Thursday 7th August 2025

Opinion

The Encaenia is PR without the public (or anyone else)

Wholesale reform is the last thing Encaenia needs. If only people knew what it is, it would be a well-suited PR exercise for a modern Oxford.

This is how we combat the crusade against universities

It’s easy to think of an arts degree as a fruitless pleasure. But education and academic study are intrinsically valuable.

From pensioners to students, all should fear the Palestine Action ban

If you think this is a win for one side over the other in relation to Israel’s war on Gaza, be careful what you wish for.

Trashing rules save face, not students

Trashing is banned. But what does the banning achieve except pushing students further from...

A cruel injustice

In the early hours of 8 March 2008 Alejandro Ordaz Moreno, a PhD student, was seized at gunpoint as he left a bar in...

Celebrating ethnic cleansing?

It is with bemusement and outrage that we find ourselves being asked to celebrate 60 years of Israel’s existence.

Food in crisis?

Lee Jones battles the spectre of Malthus.

Interview: David Willetts MP

Simon Maine talks to David Willetts about the "intellectual renewal" of the Conservative Party.

Spirit of ’68

You don’t need a copy of Trotsky under your arm to realise that cutting the real wages of our public workers in the face of soaring food-prices is ruinous to human welfare and the services upon which so many rely.  

Church versus state

Was it the Pope's job to engage in American politics?    

Thumbs up for Hands Up

The President of Hands Up for Darfur hits back at last week's piece by Max Seddon.  

Interview: Robert Fisk

Emily Packer asks The Independent's foreign correspondent if there is any way out for the Middle East.

Publish and be damned

James Kingston doesn't trust his daily paper.

Interview: Martin Bell

The man in the white suit on WMDs, sleaze and reporting in a war zone.

Zimbabwe: country without hope?

Nejra Cehic wonders whether there is a democratic future for Zimbabwe.

Dirty Bertie?

Bertie Ahern was the ultimate Irish poltician.

Power to the people

Centralised politics is stifling democracy    

Thumbs down for Hands Up

Darfur charities deserve your money. A fashion show just isn’t the way to do it.   

COMMENT: Teetotalism Over Temperance

The Comment Team explores drunkenness

‘We didn’t betray Prince Harry. Honest…’

In their edition of February 20, the German women’s magazine Frau im Spiegel speculated that Prince Harry might be in Iraq on service without...

Great Novels: Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee

Disgrace is a novel rich in symbolism and undertones which address its postcolonial message. The novel focuses on the political conflict rife in post-Apartheid...

Exhibition review: Little Black Dress, at the Brighton and Hove Museum and Gallery

That iconic garment, the Little Black Dress, or 'LBD', was born in the 1920s when Coco Chanel took dreary, black, mourning dress and created...

OUSU doesn’t need a fresh start: it needs to regain students’ support

  Last term wasn’t the best for OUSU: disaffiliations, an (arguably) botched referendum campaign and a general feeling of dissatisfaction in many quarters of the...

Side Lines – Cricket

Cricket is often derided as a boring sport – Cherwell thinks that those who think so simply don’t get it, but will lay off...

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