Cambridge university

Thursday

Charles Moore

What is Dominic Raab not telling us about Hong Kong?

The government’s promised ‘pathway to citizenship’ to Hong Kong people is wonderful, but has the Foreign Office arranged a get-out clause? Last week, Dominic Raab told parliament that ‘if China enacts the [proposed new security] law, we will change the arrangements for British National (Overseas) passport holders in Hong Kong’. He added, however, that ‘We do not oppose Hong Kong passing its own national security law’. Behind this lies the fact that the Basic Law of Hong Kong, arising from the Sino-British Agreement of 1984, prescribes that Hong Kong ‘shall enact its own laws to prohibit any act of treason, secession, sedition or subversion against the Central People’s Government’. So

Monday

Joanna Rossiter

Cambridge’s ‘reverse mentoring’ scheme was always going to fail

Institutional racism is rife at Cambridge university – that was the assumption behind the university’s ‘reverse-mentoring’ scheme which was launched to much fanfare last summer. The idea was simple enough: senior academics who were white would be educated about racism by their BAME colleagues. But the news that the scheme may be scrapped after its short pilot is hardly a surprise. As I wrote back in July, the singling out of white colleagues for mentoring is flawed on many counts. Worst of all, it embraces the increasingly popular belief that racism is an unconscious state of being that is inexorably inherent in some (but not all) racial groups. This is

Saturday

Patrick Kidd

No blues, just reds and whites: the Oxford vs Cambridge wine-tasting

The cellar room is almost silent save for the sound of slurping and spitting and the odd gentle sigh. One woman has her head buried in a bucket, while a chap lays his on the desk before raising a hand and asking for a refill. It has the air of a rather polite orgy, only everyone is fully dressed. Welcome to the 67th blind wine-tasting Varsity match. The 14 men and women in the basement of Berry Bros & Rudd in St James’s have the most educated palates in Oxbridge. They know their D’Arsac from their Albariño. Unlike in the Boat Race, there are no blues on offer, just reds,