December 20, 2019

Global Britain: eco warrior or hypocrite?

December 20, 2019/

The UK faces a conundrum: continue to trade with third world countries which damage the environment or cease to and consign millions of people to languish in poverty. This is a dilemma that policy-makers across a wide spectrum face, that of whether to prioritise free trade and anti-poverty measures or anti global-warming measures. However, this dichotomy misses the subtlety in which foreign aid and trade deals can branch the divide. With a fresh new mandate and the Conservatives’ impressive record on conservation and foreign aid, it is more important than ever to make the case for a more radical system of green trade and green aid.

December 09, 2019

Why Brexiteers must reject the Brexit Party on Thursday

December 09, 2019/ Guest User

Kofo Braithwaite (Communications Director) is a second year undergraduate reading History at Christ Church.

The Brexit Party, founded towards the end of last year by Nigel Farage in the run up to the European Parliament elections, has gained much traction and media attention in the past few months. A nascent party, only having existed for a few months, managed to beat both the Conservative and Labour Party in the aforementioned European election, becoming the largest individual party in the European Parliament.

December 08, 2019

If You Care About Democracy, Vote Conservative

December 08, 2019/ Guest User

Hugo Harting (Welfare Officer, Trinity College) is a third year undergraduate reading History.

The United Kingdom is currently experiencing a crisis of faith in democracy. Polling reveals deep-seated dissatisfaction with the leaders currently heading the main political parties. This year insurgent populism in the form of the Brexit Party briefly stormed to a lead in the polls.

November 22, 2019

Ignore constituents at your peril

November 22, 2019/ Guest User

Tom Foster-Brown (Committee, Pembroke College) is an undergraduate in his second year of reading Engineering.

Canvassing around Oxfordshire over the past few weeks there have been a few things I’ve heard from a number of people. The most common was “Sorry, not interested”, but second to that, the response I received the most was “Sorry chap, never going to vote again”, and in all honesty, I can’t blame them.

October 30, 2019

Dostoyevsky: The Anti-Socialist

October 30, 2019/ Guest User

Paul Shields (St Edmund Hall) is a master’s student in his second year of reading Politics.

Did you know Fyodor Dostoyevsky was a fierce anti-socialist? The Russian author, often considered one of history’s greatest writers, warned against the disasters of socialism and communism in his novels Crime and Punishment and The Possessed almost 40 years before they would take place.

October 16, 2019

Keeping up with the Conservatives

October 16, 2019/ Guest User

Annabelle Fuller (Communications Director, Ex-Committee, Magdalen College) is an undergraduate in her second year of reading Classics and English.

In an era of spin and libel, where outrageous accusations are regularly flung at the courageous Conservative Party, there are only a few trusted media outlets to which the true Tory can turn. Here are the five most patently punctilious publications from which one can discover the inner goings-on of the party.

October 13, 2019

Gay in the 21st Century? Time for a bit of Liberalism

October 13, 2019/ Guest User

Toby Morrison (President, Ex-Political Officer, Ex-Publications Editor, Magdalen College) is an undergraduate in his third year of reading Philosophy, Politics, and Economics.

I will never forget the first time I told someone I was gay. It was in my village pub in deepest Norfolk, which will explain many things for those familiar with the phrase “Normal for Norfolk”, and it was one of my dearest friends. I was frightened - but not quite in the way most people were. I was frightened because I didn’t want the revelation to change my life. I didn’t want it to change how people viewed me. I didn’t want it to change who my friends were, nor did I want to change how I acted, nor how terribly I opted to dress. At the time I had a penchant for rugby shirts and sandals, a heinous combination if ever there were one.

October 06, 2019

Think the fight for equality is over? Think again

October 06, 2019/ Guest User

George Wright (Political Officer, Former Deputy Returning Officer, Ex-Treasurer, Ex-Secretary, Ex-Whip, Ex-Committee, St John’s College) is an undergraduate in his third year of reading Philosophy, Politics, and Economics.

There are countless things in life for which we should apologise. Damaging a friend’s gentleman’s area with an especially vigorous tennis serve, or breaking the nozzle on my college wife’s Henry Hoover spring to mind as recent cases where I had to deploy my glum face, from which murmurous remorseful splutterings were projected. Conversely, there are plenty of things unworthy of an apology, among which passions and trivial mistakes tend to be counted. More significantly, though, no one should ever feel a duty to apologise for, or feel coerced into obscuring who they are – it’s obvious, isn’t it?

September 29, 2019

Airport misery

September 29, 2019/ Guest User

George Wright (Political Officer, Former Deputy Returning Officer, Ex-Treasurer, Ex-Secretary, Ex-Whip, Ex-Committee, St John’s College) is an undergraduate in his second year of reading Philosophy, Politics, and Economics.

Humankind has employed its cognitive power to achieve extraordinary feats. We have developed cures to otherwise mortal diseases, illuminated high rise cities with population densities and infrastructure unimaginable to our ancestors and traversed oceans first with the help of buoyancy and then by aerodynamics. Journeys which took weeks can now be made in a matter of hours and with prototypes of a hypersonic London-Sydney jet sloshing around the media, the age of instant access to the world appears to be dangling seductively at our fingertips.

September 23, 2019

We’re All Democrats Really

September 23, 2019/ Guest User

Marcus Walford (President-Elect, Ex-Returning Officer, Lady Margaret Hall) is an undergraduate in his second year of studying Literae Humaniores.

‘Our constitution is called a democracy because we govern in the interests of the majority, not just the few. Our laws give equal rights to all in private disputes, but public preferment depends on individual distinction and is determined largely by merit rather than rotation: and poverty is no barrier to office, if a man despite his humble condition has the ability to do some good to the city.’ Pericles’ Funeral Oration (Thucydides I.37)

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