Oxford university

Being the most prestigious university in the English-speaking world comes with its drawbacks. While the rolls of alumni are littered with famous names, not every Oxonian puts their formidable talents towards good. Even the most cursory glance will tell you that it’s not particularly surprising to learn that vice-chancellor Louise Richardson is ’embarrassed’ about the behaviour of one particular graduate. Aung San Suu Kyi has, after all, been explaining to The Hague that Myanmar has not been engaged in genocide, merely killing large numbers of an ethnic group that her government did not acknowledge exists. Fortunately for Suu Kyi, she has escaped the ire of the university on this occasion. Instead,

Not since September 1642, when a mob of Parliamentary soldiers opened fire on the sculpture of the Virgin Mary carved into the side of the University Church, has Oxford been in such a fury over statues. The ‘Rhodes must fall’ campaign that started among radical students in 2016 has now spread to the senior common rooms, particularly the SCR of Worcester College which, astonishingly, has taken over from Balliol and Wadham as the headquarters of the workers’ revolution. More than 150 academics have signed a petition calling for their fellow dons to maintain a virtual picket line around Oriel College — that is, to refuse to teach its students or

My inbox is crowded with messages from Old Etonians attacking Simon Henderson, the headmaster of Eton. They are furious that he sacked a master, Will Knowland, for putting on YouTube his talk to boys about masculinity, and then refusing to take it down. As one complainant puts it: ‘Eton and Woke are both four-letter words, but they should have nothing in common beyond that.’ I agree, but the case is more complicated. In disciplinary questions, one must ask: ‘What else could the boss have done?’ Suppose I, when a newspaper editor, had told a staff journalist that he could not publish an article he had submitted, yet he went ahead

It’s three for three as far as positive outcomes from Covid vaccine trials are concerned. But the announcement from AstraZeneca and Oxford University, at a first glance, may not seem to be as exciting as those from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. The figures are a bit of a head-scratcher, so let’s look at them in more detail. Monday’s results from AstraZeneca and Oxford University state that the combined Phase 3 interim analysis from their COV002 and COV003 studies (based in the UK and Brazil respectively) included 131 Covid-19 cases and that the vaccine was found to be 70.4 per cent effective overall — but that vaccine efficacy in two dosing subgroups was

Was the Oxford vaccine trial paused? Mine wasn’t. I signed up for it last week, in the 55 to 69-year-old category, and I was told on Friday that I should continue posting my swabs and attending follow-up appointments.  My friends were keen to tell me I was ‘utterly mad’ to join a trial. But I believe in vaccines. So do most anti-vaxxers, incidentally. It would be a rare adult who hadn’t benefited from childhood inoculations against polio, diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough. My parents, who were raised in the 1930s, didn’t just believe in vaccines they rejoiced in them. When they were little it was all too common for a family to

Britain is now locked down for at least three weeks, but could the government’s original policy of relying on herd immunity have been right all along? That is the inference of a team of epidemiologists from Oxford university, whose modelling produces remarkably different results from that of Professor Neil Ferguson and his team at Imperial College. It was the Imperial College model which, on Monday 16 March which led to the dramatic U-turn, and the government’s adoption of a complete suppression policy for Covid-19. Like everything being published about coronavirus at the moment, the Oxford study comes with a health warning.  An Italian study published yesterday suggests that between 50

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,

The Free Speech Union has submitted a letter of complaint to the Rector of Exeter College after the Oxford history professor Selina Todd was barred from addressing a conference at the college on Saturday. Todd was stopped from speaking about the women’s liberation movement at an event that she had helped organise after trans activists complained about some of her views.  The Rector, Professor Sir Rick Trainor, has acknowledged the letter and said the matter will be investigated under the College’s complaints procedure.