Robin McGhee, Liberal Democrat and history student at St Anne’s, has announced his candidacy for Oxford City Council.
McGhee said, “We ought to be better treated in a city whose reputation and excellence rests on the university and its students. As an Oxford undergraduate myself, I understand what matters to Oxford students.”
Elections will take place in May, when 24 of 48 council seats will come up for re-election. The council is currently controlled by Labour, with the Lib Dems in second place.
Fellow Lib Dem Duncan Stott, a recent graduate from the University of York, will be standing in the Carfax ward, and will be campaigning against the council’s proposals to limit the number of shared houses available in Oxford.
As well as promising to conduct his campaign with “fizzing enthusiasm” and “veritaserumic honesty”, and to pay more attention to student housing needs, McGhee will run on an anti-tuition fees ticket, in contrast to the Lib Dem leadership. He told Cherwell, “I believe that university education is a right open to anyone good enough, and that we should not have to pay through the nose while the very existence of the tutorial system is under question.”
Finalist Steven Wenham expressed doubt regarding the influence of local councillors, saying they “are in no position to set government or university policy.” Hertford student Rhys Owens added, “Anti-tuition fees is a completely unrealistic ticket to run on, at the moment tuition fees are a necessary fact of life, and that’s not altogether a bad thing.”
Ben Hudson, of Regent’s Park, commented, “His attempt should be seen as a publicity stunt to show the legitimacy of free education as a reasoned and reasonable option, rather than a genuine attempt to make a reformist grab at power.”
It is not without precedent for students to stand for local elections: one of the existing councillors for Holywell, Mark Mills, was elected to the position while studying at Teddy Hall in 2008.
McGhee is confident that being a councillor would not affect his studies. “I’d be a postgrad, and like all postgrads I’d use the rest of my time to wallow in my chaste and debt-ridden misery.”
