Aurora Guerrini is a DPhil student reading Physical and Theoretical Chemistry at Worcester College

Aurora writes her account of Richard Graham MP’s speaker event with us on 6th February.

On Thursday of 3rd week in the somewhat hallowed halls of Christ Church, OUCA was delighted to welcome Richard Graham MP to speak. This was an informal affair filled with discussion, drinks in the nearby pub and the occasional joke at the expense of Jeremy Corbyn and the newly christened ‘Rebecca Wrong-Daily’.

Annabelle Fuller is a second-year undergraduate reading Classics and English at Magdalen College

Annabelle writes an account of Daniel Hannan’s recent talk with Oxford University Conservative Association on Tuesday 4th February.

There is a man in an Oxford lecture hall waving his arms about. He is dressed in a perfectly cut blue suit, viyella shirt, and shoes as shiny as a new Brexit fifty pence piece. The man is Daniel Hannan, and he is addressing a student audience of wannabe politicians, economists, journalists, and Policy Exchange hacks.

Edward McLaren is a first year reading English at Keble College

Edward has written a poem with the foremost concern of Great Britain: its past and present, triumphs and defeats, prides and shames, and of the individual’s attempt to reconcile each with each. Child of a soul, worldly and mothering, and of a state, national and fathering, so must our country learn to do the like if to survive this challenging modern age.

Juan Dávila is a First Year reading Engineering Science at St. John’s College

As an international student who enjoys political discussion the question “so how’s Spain doing?” was bound to come up, thankfully (for the conversation if not my home country) the situation offers ample space for commentary and discussion. I can tell a tale of rising and falling powers, backstabbing, and shifty players, who defend their fiefdoms using them as power bases to control the machinery of state. This can all sound rather grandiose and evoke imagery of political dramas, where we would see Pablo Iglesias ride in on a dragon and scorch the bourgeoisie. However, this is not the case - a more apt comparison would be a Latin-American “Telenovela”, ironically.

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.