their right to exist in a culture outside of “mainstream” Brazil.

In an unbelievable backwards act of colonialism that violates international and national law, he has said he wants to abolish existing indigenous territories, give ranchers guns, and to forcibly integrate the indigenous tribes. Within hours of taking office, Bolsonaro gave an executive order to transfer the regulation and creation of indigenous reserves into the hands of the agriculture ministry, which is heavily lobbied by the agriculture sector.

He views the indigenous people as merely an “obstacle to agri-business”, and he doesn’t want to get “into this nonsense of defending land for Indians” because the gold, tin and magnesium in the Amazon make it “the richest area in the world.”

Bolsonaro has said: “The Indians do not speak our language, they do not have money, they do not have culture. They are native peoples. How did they manage to get 13% of the national territory?” 

The huge irony of course is that while Bolsonaro views the indigenous tribes as foreigners and outsiders in Brazil, under these terms, Bolsonaro – a white man of Italian and German descent only a couple of generations back – would be the real immigrant compared to these indigenous tribes.

That the indigenous population do not operate in the exact same way as Bolsonaro’s vision of Brazil – with the same currency, language, ideas and systems – does not mean that their culture must be swallowed up and spat out by the rest of Brazil. That they are different does not make them any less human, nor the land any less theirs.

While Bolsonaro and the Amazon rainforest may seem distant to us, the democratic election of Bolsonaro raises bigger questions for all of us around the world. Britain’s colonial rule may seem a thing of the past, but with a recent YouGov poll finding only 21% of British people regretted colonialism, and prominent academics such as Niall Ferguson arguing the case for the British Empire, it’s hard to ignore a wider failure to denounce colonisation.

The Anatomy of Portioning

Serena Millen
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The Anatomy of Portioning

For a population facing serious challenges from weight-related health problems, the issue of portion sizing is particularly important. It is estimated that we overeat by 200-300 calories a day, and part of this is due to the fact that portion sizes are often overestimated.

For anyone who has ever read portion sizing information, it is obvious that the lack of clarity present in packaging is problematic. From im- perial measurements to multi-portion packets, it is hard, especially in such a fast-paced society, to ensure that we are not over-eating.

Recently, the BBC released an instructive video based on the new guidelines from the British Nutrition Foundation which aims to tackle the problems associated with portion sizing. The video shows how to use your hands to perfectly portion out a meal, with measure- ments such as two cupped hands for green vegetables, and half a thumb for a portion of peanut butter.

This instructional guide is an easy and accessible method for people to work out how much they should be eating, and is an important step in helping people to take control of their diet in a time when nutrition in the UK is so poor. Instead of necessitating the use of scales or measuring cups for foods, the use of the hand system makes it much easier to work out what exactly is an appropriate amount of each food group.

Nations such as the US, plagued too by their own health issues, already have far clearer packaging. Information on packets of sweets, for example, will specify exactly how many make up a portion, and some companies in the UK have started to adopt these guidelines.

However, more needs to be done and food producers need to take responsibility for problems which their portion recommendations are creating. The new nutrition guidance offered this week is useful for helping people to take control of their portion sizing; nevertheless, it is not solely the responsibility of people to ensure that they, and anyone else they are cooking for, are eating appropriately every meal. The availability of pre-packaged meals also reduces the ability of the population to control their portion sizes all the time. Instead, responsibility is passed over to the companies that produce them.

Portion control advice can only go so far in helping to tackle the current health crisis, and more can be done to ensure that people have options which allow for healthy choices. Socioeconomic factors also play a significant role in dietary options, and this is a factor that needs to be considered and tackled on a larger scale and over a longer period of time.

That said, raising awareness may be most important, and if guides such as the BBC’s are released more frequently, people will be guided towards healthier choices in an accessible way.

Review: Frog’s Legs – ‘light-hearted façade with a dark core’

Lawrence Li
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Review: Frog’s Legs – ‘light-hearted façade with a dark core’

As the great Oscar Wilde once said: “My own business always bores me to death; I prefer other people’s”.  This nosey sentiment pretty much sums up Frog’s Legs, in which drink buddies, Martin and Duncan, take it upon themselves to ruin the life of the local pub owner, Franc. All because they suspect his wife is French. Thrice they try, thrice they fail. Their only ‘success’ is in enabling him to live lavishly in the Ritz for the rest of his life.

“It is quite unlike anything else you’ve seen in Oxford”, says Hugh Shepherd-Cross (Teddy Hall), the writer and director of the play, who aimed to “tread the fine line between offensiveness and good taste”. Offensiveness there is no shortage of: the eyebrow raising amount of ‘cocaine’ (substituted with icing sugar) snorted on stage is certainly not for the faint-hearted. As for good taste, well, the fact that tickets were sold out a week in advance is perhaps the best evidence of its good artistic sensibilities.

With his glassy grin and lovable mannerisms, Sam Scruton (St John’s) proves to be a real comic presence on stage. His portrayal of Martin strikes the right balance of chumminess and idiocy, making even the absurdities of his circumstances believable for, and relatable to, the audience. While we know that his swift demise will come in the form of a wood chipper at the hands of an angry loan shark, the character himself never achieves that anagnorisis. He lives out his life with a simple joie de vivre, and who is to say that it isn’t a noble life to lead?

Rory Wilson (New College) was equally fine as Duncan, Martin’s partner in crime. Mercurial, lurid and surprisingly erudite regarding Oscar Wilde’s sayings, he remains by Martin’s side no matter how dire their situation is. A particularly moving scene finds the duo penniless and homeless on the street: cuddling together for warmth, Duncan still jests at Martin as usual – only, unbeknownst to him, it is in fact their final moments together. This, in my humble opinion, is what true friendship looks like: not to part with gaudy praises in times of glory, but to remain true to each other till the end.

Franc, portrayed by Nathan Brown (Teddy Hall), the hapless pub owner, also impresses in his unique way. With astonishing gullibility, he manages to fund his cocaine habit, receive a life-long membership at the Ritz, win a major cooking competition, and buy Blenheim Palace! His innocence conveys a certain adorable quality, such that he almost resembles a walking teddy bear on stage. Furthermore, the rendition of his original music added a lyrical touch to an otherwise very cleverly written play.

There are only a few gripes with the play, which can be mentioned briefly: looking past its light-hearted façade, the core narrative occasionally ventures into territory perhaps too dark and sinister. Not only does Franc’s wife suffer a horrible death by lorry, but the all-male cast are also alcoholic and drug-stricken – does the production glorify a certain public school type bravado in young men? Or, perhaps, the political should have no place in the theatrical: in this age of heated debate and divisive opinions, a jovial yet dark play like this may be becoming something of a rarity.

The Pitchfork Disney Preview – ‘a play of delight and disgust’

Eve James
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The Pitchfork Disney Preview – ‘a play of delight and disgust’

The Pitchfork Disney: the name itself betrays something of the twisting dreamscape fairytale Philip Ridley’s 1991 play offers up for our delight – and equal disgust.

As Presley, Alex Fleming-Brown’s face shifts constantly between sweet charm and threatening, even malicious glee, twisting in and out through his maze-like monologues much like the snake-filled narratives he describes. In fact, all the actors carry their dialogue brilliantly. It is easy to get lost in the twists and turns of the many narrative monologues which seem to tumble inevitably out of these volatile characters, but they manage their audience expertly in their switches between emotion and horror, edging into humour and then back again just as quickly. We lose ourselves in each character’s troubled imagination – Lou Lou Curry’s Hayley raising the emotional stakes in the first scene I saw, with both twins alerting us to the psychological discomfort just on the edge of the explosive, surreal imagery.

This all unravels within a disconcerting contrast of threatening monologues and a sickly-sweet set design, dominated by the shiny foil of empty chocolate wrappers, while the chocolate itself drips and churns in an unceasing projection behind the actors, masterminded by filmmaker Immy Done. Designer and assistant director Felix Morrison explains: “We went for a minimal set, interspersed with pieces of colour. We wanted to create a decaying run-down environment which also has elements which externalise the childlike magical nature of the twins’ psyche. The tinsel curtain and the projected window act as portals, from which the ghost-like characters such as Cosmo appear.”

This is a play situated constantly on the brink of imagination and reality, which revels in the discomfort when one inevitably forces its way into the other. The actors push up into one another’s’ faces and then slide away again, and indeed it seems we are never not either recovering from a moment of dramatic climax, or building steadily and ominously toward the next. We feel the shock when Alasdair Linn’s Cosmo’s commanding bombast suddenly concentrates into tight, raw, devilish reality as he approaches the audience. These actors have to work hard, constantly working up the fervour and emotional complexity these moments demand and controlling the uncertain come-downs.

Something Ridley himself has emphasised is this play’s ability to “mean something different” with each new production, and in the current political climate it would certainly be easy to hash out a trite warning from its ominous imagery. “We actually decided to move away from some specific contemporary angle,” comments director Bertie Harrison-Broninski, however: “it felt a bit superficial to just make it about Brexit or something, it doesn’t accommodate the diverse themes of the play. So we made a play where it is very difficult to pin down any specific identity; it’s detached and lost, like the children.”

‘Ancient children with chocolate, ancient children with no vocation.’ So Cosmo taunts a terrified and enthralled Presley, but his recurring engagement with his audience makes it almost impossible not to feel that somehow he is taunting us too. Two scenes are perhaps not quite enough, in such a twisting, testing, and truly surreal play, to see for sure what the focal point is around which this dreamscape drama spins. Nevertheless, this careful handling of an incredibly demanding play promises to be a thrilling and exciting piece of theatre. Not to be missed.

Confusion and internal division: Why Brexit won’t feature in today’s three-party debate

Cherwell News
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Confusion and internal division: Why Brexit won’t feature in today’s three-party debate

Students may be surprised to see Brexit overlooked at today’s Three-Party Debate, hosted by the Oxford Forum.

The debate will allow each student political part to debate the other two individually, and will focus on the current government, inheritance tax, and the fate of the Liberal Democrats. 

Oxford University Labour Club (OULC) vetoed Brexit-related motions proposed by Oxford University Liberal Democrats (OULD) including “This House believes a People’s Vote is preferable to any Brexit Labour could offer” and “This House believes a general election is a better resolution to Brexit than a People’s Vote”. 

OULC told Cherwell they submitted a counter-proposal “THB that Brexit is the most pressing issue facing this country” which OULD rejected, however OULD deny the claims they had vetoed the motion.

The Oxford University Conservative Association (OUCA) were also reluctant to debate Brexit, believing that students are “just very bored with talking about it”.

President of the Oxford University Liberal Democrats, Damayanti Chatterjee, expressed her disappointment that there would not be debate on the “biggest issue in British politics since the Second World War”. 

Chatterjee told Cherwell: “My committee and I were in strong agreement that the best debate topic for our debate with OULC would be a motion on Brexit and a People’s Vote. 

“However, I was informed that OULC would not debate any motion about a People’s Vote and then told by OULC Co-Chairs that the society would not debate a motion on Brexit at all. We are disappointed that OULC will not take a stance or defend their party policy and are concerned that they have cited any debate of Brexit between us as unfair. 

“The Liberal Democrat and Labour policy on Brexit differ just as significantly as the Liberal Democrat and Conservative policy on Brexit, with the former supporting a second referendum wholeheartedly and the latter arguing to rule out no deal and for an incrementally closer union with Europe than May’s deal, delivered through a general election if Labour wins a majority in it.

“We still welcome the chance to debate with them at the Three Party Debate and will gladly take their suggestion of an allegedly fairer motion “This House Believes the Liberal Democrats are irrelevant” as an opportunity to do just that and as a better alternative to having no debate at all.” 

Speaking to Cherwell Winter said: “It is not the case that OULC were reluctant to debate Brexit and although we rejected some Brexit based motions, we also proposed Brexit-related motions which were rejected by the other parties.

“The reason a motion on Brexit could not be agreed is that OUCA were reluctant to debate Brexit on the basis that they did not think students were interested in the topic. We offered a motion on ruling out a no-deal Brexit which OUCA rejected, and related motions on immigration which OUCA also rejected.

“The motions suggested by OULD, relating to Brexit, were not practical for this debate. They included a motion on the People’s Vote, a policy which is part of Labour’s current plan and supported by many OULC members, which it would not be appropriate to take a collective stance against as a club.” 

“All in all, the event has been poorly organised, with parties expected to agree motions amongst themselves at the last moment, with little input from the Oxford Forum.”

Speaking to Cherwell Tristan Wang said: “There has been a reluctance on the part of the OULC on certain proposed motions relating to Brexit.
“As I understand it, the reason is because there is disagreement within Labour on the topic of Brexit.
“However, I am unable to understand how it can be claimed that discussion on Brexit was avoided. Anyone with reasonable knowledge of current affairs would know that it would be difficult to debate confidence in the government (OULC vs OUCA: “TH has no confidence in the Government”) or the relevance in the Liberal Democrats (OULC vs OULD: “THB that the Liberal Democrats are irrelevant”) without addressing Brexit. Those who attended the event can vouch that Brexit and the EU featured extensively in argument.”

Winter also alleged that the two other parties had rejected topics including fracking, tax, and education. 

President of OUCA, James Beaumont told Cherwell: “While we were reluctant for a debate on fracking or the public sector pay gap, largely due to internal division on the issues, that is not the case for immigration. We discussed several wordings with OULC, but could not agree on an exact wording for the motion.

“We also proposed several others, including a broad debate about capitalism, and another about welfare reform, which were rejected. I believe that we have now agreed on ‘This House has no confidence in the Government’, which will of course cover many of the topics mentioned above.”

Right-wing dark money comes to Oxford student politics

Ben van der Merwe
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Right-wing dark money comes to Oxford student politics

A reactionary American group with millions of dollars from undisclosed donors is branching out to the UK. Cherwell can reveal it claims to already have chapters at eight universities including Oxford.

Turning Point USA aims to shift student politics to the right; its tactics have included intimidating academics and covertly funnelling thousands of dollars into student political campaigns.

The chairman of Turning Point UK, former Oxford student and Bullingdon Club member George Farmer, told Cherwell that the group’s main objective would be to “reverse the direction of travel in a lot of these universities, where left-wing academics are broadly filling young minds with cultural Marxism.”

Cultural Marxism is a conspiracy theory popular with the radical right, which states that multiculturalism, feminism and LGBTQ+ rights are part of a conspiracy by Marxist intellectuals that aims to undermine Western society.

Turning Point UK employs several paid full-time staff and is currently soliciting donations. Farmer refused to elaborate on the identity of donors and told Cherwell that they would remain anonymous for the foreseeable future.

Farmer, son of former Conservative party treasurer Lord Farmer, is a former social secretary of the Oxford University Conservative Association (OUCA). In 2012, OUCA was forced to disaffiliate from the University after it was revealed that Farmer and the club’s treasurer had failed to pay a £1,200 restaurant bill.

Turning Point UK plans to officially launch with a series of controversy-generating debates at the universities of London (10th March), Cambridge (11th March), Sheffield (12th March) and Sussex (13th March).

Farmer told Cherwell that the group currently has chapters at the universities of Sussex, Oxford, St Andrews, York, Warwick and Nottingham as well as King’s College London, University College London, the London School of Economics and University of the Arts London.

The group was launched last month by Turning Point USA leaders Charlie Kirk and Candace Owens at the Royal Automobile Club, a prestigious London private members’ club.

The launch event was attended by a number of figures from high society as well as right-wing pro-Brexit figures. Andy Wigmore, who ran the Leave.EU campaign alongside Nigel Farage and Arron Banks, attended the launch event, as well as Steven Edginton, chief digital strategist for Leave Means Leave and digital campaign manager for the TaxPayers’ Alliance.

Also present at the launch was alt-right social media personality Paul Joseph Watson, editor-at-large of conspiracy website InfoWars, whose anti-Islam writing was cited by prosecutors as an inspiration for the Finsbury Park Mosque attack.

Breitbart London editor James Dellingpole was also in attendance, along with pick-up artist and anti-feminist Peter Lloyd. Oxford student Daniel Mcilhiney, who studies theology at Wycliffe Hall, was present but declined to confirm his role in the organisation.

Farmer told Cherwell: “You can see [cultural Marxism] in institutions across the United Kingdom. There’s a whole variety of institutions which are being filled with left-wing academics, with left-wing thinkers who basically are telling people the only way they can think is along the lines of the left.”

Turning Point UK’s emphasis on combatting what it sees as left-wing propaganda in universities echoes the focus of its parent organisation. Turning Point USA has attracted notoriety for its website Professor Watchlist, which carries profiles of left-wing academics. Professor Watchlist accuses those on its website of attempting to “advance leftist propaganda in the classroom.”

A number of professors have received death threats after being listed on the website, but Turning Point USA denied any responsibility. Founder Charlie Kirk has said of the threats: “We do not call for any of that sort of harassment. We don’t condone it, we don’t try to facilitate any sort of cyberbullying or harassment, and just because you put up the words, or another article that’s been written about a professor in an aggregated format, does not mean we should be held responsible for what other people do.”

When asked whether the UK organisation would attempt to create its own Professor Watchlist, Farmer said: “That’s not really been on my agenda yet. It might well be down the line but not at the moment, no.”

Turning Point USA attracted fresh controversy in 2017 when it was revealed to be covertly funnelling thousands of dollars into the student election campaigns of conservative candidates. A leaked phone call recorded TPUSA’s Heartland Regional Director saying: “A huge part of what Turning Point does — that’s really important to donors — is student government races.”

Turning Point UK was also asked whether it would be involved in funding student union election campaigns, Farmer laughed and told Cherwell: “I don’t think we have the money to do that, so that would be a no.”

Parent organisation Turning Point USA claims to have raised $5 million in 2016. Major donors include the Lyne and Harry Bradley Foundation and the Dick and Betsy DeVos Family Foundation, who also fund anti-Muslim hate groups such as the David Horowitz Freedom Center and the Middle East Forum.

Raf Simons: short-lived brilliance

Skye Humbert
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Raf Simons: short-lived brilliance

In recent years, Raf Simons has shown both his versatility and transience.

It was announced in December 2018 that Calvin Klein and Simons were ‘amicably parting ways,’ after almost two years working with the brand as Chief Creative Officer.

The Belgian designer had another successful but short-lived career as creative director at Dior between 2012-2015. The iconic 2014 documentary Dior & I follows his process during his first collections as the creative director. Yet his parting from the LVMH family was somewhat more amicable than what has occurred at Calvin Klein, with Simons offering no further comment upon leaving the brand.

His appointment at Calvin Klein brought much excitement as Simons’ European influences entered the classic American brand. His first collection seamlessly mixed chic, tailored blazers with bold colours for a smart-casual American vitality. He captures the essence of the brands he works with, whilst updating the collections to suit modern trends. Overall, Simons was remarkably successful with the brand – dressing Saoirse Ronan at the Academy Awards, winning three CFDA Fashion awards and bringing new energy to the New York Fashion Week. Yet PVH, the company that owns Calvin Klein, showed disappointment in the current sales.

Working with both Dior and CK and Jil Sander before that, as well as releasing his own label, are indicators of Simons being a kind of ‘chameleon designer.’ He easily utilises a variety aesthetics and visions – but such a repertoire eventually begs the question, why so many fashion divorces?

His predecessor at Dior, John Galliano, was creative director for 14 years, devouring Simons’ three-year span with the company. Now with this departure from Calvin Klein in under two years, one has to wonder if there are more creative differences than meets the eye. With creative successes at both brands, and some saying he’s even reinvented the tired classics, why such short-term love affairs?

There is, of course, huge amount of pressure on new creative directors and chief designers on where they intend on taking the brand. With many fashion houses no longer being run by their original creators: take Valentino’s retirement in 2008 and Yves Saint Laurent’s death that same year for instance, budding designers take on a huge amount of responsibility. They are expected to uphold the brands classic themes and quality, the same levels of popularity and genius without copying previous work and making their own mark on the brand, and answering to the die-hard fans of the brand and their executive employers. The pressure must be enormous.

Simons’ journey into fashion was a slow one, his interests in techno music and furniture design holding precedence in his early 20s. In an interview with Jan Kedves, Simons commented: “The whole idea of the individual performing towards his own image and performing towards other people. I find this question eternally fascinating: how will another person perceive me and how do I want to perform towards another person?”

Perhaps, Simons is keen to test a variety of brands and therefore a variety of images, proving his capability in each new challenge. He’s certainly up for it, but maybe not for very long…

 

Create and destroy

Sophie Haldane
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Create and destroy

What do we think when a child destroys the block tower they have just created? Does this opinion change when the creation is someone else’s? What if – instead – the tower was a 2000-year-old vas? Would we call this art? The boundary at which our negative connotations of destruction turn into admiration of conceptual art is being pushed and toyed by artists such as Banksy, Rauschenberg and Weiwei.

Banksy self-destructed his piece, Girl With Balloon, posting the video under the caption “the urge to destroy is also a creative urge’. Art becomes performative when pushed into this destructive dimension; it no longer remains just a picture, but instead transforms into an event. The piece is no longer able to be seen in the flesh by the private bidder or gallery visitors, but is now only accessible through the video of the event – just like any social media post – everyone sees it in the same way. There are no special privileges or excludable access. This relates to the whole purpose of Banksy’s work the accessibility of art, whether it be on the street or online. At one auction for Banksy work, just as soon as the million-dollar bid was secured, the painting itself plunged through the bottom of the frame, being shredded to pieces in the process. To be bought at such prices and celebrated by art critics is the dream of many, yet Banksy robs the elite of claiming ownership to his art. Instead his work becomes a performance, it becomes the shock on the faces of the bidders and the rumours circulating over how someone could do such a thing to their own creation.

In the case of Rauschenberg, the erasure of the drawing by the celebrated artist de Kooning antagonises the viewer. In Erased de Kooning, we are left with a blank page with faint traces of what once was. The detail which we normally use for formal analysis has been stripped from the viewer. Yet when faced with these faint outlines, we are forced to consider what had been – not what could’ve been – in effect a reversal of the creative process that the artist faced. But plunged into this process we are forced to analyse what isn’t there. The urge to destroy isn’t just a creative urge on the part of the artist, but also for the viewer, who is placed in the artist’s shoes and becomes a part of the process. Unlike Banksy, this work hasn’t been completely destroyed – the blank page is left as an indication that this work isn’t just destruction but devotion to the wider creative process.

Banksy self-destructed, and Rauschenberg destroyed the work of a fellow artist, but what about the destruction of a 2000-year-old culturally significant antique? When Leo Steinberg asked Rauschenberg whether he would erase a Rembrandt painting, Rauschenberg replied no. This was interpreted by Steinberg as due to the fact that to do so would be to vandalise the creation by one of the greatest – instead of destroying the work of a living artist who consented to the process. Yet Ai Weiwei took a different stance in his Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn (1995). After having paid several thousand dollars for the ceremonial urn, from a period often considered as quintessential in Chinese history, Weiwei made a three-part photo series documenting him dropping the urn. Whereas with Rauschenberg and Banksy people were simply shocked, in this case people were genuinely offended and outraged at the destruction of a cultural heirloom. However, instead of being simply a reckless act, this destruction reflected the cultural revolution within China under Chairman Mao where the Four Olds (si jiu) – customs, culture, ideas, habits – were instructed to be destroyed. Instead of destruction being merely a creative urge, it was necessary in which to build a new creation. As the artist himself states “Chairman Mao used to tell us that we can only build a new world if we destroy the old one”. This piece leads us to question how we attach significance and value to inanimate objects and ultimately question the meaning of value itself.

Through examining these artists, we see that destruction is in fact a creative urge, changing art from a picture to an event and toying’s with the viewer’s imagination in ground-breaking ways. By destroying the picture, we no longer need to see the art work in order to analyse it, instead it is in our minds and stays with us to be accessible anytime we wish.

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