Wednesday 16th July 2025
Blog Page 733

Malala Yousafzai elected LMH social secretary

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Malala Yousafzai has been elected social secretary of Lady Margaret Hall, after running a successful campaign alongside fellow student Tiger Akawin.

They will take charge of the college’s bops and wider social calendar, and have indicated their desire for more events with other colleges.

In their manifesto, they boasted that between them they have a the numbers of a “wide and powerful network of people”, including “Bill Gates, [Justin] Trudeau and Sean Shannon (the world’s fastest talker)” – the latter having ran a charity auction at LMH in which Malala bid for the right to slap the JCR’s charity rep.

Besides their populist promises of Bop Liquer and Bop Pizza, the duo also emphasised their commitment to running events that cater for people “who aren’t keen on alcohol, crowds of people or loud music.”

Wadham evict three homeless people

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Wadham College has evicted three homeless people from their grounds, after concerns were raised over their alleged “unlawful and antisocial” behaviour.

The individuals had been occupying land owned by Wadham at the end of Savile Road since last month, using materials from the College to build shelters.

However, following reports of drug activity, college authorities made the decision to end their occupation.

Wadham warden, Ken MacDonald, said in an email to all students: “Wadham College recognises the serious problem of homelessness in Oxford, and we are very concerned with the plight of homeless people… However, we also have an obligation to respond when unlawful and antisocial activities take place on our land.

“This area in Savile Road is adjacent to a school entrance and it is a drop-off area for children, as well as an entrance for College staff and deliveries. Following reports of drug activity, including discarded hypodermic syringes and needles, and antisocial behaviour, we decided we had no choice other than to bring this unauthorised occupation to an end.”

Cherwell understands the matter was resolved amicably, with the individuals concerned leaving the site with their possessions by Monday 14th May.

Specialist contractors were later employed to clear the site of rubbish and drug paraphernalia, with fencing also being temporarily erected around the area in the interests of health and safety.

Editorial: we’re on the move

During the summer of 1993, Cherwell moved offices to 7 St. Aldates. According to the first editorial of the following term, “the process of moving was arduous and riddled with complications”.

Today, we are on the move again. Cherwell is leaving its home and entering into a new period of its history.

We will soon close the door for the last time on our messy, chaotic, and rundown offices and move our whole operation to a generic four-walled office block in Cowley – at least for a few weeks. It is rare that a group of people can have a connection with bricks and mortar, but every writer, staff member, and editor who has come into these offices has felt that they have something special about them.

More than 25 years’ worth of student journalists have felt that connection, and the offices are filled with memories of excitement, stress, and satisfaction from editions past and present.

Our walls are littered with those memories. On one wall is a laminated edition from 1999 with the frontpage heading ‘Ugh! Minging Tory snog’; on another sits a 2002 front page exposing a racist Oxford academic. It is fair to say Cherwell has covered a wide range of stories in our time in these offices.

In one of the back offices sit some dusty awards the paper has won over the years.


Few pay any attention to them – we are not a paper that cares about what award panels think, but about whether we are living up to our own standards.

In the other back office, there is a mess. Past editions festoon the floors and broken keyboards and computer components are piled high. These offices epitomise what Cherwell is really about.

We are not corporate or establishment. We are not provided with new Apple computers or permanent funding. We are the scrappy underdog, constantly fighting to stay alive.

At the moment, our future is insecure and unsure, but our track record suggests there is little to worry about.

When the editors finally leave the offices after sending this paper off to our printer, knowing that this part of Cherwell’s history is over, we will take one last look at this place which has housed so many passionate and talented people.

We may worry, but we will stop immediately when we see the photos of our 50 staff members that cover one of our walls. In the end, Cherwell is not about an office building, but about people.

We are about the students who come into this office every week to write, edit, and produce content for this almost 100-year-old paper. So long as students care, Cherwell will continue.

Old boys’ clubs and toilet brushes: how college bosses spend your money

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Oxford college heads claim everything from visits to exclusive gentlemen’s clubs to toilet brushes on expenses, Cherwell can reveal, with one warden racking up almost £25,000 in expenses over a single financial year.

The expense details, gathered by Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, uncover the global exploits of college principals, masters, and rectors. However, the fact that over half of colleges failed to respond will raise further questions on the transparency of the University’s finances.

In April 2016, the former warden of New College, Sir Curtis Price, spent £735.22 at the Knickerbocker Club – the famously secretive New York gentlemen’s club, whose previous members include President Franklin D. Roosevelt – which he charged to college expenses.

Three days later, he splashed almost £500 at the Chicago branch of Soho House – a global chain of highly selective private members’ clubs, whose London branch played host to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s first date. The bill was, once again, footed by New College.

This was in between a stay at a deluxe Washington D.C. mega-hotel, the Omni Shoreham, where he charged £736.50 to his expenses.

His successor as warden, Miles Young, seems to have less lavish spending habits, though he did file a £20 charge for toilet brushes for his lodgings. New College and Sir Curtis Price did not respond to Cherwell’s request for comment.

In September 2015, Sir Nigel Shadbolt – Principal of Jesus College and Professorial Research Fellow in the Department of Computer Science – claimed £83.80 to pay for his wife, Lady Shadbolt, to visit his lodgings.

The next month, he paid an additional £68.10 to bring her over for a “drinks party”, for which he also claimed her parking fee.

He also claimed £19.75 for an item for his lodgings from the Futon Company, and a £50 delivery charge for a mirror. Neither Jesus College or Sir Shadbolt responded to requests for comment.

Meanwhile, the principal of St Edmund Hall and Oxford professor of molecular microbiology, Keith Gull, claimed almost £500 in “Christmas presents” and “gifts” between November and December 2015.

Gull also claimed £185 on a desk lamp in November 2017. Gull told Cherwell: “The Christmas presents are chocolates etc. that the Principal gives each Christmas to all staff in the College.”

Of the responses Cherwell received, the highest expense claims for a single year was for Wadham’s Lord Ken MacDonald. During the 2015-16 financial year, his total expenses came to £23,265.55, most of which were accounted for by shared trips to Hong Kong and the USA.

However, despite their legal obligations to respond thoroughly to FOI requests, many colleges failed to provide a transparent view of the expenses and remuneration packages of their college heads.

Several colleges failed to reveal the detailed claims of their most senior staff, instead only providing the total annual figures for expenses claimed.

Others did provide broad categories, such as ‘Travel’ and ‘Sustenance’, but did not provide a detailed breakdown of claims as requested.

Still more did not reply to Cherwell’s FOI requests at all, despite the statutory deadline passing some time ago.

Last year, Cherwell revealed that Oxford vice chancellor Louise Richardson had claimed nearly £70,000 on expenses since her appointment in 2016.

The figures showed that the University spent £30,818 on Richardson’s travel, accommodation, and hospitality in the seven months since taking the job. A further £38,339 were claimed in total expenses in the first part of the following financial year.

The University took a similar stance to most of its colleges, however, by refusing to give a detailed breakdown of Richardson’s expense claims.

This differs from the information release policies of other UK universities. A previous request to the vice chancellors of Glasgow and Edinburgh Universities led to a full breakdown of expenses, including receipts for the purchase of a slice of cake and a bottle of water.

At the time, an Oxford University spokesperson told Cherwell: “The vice chancellor’s expenses reflect her role at the head of a £1.4bn organisation with global responsibilities.

“She has regular commitments representing the University internationally, and all expenses are kept to a minimum – for example, the vice chancellor flies economy class on all trips within Europe and within the US.”

Uni welcomes calls for ‘urgent action’ on mental health services

Oxford has welcomed a Universities UK (UUK) report calling for “urgent action” to improve the coordination of universities and the NHS in regards to mental health services.

According to the report, between 2016 and 2018 the number of under-graduates disclosing a mental health condition across the country rose from 39,275 to 49,265, while the rise was from 5,625 to 8,040 among graduate students. Many students felt “failed” by their university’s insufficient mental health resources.

It comes after three Bristol University students died in as many weeks, in what are believed to be suicides.

A University spokesperson told Cherwell: “Oxford welcomes the UUK report and will continue to view students’ mental health and wellbeing as a priority, including the need to forge close links with local NHS services.”

Oxford University spends more on mental health services for each student annually than any other university in the country, with £1,000,100 (£48.25 per student) spent in 2016/17, according to statistics obtained by Cherwell last year.

However, the picture is more varied at a college level. Only ten out of Oxford’s 38 Colleges and six Permanent Private Halls offer an on-site counsellor, with four college websites having no reference to mental health resources on offer. Colleges with either full-time or part-time qualified counsellors on-site include Balliol, Brasenose, Hertford (a Welfare Officer trained in CBT), Jesus, Keble, Nuffield, Magdalen, St Cross, St Hugh’s, St John’s, and Somerville.

All undergraduate colleges offer the support of Junior Deans, JCR Welfare Representatives, and trained Peer Supporters. Peer Supporters are students who have undergone official training from the University Counselling service to offer support to students in an informal manner. Each college has a panel of between six and twelve trained Peer Supporters, with approximately 350 active Peer Supporters at the University.

In addition to these staff members, all colleges have chaplains, who are involved in pastoral care. At Balliol, Christ Church, Corpus Christi, Green Templeton, Keble, Merton and University, chaplains act as both Welfare Co-ordinators and College Chaplains. Colleges without a counsellor on-site rely upon the university-wide counselling service, which sees between 11% and 12% of the student population per academic year, according to the service’s web page.

The Head of Counselling at Oxford and Chair of Heads of University Counselling Services (HUCS), Alan Percy, worked closely with UKK on the recent report. Percy, on behalf of the University administration, has said that: “Oxford is helping lead the development of this important area.”

Oxford’s spokesperson said the University “offers a range of mental health support options based on levels of need and difficulty, from information campaigns and peer support programmes to wellbeing advisers and professionally trained University counselling staff.

They continued: “Oxford’s peer support programme was recently highlighted as an example of good practice in UUK’s new framework on student mental health, and the University’s Counselling Service is currently providing training for academic and non-academic staff in colleges and departments that will enable them to support students who are experiencing difficulties.”

PakSoc criticised for neglecting to screen documentary

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The leaders of Oxford’s Pakistan Society have been accused of “intolerance and bigotry” against the Ahmadi religious minority after they allegedly neglected to screen a documentary about Dr Abdus Salam.

The documentary, which was screened on 12th May by the Oxford University Ahmadiyya Muslim Students Association (OUAMSA), described the life and achievements of Salam, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1979.

Salam, who identified as an Ahmadi (or Ahmadiyya) Muslim, was the first Pakistani to win a Nobel Prize.

Ahmadis face constant discrimination and ostracisation in Pakistan, where they were declared “non-Muslims” under Pakistani law in 1974 – a stance which has been repeatedly criticised by the international community.

Accordingly, very little is known about Salam’s achievements in his home country. Though the inscription on Salam’s headstone in Pakistan originally read “The First Muslim Nobel Laureate”, the word “Muslim” has since been chipped away by vandals.

PakSoc and the Oxford University Islamic Society were allegedly contacted by OUAMSA President and Oxford PhD student, Noman Chaudhry, in January about co-hosting the documentary screening. The PakSoc committee at the time allegedly expressed willingness to co-host the event.

In the months that followed, Cherwell understands that the PakSoc committee debated whether or not to co-host the event, making the eventual decision to co-host the screening.

However, the society failed to make their support for the event public until the day of the screening when they shared the event on their Facebook page. In the end, PakSoc did not co-host the event.

In an earlier statement, Chaudhry said: “I contacted Pakistani Society two months ago about the screening. I had numerous chats with the committee members, including the President, at various events.

“I was told that they were still discussing the matter and that they had other events to focus on, and that there were reservations within the society.”

The Oxford University Pakistan Society told Cherwell: “There was never any objection to the Society fully supporting the screening and encouraging our Members to attend.

“Subsequent to this, there was a failure and significant lack of urgency on the part of the Committee to formally communicate this to AMSA Oxford in due time.

“Due to a lengthy decision-making process, and ample back-and-forth debates within committee, we failed within this time to carry out even the promotional support that everybody on Committee had by unanimous consensus agreed to extend to this event.

The society added: “Any suggestion that the Oxford University Pakistan Society is in any way opposed to the rights of the Ahmadiyya Community or to the recognition of Abdus Salam’s incommensurate achievements are inaccurate and we sincerely regret that our actions have implied otherwise.

“The whole Committee stands firmly behind the Ahmadiyya Community, both inside and outside Pakistan, opposing any kind of discrimination and persecution perpetrated.

“As a Pakistan Society, we recognise the incredible contribution of the Ahmadiyya Community to the development of Pakistan, not least the extraordinary work of Professor Dr Abdus Salam.”

PakSoc confirmed that they are re-evaluating their decision-making process and communication channels to ensure this situation does not arise in the future.

In a show of support, the majority of the PakSoc committee, along with Malala Yousafzai – PakSoc’s Spokesperson and 2014 Nobel Peace Prize recipient – attended the screening.

In a statement made the day after the screening, PakSoc said: “We regret we couldn’t co-host Dr Salam’s documentary. We had made the decision to co-host on May 8th 2018 but unfortunately this decision was not conveyed to the organisers in time.

“We have also reached out to AMSA and have agreed to collaborate in the near future.”

In a letter responding to PakSoc’s statement, screening co-organiser Mashal Iftkhr said PakSoc’s conduct regarding the screening had “baffled” her and her co-organisers, causing them “great shame and regret.”

She added: “Following inexplicably long silences in spite of repeated contact attempts, we had been informed that Oxford University Pakistan Society did not want to co-host the event and did not want to be affiliated with the event or promotional material in any way at all.

“When asking for a reason, we have either been ignored entirely or been informed that the event would risk ‘controversy’ and no further details were elaborated.

“Under increasing pressure from alumni, journalists, and also the committee members, […] Noman was contacted by the [PakSoc] committee less than 24 hours before the event with an offer of co-hosting. A single Facebook post was posted less than 24 hours before the event.

“This gesture cannot reasonably be seen as attempting to meaningfully co-host and cannot interpreted as anything other than a face-saving tactic in light of news spreading of the committee’s decision making. For this reason, the offer was declined.

“We are sure the Oxford University Pakistan Society committee is painfully aware of the enormous suffering of our fellow Pakistani minorities and the persecution they face on an institutional, economic and societal level.

“The deep intolerance and bigotry that Ahmadis face on a daily basis is unfathomable to those of us who are in a greater position of privilege. It is all the more disappointing that this miasma would be perpetuated here in UK by Pakistani Muslims who face bigotry and prejudice themselves.”

Iftkhr’s letter further called for PakSoc President Haroon Zaman’s resignation, claiming: “If the President does not offer his resignation, we shall unfortunately have to take matters further with regulatory bodies at the University to ensure such discriminatory behaviour is met with appropriate disciplinary action.”

Students responding to PakSoc’s statement on Facebook wrote: “What kind of apology is this? The missing word of ‘Muslim’ speaks volumes.”

“How can you expect England and others to defend Muslims and encourage tolerance and diversity when you can’t even do it with your own brothers and sisters in Islam?”

“Please own up to your bigotry instead of coming up with excuses now that you’ve been caught. Learn to be more tolerant about others’ beliefs.”

A former committee member added: “As a former President, I am pleased you are finally acknowledging you were wrong. However, it should never have come to this.

“If you won’t support the very few heroes we have, who else will?”

On Thursday, Chaudhry told Cherwell: “We expressed our grievances to the OUPakSoc four days ago. Since then, we have had a series of talks with the committee in order to seek an honest public apology for the utter disregard shown, and in order to ensure that the committee held no religious prejudice and hate for the Ahmadi Muslims, secure a public commitment to holding an educational event (e.g. panel discussion) on the persecution of Ahmadi Muslims in Pakistan.

“On Wednesday we received a notice from the committee that they would commit to a joint public statement that would include an appropriate apology and a commitment to an event during the Committee’s tenure on the persecution of Ahmadi Muslims in Pakistan.

“It is now over 24 hours later and they have failed to produce a signed statement by the President of OUPakSoc. We are concerned that this is because the statement contains references to the Committee acknowledging equal rights for Pakistan’s Ahmadi Muslims.

“As a result of the events of the past few days, we have lost faith in Mr. Haroon Zaman’s ability to lead as the President of OUPakSoc. He has failed to take our concerns (and concerns of numerous civil rights and human rights activists as well as other student bodies) seriously and has adopted a stubborn posture in the face of genuine criticism.

“It is with great regret therefore that we now press on to call for his resignation.”

PakSoc told Cherwell: “The Oxford University Pakistan Society apologises unreservedly and regrets the creation of a perception that the Society may have in any way been biased against the Ahmadiyya Community.

“We realise that through our initial over-cautiousness as well as subsequent failings in communication and urgency, we misrepresented the principles that we stand by as a Committee.”

The documentary, Salam – The First Muslim Nobel Laureate (stylised with “Muslim” crossed out) traces Salam’s journey from a small village in rural Pakistan to the UK and Italy, where he made substantial contributions to the fields of theoretical and particle physics.

The final straw: Oxford’s anti-plastics revolution

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Oxford’s clubs and bars have significantly decreased their plastic waste over the past six months, in a voluntary effort to curb their impact on the environment.

Despite the current lack of official legislation surrounding plastic waste, over 16 college bars and four Oxford nightclubs have committed to not buying plastic straws.

This conscious decision to go green has also extended to paper cups, with some bars offering discounts for those using reusable cups in an effort to reduce waste production.

The use of plastic straws is a major issue contributing to the global plastic pollution crisis. In the United States alone, nearly 500m plastic straws are thrown away every day. Because of their lightweight nature, straws easily blow into waterways and into the ocean, where they can have devastating effects on marine life.

UK environmental policy has been significantly influenced in recent years by the desire to eliminate non-recyclable plastic packaging, in what has been labelled the “Blue Planet Effect” after David Attenborough’s recent series.

Publicised measures against plastic usage, such as the Queen’s ban on single-use plastics on the Royal Estate, have helped to raise awareness of these issues.

Bars and clubs remain some of the worst culprits when it comes to the use of plastic straws. Straws are often automatically placed in drinks, only to be discarded minutes later.

Nevertheless, Oxford nightclubs and bars have been putting the planet over prices, with Atik, the O2, Bullingdon, and Plush no longer stocking plastic straws.

Many college bars have either replaced plastic straws with biodegradable options or have stopped using them altogether, with exceptions being made for those who require straws to drink for disability reasons.

Some college bars have made changes in response to motions passed in their JCRs, while others have made the switch unprompted.

Exeter College Bar is attempting to phase out the consumption of paper straws by storing them out of sight. University College has removed straws without providing alternatives.

Cherwell understands that Green Templeton College Bar, the Oxford Union Bar, and Purple Turtle are have yet to make changes to their straw provision practices.

GTC and Purple Turtle continue to stock plastic straws on a request-only basis, while the Union Bar is “currently looking into” low-cost straw alternatives.

Of the seven balls held in Trinity Term, only Oriel Commemoration Ball, Green Templeton Ball, and Lincoln Ball committed to not using plastic straws.

A member of the Lincoln ball committee told Cherwell: “No plastic straws will be stocked by our bars on the night of the ball. Other privately run bars may stock straws, but will be requested not to give them out unless specifically requested. Every effort will be made to recycle waste from the ball where possible.”

An Oriel ball committee member added: “Our suppliers have agreed to use a mixture of paper and biodegradable straws so the ball will be plastic straw free.”

A GTC ball committee member said: “We are not planning on having straws at our Ball as I find this an unnecessary creation of waste.”

In contrast, there was little effort to reduce the use of plastic straws at the Keble Ball and St Edmund Hall Ball, where attendees reported that straws were served nearly every drink. Following St Edmund Hall Ball, many straws were left in an open grate near the bar area.

Other Oxford businesses have also joined the anti-plastics movement, including Turl Street Kitchen, Jericho Coffee Traders, and All Bar One.

Speaking on behalf of Oxford’s local anti-plastics action group, Oxford Action on Plastic Pollution, former Oxford Green Party Treasurer Hazel Dawe told Cherwell: “We would like to see a complete ban on plastic straws in the City of Oxford. And straws aren’t the only form of single use plastic.

“We should all be using our own reusable coffee cups, not throwing away plastic coffee cups. Take away food should be served in biodegradable containers not plastic. Plastic cutlery should be replaced with wooden cutlery.

“There is so much more we could be doing. Oxford should be leading the way on getting rid of single use plastic.”

A whole new world: NASA’s pioneering search for life

On the evening of Wednesday 18thApril 2018, NASA launched a new space telescope which will orbit around the Earth and help astronomers find habitable planets outside of our solar system. The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, will join the veteran Kepler telescope, which has discovered over 2000 planets since its launch in 2009. NASA hopes that TESS will identify planets which have a similar size to Earth, which can then be investigated further to see if they might support life.

TESS was carried up by one of SpaceX’s reusable Falcon 9 rockets, which have become fairly standard for NASA launches in recent years. The telescope is planned to scan all of the sky over its first two years in orbit, focusing on individual regions for 27 days at a time to eventually cover all of the Southern Hemisphere in its first year and all of the Northern Hemisphere in its second.

As it carries out its scanning, NASA’s researchers will be looking out for planets that are only a few times larger than Earth, orbiting around M dwarf stars, which are a little dimmer than the Sun. With large planets and relatively small stars, the planets will dim their stars’ light as they pass in front of them. Warm, habitable planets will be found in close, short orbits around these small stars – meaning that they are more likely to be spotted passing over their stars during TESS’s 27 day viewing periods.

TESS has been designed to identify planets that are roughly the same size and temperature as Earth. However, that’s just the beginning of the story. After TESS’s first two years of investigation, the planets that have been found will be further investigated using a larger, more powerful telescope: the James Webb Space Telescope.

Webb is hailed by NASA as “the premier observatory of the next decade”, and set to be launched in 2020. It will use its massive 6.5m mirror to capture images which researchers can use to study the creation of the universe, the formation of galaxies and star systems, and many other questions of astronomy as well as taking a closer look at TESS’s exoplanets.

The Webb Telescope should help identify what gases are in the atmospheres of the Earth-like planets detected by TESS, which is a key factor in whether or not they might support life. Different gases absorb different wavelengths of light, and while TESS will mainly just be able to spot these planets, Webb will be sensitive enough to see exactly which wavelengths dim the most when a planet passes in front of its star – and thus, tell us what their atmospheres are made of. NASA hopes that they can keep TESS running beyond its initial two-year mission, so that the two telescopes can be used together to identify and analyse potentially Earth-like worlds.

The search for life-supporting worlds – and possibly even life itself – out in space is one of the most engaging ventures in astronomy, and has consistently grabbed headlines in science magazines, major newspapers and tabloids alike for decades. Newspapers are still running stories about Curiosity discovering ‘Life on Mars’, seven years after the rover touched down. Recently, the discovery of large lakes deep under ice in Canada ignited new discussion about the possibility of life on Jupiter’s frozen moon, Europa, which has a similar subglacial sea. And now, NASA has stepped up the search for life amongst the thousands of planets that we can see outside of our own solar system.

MP tells Uni to help relieve homelessness

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An Oxford MP has called for the university to survey its properties to see if any could be used to relieve homelessness in the city.

Anneliese Dodds, MP for Oxford East, told Cherwell: “It would be helpful if the University could undertake an audit of its properties to examine if any that are not being used could contribute to relieving homelessness, particularly as temporary provision during the winter months.”

It followed her speech in the House of Commons on Tuesday where she spoke about about the “wrong-headed government policies” that are contributing to Oxford’s housing crisis.

She told MPs that the city is the “least affordable place in Britain to buy a home,” and that an average home costs 16 times the average salary.

According to Dodds, “benefit cuts and freezes; cuts to hostel funding by our city council as a result of central Government cuts; and cuts to support services in mental health and in addiction services” are the three factors that contribute to the “60 people sleep[ing] on our streets some evenings.”

These factors are in addition to the lack of affordable housing, Dodds said. She also praised the “huge local efforts to improve the situation”, mentioning the 180 beds currently provided for rough sleepers and the coordination between Oxford’s churches and rough sleeping services “over the winter to try to unlock additional places.”

She continued: “However, all of that has been against the grain of wrong-headed Government policies, which are stopping my city from being a city for everyone, which it always has been until now.

“It is becoming a place where people can get on and be secure only if they are wealthy.” Dodds closed her speech by inviting the Secretary of State “to come to my city so that he can talk to those families in need. He will be able to talk to the overcrowded families – those whose children are sharing tiny bedrooms – and to those people sleeping on the streets to find out from them what needs to change.”

Dodds told Cherwell: “We desperately need affordable housing in Oxford – and the University can play a major part in that. It’s understandable that the University has a focus on ensuring that its own academics and technicians are appropriately housed, but we also need to acknowledge that a lot of what would otherwise be family housing in our city is under pressure, due to increasing student demand.

“We must also remember that the University would not be able to function without cleaners, caterers, maintenance workers etc. – and many of them are being priced out of Oxford.

“It’s in the University’s interests as well as those of low-paid workers to pay a Living Wage, and to make as many sites as possible available for genuinely affordable housing. Magdalen and Brasenose Colleges seem to be positively working towards this, but we haven’t seen it across the board.”

Writer launches campaign for new Oxford memorial to Percy Shelley

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A writer has called for a new memorial to Romantic poet and University College alum Percy Bysshe Shelley to be erected in Oxford.

John Webster, a freelance writer from Headington, specialises in Romantic poetry studies.
Webster has suggested that there should be a more public tribute to the poet in addition to the memorial at University College, below.

The Lloyds Bank building on the corner of Cornmarket and High Street has been suggested as an option for a new memorial.

After launching the campaign as a member of the Oxford Humanist Group, Webster spoke of the need for a more current memorial to Shelley.

“With the support of the Humanist Group I am embarking on an initiative to create a new Shelley memorial in Oxford and I would like to invite support for it,” he said. “There is of course an existing memorial at University College but this is universally regarded to be very much of its time, and is also not universally accessible to the public.”

Mr Webster said that his idea would be to place a plaque or sign near or close to the site of the original bookshop, where Shelley launched his famous 1811 treatise “The Necessity of Atheism”.

“This is on the High Street, where now Lloyds Bank can be found, and the text could begin along the lines of the memorial to John Wesley in New Inn Hall Street: ‘In a bookshop on this site Percy Bysshe Shelley launched in March 1811 his treatise ‘The Necessity of Atheism’.”

Webster said that he is aware “atheism makes some people cross and would not want to have anything that spoils anyone’s day but rather encourages and inspires.”

University College’s memorial to Shelley was formally inaugurated in 1893, after the College agreed to a request by Lady Shelley to house it.

The sculpture was intended to be placed in the Protestant cemetery in Rome, in which Shelley is buried, but it was too large for the plot.

Among Shelley’s most famous poems are ‘Ozymandias’ and ‘Ode to the West Wind’.
He died in 1822, aged 29, after drowning in a sudden storm on the Gulf of Spezia. The Univ memorial was designed by Edward Onslow Ford.