Wednesday, May 14, 2025
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Prince Albert urges Oxford students to ignore “alternative facts”

Jack Hunter
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Prince Albert urges Oxford students to ignore “alternative facts”

Albert II, Prince of Monaco, called on Oxford students to combat the “alternative facts” of climate change deniers, in a speech at the Union on Monday night.

Taking about his environmental activism, Prince Albert said he had “faith” in Oxford students as the “global leaders of the future” to bring about a “a better and more sustainable world.”

In what appeared to be a veiled attack on Donald Trump’s administration, Prince Albert warned about the dangers of “some vivid political dialogue, which is questioning scientific truths” in recent weeks.

He said: “Despite the concern that they [climate change deniers] have generated, in particular over the past few weeks, I want to believe that reason will prevail.

“Because scientific facts are increasingly hard to challenge. There are no alternative facts, other than futile denial schemes.”

The new US president dismissed climate change as a Chinese hoax before the US election, and since then has appointed a string of people with links to the fossil fuel industry and a track record of global warming scepticism to senior positions in his administration.

Prince Albert said: “Despite the bleak picture which I have just described, you have a unique opportunity to change the course of history. To achieve this, we have science, awareness, and power.”

“We need to accept the unity of this globalised world, we need to accept that we are sharing this planet,” he added.

As head of state of the principality of Monaco, he has continued Monaco’s policy of strengthening environmental awareness, being the only incumbent head of state to have visited both the North and South Poles.

The Prince of Monaco has an estimated wealth of over one billion dollars.

OUCA resignation controversy

Jack Hunter
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OUCA resignation controversy

A prospective presidential candidate for the Oxford University Conservative Association (OUCA) has resigned after claiming potential opponents feared he would transform the popular weekly drinking event Port and Policy into “a left liberal utopia”.

Redha Rubaie, a second year at Corpus Christi who had been the group’s secretary, highlighted “compulsion from college relating to work” and personal reasons as behind his decision.

He also says he resigned from OUCA’s committee after his ability to run for the presidential position was “resisted by members of the group’s old established order”.

Rubaie said that he had been “punished unduly harshly” by the Association’s disciplinary committee in the weeks leading to his resignation.

Rubaie was called to attend two meetings of the disciplinary committee, which resulted in him being barred from running in future elections in the Association. They had been triggered after his “failure to issue the minutes from meetings of Council on time, failure to maintain an up-to-date activist points register, and failure to notify all officers of meetings”.

He considers some members of the disciplinary committee, which he claims is currently filled with the more conservative wing of the Association, to be opposed his more “radical” position. He alleges: “Members of the committee proactively pushed for another candidate to oppose (him)”.

Rubaie claims that his opposition feared he would “try to turn Port and Policy into a liberal-left utopia and try to impose political correctness.”

Rubaie added: “I don’t think that many people will see my resignation as a loss. The greatest pity of it, is that there are a lot of great people in OUCA, the problem is it has a weird effect on certain people.”

Rubaie did also explain, however, that he left OUCA for “non-political reasons” in his resignation letter. OUCA says his attendance at the disciplinary committee followed “breaches of an unprecedented number of rules” and “the fact that previous warnings over failures of office had not been heeded.”

The Association’s President, Matthew Burwood, said: “The former Secretary failed to fulfil these minimum requirements was legitimate ground for disciplinary action with a firm basis in the constitution and precedent.”

Potential opposition candidate, Gavin Fleming, denied that he had used his position on the disciplinary committee to damage Rubaie’s election hopes, saying he did not sit on any meetings involving Rubaie as he “thought it would be ungentlemanly of me to attend”

Fleming told Cherwell: “I vehemently believed that this boy was not fit to run the Association, and events have borne that out. He had shown himself to be inept at his job and, for his ignominious departure, he has none to blame but himself. The only story here is one of incompetence; the Disciplinary Committee came to this conclusion without my input.”

Cole-ossal victory for OUSU Kate

Felix Pope
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Cole-ossal victory for OUSU Kate

Kate Cole has been elected as Oxford University Student Union (OUSU) President for 2017-18 with 2,252 first-preference votes, beating her sole rival Vivian Holmes.

This amounts to just 10 per cent of the total student population, but is higher than the 6.3 per cent achieved by last year’s winning candidate, Jack Hampton.

Overall 4,454 students voted—a record turnout of 19 per cent, and an increase of 42 per cent on last year. OUSU held a results party in Oxford restaurant The Jam Factory to announce the results, featuring live music and entertainment.

Over one thousand people were invited to the Facebook event. A few dozen attended. Two notable absences were both Presidential candidates.

Cole’s #takeACTion slate, which promised fairer treatment for suspended students and improved policy on mental health, won three out of five sabbatical roles.

Following her victory she said: “Massive thanks to the opposition Vivian, you have been a great opposition and a great friend. I’m so glad that I’ve made a friend out of this process.

“To every person who has voted, sent us lovely well wishes, and put up with our relentless Facebook posturing. We couldn’t be more grateful.”

Fellow #takeACTion slate member Katy Haigh was elected VP for Women. Shortly after the results were announced she told Cherwell: “Thank you to everyone who voted for the ACTion slate, to those of you who supported our campaign, and to our competitors for always being pleasant and professional during this election.

“I am so excited to work with those who identify as women in the next academic year as their representative and I’m confident that I can provide support for all students across oxford no matter what they may be going through.

Katy Haigh took VP for Women, and Catherine Canning won the VP for Access and Academic Affairs unopposed. Canning told Cherwell: “I am so grateful to everyone that voted. I look forward to representing the students of Oxford and being their voice in vital discussions regarding improving access and academic issues.

“I want OUSU to be accountable, consistent and transparent next year and for all Oxford students. We have a fabulous team and I look forward to working with them.”

The ‘Stand Up For Oxford’ slate of failed Presidential candidate Vivian Holmes took control of two sabbatical positions.

Tom Barringer was elected unopposed as VP for Charities and Communities. Farheen Ahmed will become VP for Welfare and Equal Opportunities.

‘Stand Up For Oxford’ told Cherwell: “We as a campaign are very pleased that the turnout this year was 40% higher than the year before. The increased level of student engagement makes makes us optimistic about the future of OUSU elections, and hopeful for an even higher turnout next time.

“We are thrilled that Farheen Ahmed was elected, and are excited for the brilliant work she will carry out as VP Welfare and Equal Opportunities. We congratulate her, and Tom Barringer, Niamh White, and Ellie MacDonald for their victories.

“We are sorry we won’t be able to put forward the vision we had for OUSU, but we congratulate the rest of the candidates who were elected for their success.”

‘Wake Up, NUS’, a slate campaigning for structural reform of the NUS after Oxford voted to remain affiliated last year, won two NUS delegate places with candidates Lucasta Bath and Adam Hilsenrath.

Hilsenrath told Cherwell: “I am of course proud and humbled that I won the vote of 692 of my fellow students, and look forward to representing them along with my fellow slate member Lucasta Bath at the NUS conference.

“Unfortunately, I will not be joined by Tom or Baruch, the other fantastic candidates on our slate. Nonetheless, we will look to fight for a more representative, welcoming NUS, and hold it to account to remove the anti-semitism and racism within its ranks.”

Tom Turner, the aforementioned ‘Wake Up NUS’ candidate who failed in his bid to win election as a delegate, said: “I’m happy that two of our candidates got on, and I look forward to seeing them do a fantastic job.

“Obviously I’m disappointed to not get on, though as long as my values get a voice at conference I don’t really mind who’s expressing them.”

An affiliate with the ‘Wake Up NUS’ slate was Alex Curtis of ‘Wake Up OUSU’ who was voted onto the position of Student Trustee, alongside Oliver Rice and Tarak Nath Gorai.

Sean O’Neil and Aliya Yule were elected as NUS delegates from the ‘Count On Us’ slate. They describe themselves as standing “for welfare, for education, for liberation”, but controversially refused at hustings to vow to vote against a hypothetical reelection of Malia Bouattia, the divisive President of the NUS who has previously been condemned as an anti-semite.

Yule argued that Bouattia had issued a further apology for her alleged anti-Semitic comments, and thus could not be discounted off-hand.

Following the announcement of the results, Yule told Cherwell: “It’s the overwhelming vote to stay in NUS and this election that shows that Oxford students want to stay in the NUS and fight to make it different.”

The other NUS delegates elected were Lucasta Bath, Niamh White, Adam Hilsenrath, and Ellie MacDonald. Teddy Hall recorded the highest college turnout, winning £600, with Wadham in second.

Additional reporting by Lucy Enderby, Jack Hunter, Maxim Parr-Reid, and Jessica Voicu.

Somerville elects Baroness Royall as principal

Felix Pope
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Somerville elects Baroness Royall as principal

Somerville College have this morning announced the election of Baroness Royall of Blaisdon as their new principal, replacing the outgoing Dr Alice Prochaska after a seven-year term.

The appointment of a female principal keeps with tradition at the former women’s college, where the role has never been held by a man.

In an email to students Andrew Parker, Chairman of the Selection Committee, described the search as “thorough and exhaustive”. He said that the recruitment consultants Maloney’s had made contact with around 400 potential candidates.

Baroness Royall previously earned praise from members of the Oxford community following the publication of her report into anti-semitism at Oxford University Labour Club. Royall concluded that there was no evidence that the club was institutionally anti-Semitic, but acknowledged a “cultural problem in which behaviour and language that would once have been intolerable is now tolerated”.

Baroness Royall said: “It is a pleasure and a privilege to have been appointed as the next Principal of Somerville. I look forward to working with academics, staff and students to build on the work of Alice Prochaska in this wonderful college where teaching and research of the highest quality are celebrated.

“I am proud that I will be part of a vibrant community that is meeting the challenges of today whilst finding solutions to the problems of tomorrow.

“My aim is to ensure academic excellence whilst reaching out to young people with potential from all backgrounds so that our future leaders will reflect the diversity of our society. I am determined that Somerville’s future will be as exceptional as its past and present.”

Royall began her career in politics working as General Secretary of the British Labour Group in the European Parliament, before returning to the UK to work for leader of the Labour Party Neil Kinnock. She went on to work for the EU in various capacities before being made a Lord in 2004.

It was in this capacity that she became a Privy Councillor, Chief Whip in the Lords, a member of the cabinet, and Leader of the Opposition in the Lords. She has announced that she will not seek reelection to that role.

Royall’s selection comes as a relief to those concerned that a man had been shortlisted for the position.

Alex Crichton-Miller, president of Somerville JCR, told Cherwell before the announcement: “Given that there are several colleges in Oxford that have only ever been led by men, there were some members of the Common Room who felt strongly that Somerville ought to continue to have a female principal.

“This point was made, clearly, on the basis that the proposed female candidate possesses all other required qualities for the leadership role.

“Others held the view that it would be unjustified to discriminate on the basis of the candidate’s gender, even in the case of positive action.”

Of the 38 Oxford colleges just nine—Green Templeton, Mansfield, Oriel, Pembroke, St Anthony’s, St Hugh’s, St John’s, Somerville, and Wolfson—currently have female heads of colleges.

Somerville, a women’s college until 1994, became the only college in Oxford that has solely had female leadership when St Hilda’s appointed its first male principal in 2014.

In conversation with Loyle Carner

Ben Warren
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In conversation with Loyle Carner

Hailing from Croydon, South London, Benjamin Coyle-Larner is better known to the public as Loyle Carner. His brand of what the Guardian has called “awkwardly confessional hip-hop” has been steadily making waves on the scene ever since he released his first EP, A Little Late, in September 2014. Its combination of emotional intimacy and often soft, seductive beats garnered the rapper a devoted following and a fair amount of attention from music publications.

Following the critically acclaimed reception of his debut album, Yesterday’s Gone, Loyle continues to impress with a distinctive emotionally charged sound that retains its charm whilst still managing to excite.

On top of his album, he tells me he’s also recently been involved with an issue close to his heart. Namely, the ‘Chilli Con Carner’ initiative he ran with the Goma Collective last summer, which aimed to teach kids with ADHD how to cook. He insists, however, that he “didn’t want it to get involved with the music at all”, clarifying “I didn’t want kids who were into me and my music, just kids that liked to cook”.

On the subject of the musical touchstones he turned to when making the album, Loyle cites Bob Marley and Mos Def as the major influences to his sound, but also a more contemporary base: “Tom Misch and Rebel Kleff…They’re the guys I’m listening to at the moment. My brother keeps my ear to [new music], put me onto Logic” (Logic; the man signed to Def Jam in 2013 who described himself as hip-hop’s “Young Sinatra”).

Our conversation about musical contemporaries or predecessors inevitably turns to the subject of family. When I ask what his childhood musical memories were, he points to a variety of influence as a result of familial music tastes: “I guess I used to bring a lot of hip-hop home and my mum and dad played a lot of folk and stuff”. He refers to his current and past musical tastes as a “fairly eclectic mix”, and this comes across in the sonic diversity of his own compositions.

Album-opener and single, ‘The Isle of Arran’, is a good example—Carner’s direct but instinctively likeable sentimentality is coupled with a majestic gospel sample to create perhaps one of his most immediate and powerful tracks.

Family is at the centre of Loyle’s music and he admits that his lyrical focus on it “comes naturally” to him. The sixth track on the Yesterday’s Gone, the 30-second, spoken-word interlude ‘Swear’ records a conversation between Loyle and his mother, where they fondly argue about each other’s swearing. It’s unexpectedly intimate and genuine, a real-life conversation on which the listener eavesdrops, but it sits comfortably next to the intricate wordplay of his lyrics.

This concern with the everyday and the familiar, along with an emotional honesty and rawness that is almost uncomfortable in the way that the most intense conversations with a close friend are, combine to create his sound.

When I ask him how important he considers the vulnerability he exposes himself to in his lyrical candour, he claims that it is “massively important” and that, especially in regard to masculinity, being emotionally open is “not as embarrassing as you think”.

His sound translates particularly well to live shows which he says he “always enjoys…I think they’re so necessary” perhaps because his emotional honesty is never more evident than when he’s playing to a live crowd.

Carner is playing in Oxford again at the O2 Academy after a sellout success at the Bullingdon in September last year.

Infinitely listenable when on record, it is in a live venue that Loyle Carner really comes alive. It is when he’s in the same room as the people who are listening to his lyrics, when he is looking at them and performing to them with the same mixture of humility and confidence, that the emotional rawness and domestic sentimentality of his music is so powerful: “When I’m playing to hundreds of people in a room, I want it to be just like talking to your auntie and uncle”.

Spotlight: The Lemon Twigs

Natalia Bus
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Spotlight: The Lemon Twigs

A mixture of The Beatles’ charm and The Beach Boys’ harmonies, The Lemon Twigs are refreshingly current considering their music channels mainly 60s baroque rock.

The frontmen of the band are the D’Addario brothers, who appear as strange as they are wonderful. Their recently released debut, Do Hollywood, is impressive to say the least.

‘Haroomata’ is a highlight—dominated by vintage synths, the track fluctuates between Michael D’Addario’s tender, stripped-back delivery and Broadway-esque instrumentals.

The long-play overflows with classic influences, from the melodramatic guitars of Queen, to hints of early Beatles in the much quieter, punctuated piano and undulating vocals of ‘How Lucky Am I?’.

The Lemon Twigs manage to fit 60 years of musical genius into a 43-minute album and present it almost as a demo recorded in someone’s front room.

Their sound is a dose of authenticity in a world where authenticity is increasingly hard to come by and their sophisticated musical arrangements will have you shell-shocked these kids haven’t even reached their 20s.

Home is where the art is: Kingsley Ng

Queenie Li
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Home is where the art is: Kingsley Ng

Even for people with the least art literacy, it is unlikely for them to conclude contemporary art merely being created within traditional means such as paintings and sculptures today. Art has been striving to excite the world and break convention in all pluralistic means. Installation, performance, site-specific art, digital art, to name but a few. Art needs to be stimulating, shaking, startling in any imaginable form and venue. The prevalence of conceptual art in the mid-1960s placed the focus of art on the process rather than the outcome.

The way of thinking has since then become one of the most powerful tools to conjure up art. After ‘Fountain’ (1917) by the French artist Marcel Duchamp, the definition of art objects has been unprecedentedly widened. A chair, ready-made clocks, unfinished Coke in bottles… one would wonder how far the boundary could possibly extend? Kingsley Ng, a multi-disciplinary artist based in Hong Kong, affirmed that the line could at least be drawn beyond our daily commuting giant, the tram.

‘25 Minutes Older’ (2013) metamorphosed a moving tram into a camera obscura as a witty twist of the everyday object the locals encounter. Shrouding the upper level in absolute darkness, the artist created numerous pinholes across the tram body allowing external light to permeate through, casting a misty inverted image of the exterior environment on the tram’s inner wall. Participants were isolated from the crowd in this 25-minute journey and immersed into the gleaming light whimsically transited from day to night. The sensational experience was further charged by a magnetic reading of the renowned local novelist Liu Yichang’s TêteBêche, which was loaded with rich narratives illustrating the hustling city scenes in Hong Kong while juxtaposing the daily routines of a middle-aged man and a young and vibrant lady. Presented in the Fifth Large-Scale Public Media Arts Exhibition: Human Vibration in 2016 Hong Kong, ‘25 Minutes Older’ is a delicately enchanting art piece intertwining with the immorality of literature and the transformation of daily banality, embodied in Ng’s quote ‘“A city gets old. People get old. Something doesn’t.”

Returning to the column’s title “Home is where the art is”, it seems to be a literal and sharp slogan signifying one of the essences of art—to embrace audience with the sense of belonging and originality grounded to the world through the connection with the art. Yet, it is equally interesting to think from the alternative angle, “Art is where the home is”. Here, the term “home” transcends our physical orientation but the perceptual ideology prevails. In other words, art is a way of seeing, and it is always electrifying to see how artists’ boundless imagination unceasingly inspires us.

Old & New: Young art on old walls

Kate Asquith
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Old & New: Young art on old walls

Somerville may be one of the newer colleges, but in its past 138 years, it’s had more than its fair share of cultural history. Hoping to explore this, the theme of Somerville Arts Festival 2017 is ‘Perspective’, aiming to illuminate the diversity of both our past and our present in ways that are new and exciting.

Many associate our namesake, Mary Somerville, with the sciences, as she was a pioneer in mathematics—but it is worth remembering that she was also an accomplished artist, and many of her landscapes and self-portraits hang proudly on display around the college. In order to honour our artistic heritage, Arts Fest intends to celebrate the talents of current students by finding inspiration in the past.

‘Views from the Ville’ is a new flash fiction initiative being launched to encourage writers to take on the perspective of someone connected with Somerville. This could be a porter, a student turned-war-nurse, a fresher, or even Margaret Thatcher. The extension of empathy is possibly one of the most powerful tools an artist can utilise, which makes our theme of ‘Perspective’ so important. Art can break down the boundaries that divide people—whether those erected through differences in gender, race, sexuality, or time. With this in mind, we’re welcoming back past students to share their experiences of the creative industry. Gillian Cross and Daisy Johnson are both published authors and will read short stories from their collections. This cross generational duo prove that literature can be a unifying force that transcends the separation of time. By exploring new perspectives, we’re giving voices to the unheard. Our visual art zine, named The Siren after the Somerville magazine which was last produced over a decade ago, is paying particular attention to the subversion of traditional narratives and the inclusion of minority perspectives.

In the same spirit, our open mic night encourages everyone to get involved and share their gifts, from music to spoken word and poetry. Fred, a second-year student, says “it’s really exciting to see how talented and creative the people around you are, especially when you aren’t always aware of that on a day-to-day basis”. Likewise, we’ve chosen special acts to showcase the variety and diversity of the university’s talent. Celebrating originality, The Oxford Belles’ a cappella performance embraces music without instruments, putting a fresh spin on old classics and reproducing them with a strong, feminist voice. Similarly, the improvised comedy of the Oxford Imps is wickedly genre-bending, while also embodying a joy for the arts that resonates with the spirit of the festival.

‘Perspective’ is a wide-ranging and far reaching theme, chosen to allow as many people as possible to engage with not only the arts, but also the history of the arts and its untold stories. While we desire the expression of new and alternative points of view, we also hope to find some connection with the past that encompasses that elusive quality that makes Oxford Oxford, a shared sense of identity that exists despite the boundaries of time, through our art.

The Transports at Cecil Sharp House

Ben Ray
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The Transports at Cecil Sharp House

How does one portray the inconceivable on stage? Surely, the only comparison one could draw to describe the feelings of those convicts who were transported to Australia in the late 18th century, never to see England again, is that of a possible expedition to Mars today. A voyage into the unknown with no return ticket.

And yet this huge concept is what ‘The Transports’, this new production at Cecil Sharp House, bravely engages with and explores. Set in London’s home of folk music and brimming with talent with music from the marvellous Faustus, Nancy Kerr, the Young ‘uns and members of Bellowhead, this show is an imaginative and bold retelling of the legendary folk ballads of Peter Bellamy’s original 1977 production. Narrated by the loudly brash Matthew Crampton, the evening follows the true story of two convicts from Norwich jail, Henry and Susanne, who went on to become the founding fathers of Botany Bay’s European settlement. From tender love songs to bawdy ballads and rousing sea shanties, the versatile skills of the various musicians were employed to bring this age-old story of migration, danger and hope to life.

The relevance of this epic story, of lives sacrificed on the way to a completely new world, was not lost on the audience or the cast. Indeed, the second half of the evening opened with a narration of two Syrian brothers attempting to swim across the Bosphorus into Europe in 2015. Many other stories of contemporary migrant strife were told, even leading to a modern folk song describing the migrant experience — proving folk music is still a vital and versatile medium for interpreting current events. The night was twinned the project ‘Parallel Lines’, charting those who once left towns around Britain with those now arriving, thus linking together these migrants into a global community of people that spans time. (This can also just about forgive the almost insultingly brief mention of the aborigine people whose land was stolen by those transported. Even though the night was not about their story, one couldn’t help but think they deserved a bigger mention.) After the final notes had died away in the glorious hall of Cecil Sharp House, the audience was left with the profound feeling that this 200 year old story was still disturbingly relevant to today’s headlines.

Brazilian vis-à-vis

Leila Collins
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Brazilian vis-à-vis

Self-taught photographer Leila captures moments of life with a touch of humour. She attempts to either draw attention to stereotypes by emphasising them or on the other hand, diverting from them by showing things in another light.

Combining photography with anthropology, Leila documents cultures, subcultures and contemporary life as a whole in a sometimes satirical way.

This series was taken in Brazil, during her two-month-long stay there in the summer of 2015. From the beaches of Copacabana in Rio de Janeiro, the megalopolis of São Paulo to Maceio, in the top ten most dangerous cities in the world, these photos illustrate the diversity, landscapes, environments, and people that can be found in this mesmerising country.

 

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