Oxford university

‘People are terribly interested in the election,’ said Christopher Ricks before his 2004 inaugural lecture as Oxford Professor of Poetry, ‘but then not terribly interested in the lecture, which I’m afraid is life.’ This year even the election campaign has been quite subdued. There has been no anonymous smear campaign as in 2009, no wildcard candidate like Stephen Moss in 2010 (‘Yes we scan!’), and only one, very tame, squabble after Melvyn Bragg switched his support from Wole Soyinka to Simon Armitage. There remains an awkward question about whether the Professorship election deserves all the fuss. The same question applies to the poet laureateship, and it relates to what Ian

You can’t be on a campus for more than 10 minutes nowadays without hearing about inclusivity. Universities and students’ unions are mad for it. At the University of Sussex, a statement declaring that ‘The Union is committed to providing an inclusive and supportive environment’ has to be read, aloud, before every students’ union meeting. Students who want to set up a new society at the University of Bristol must satisfactorily prove that they will ‘respect and promote the Bristol SU values of equality, diversity, safe space and inclusivity’. It’s big in America, too. Not least at the University of Delaware, where, in 2007, it was revealed that the administration was

Say what you will about Gordon Brown — and plenty have over the last 24 hours — but there is one achievement even his harshest detractors can not critique: he broke the Oxford mould among modern Prime Ministers. Since the Second World War, Oxford University has produced the majority of Prime Ministers, outstripping the rest of the country’s institutions and even their arch rivals Cambridge. Aside from those who didn’t go to university (John Major, Jim Callaghan and Winston Churchill), Brown has so far been the only non-Oxford PM since 1945 — instead he went to Edinburgh: [datawrapper chart=”http://static.spectator.co.uk/CSz9t/index.html”] Despite Oxford’s long history of churning out Prime Ministers, it was not always

Oxford students heard this morning that, after a three-day referendum, our student union, OUSU, will be disaffiliating from the National Union of Students. I voted to break with the NUS, and I felt confident doing so: Oxford’s membership currently costs us over £25,000 a year, and, aside from the dubious satisfaction of knowing that Nick Clegg will never be short of misspelt placards to stare at, no one has a clue what we get in return. The most notable thing about the referendum was how little people cared. The turnout was just 15 per cent, despite voting taking place online. And this wasn’t an isolated example of lack of engagement

At first glance Mr S thought that he might be watching Labour’s latest class-war party election broadcast: rich kids at Oxford University trashing restaurants, tussling with the law and generally playing silly buggers in evening wear. Sound familiar? This is, however, the trailer for The Riot Club: the silver screen’s answer to ‘the Buller’, which will bear little or no resemblance to the drinking society beloved by Boris, Dave and George during their time at the university. Labour bods will be rubbing their hands with glee at the timing of the film’s release.

On Thursday night I spoke at the Oxford Union on the motion ‘This House believes post-war immigration into Britain has been too high.’ In many ways this is an easy debate to explain and win, notwithstanding the fact that Lord Singh, Nadhim Zahawi MP and Monica Ali were lined up in opposition. The Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron has said immigration has been too high and that he wants to bring it down. The Labour Leader Ed Miliband has said the same. As have all major, mainstream British politicians. And no wonder. A British Social Attitudes survey from last year showed 77 per cent of the British public want immigration