Over a hundred campaigners assembled outside Parliament on Wednesday to protest against unpaid internships.

The protest, a joint venture between the NUS, Intern Aware and Internocracy, coincided with the launch of the Parliamentary Placement Scheme. The programme, spearheaded by Hazel Blears, will introduce a living wage for twelve recruits, who will work for the entire parliamentary session.

The interns will be paid £8.30 an hour, at an estimated cost of £175,000 for the first year. £25,000 of this will come from the Commons and the rest is hoped to be sourced from private sponsors.

Commenting on the scheme, Blears said, “The idea is that it’ll be a bit like a Rhodes scholar, something really prestigious”.

Ben Lyons, a finalist at St Catz and co-director of Intern Aware, said, “Hazel Blears’s scheme is excellent because it is cross-party and caters for people across the country. It’s a great first step but it doesn’t solve the problem – there’s still a lot to do.

“The scheme is only for twelve people, but there are about 450 interns in Parliament at any one time, most of whom are unpaid. People who are bright and capable are being denied careers because they can’t work for free.”

The campaigners took the opportunity of the protest to unveil an ‘Intern Bill of Rights’, which demands for interns “the same legal protections as all other workers” and “transparent and non-discriminatory” recruitment.

NUS Vice-President (Society and Citizenship), Susan Nash, said, “If MPs are not willing to treat interns as they do all other workers they cannot expect other industries to follow suit. Being an intern is not like work experience, it involves hard-work and long hours.”

The renewed campaign follows other action by Intern Aware, who last year questioned the legality of twenty-two MPs and one Lord advertising unpaid positions and in April exposed Nick Clegg’s non-payment of his own interns.

Lyons told Cherwell, “There are about 18,000 hours of unpaid work done every week in Parliament.

“The word ‘intern’ has no legal value and most interns are in a legal sense ‘workers’, because they have set tasks and set hours. Employers who refuse to pay their interns are likely to be breaking the law.”

Nick Clegg recently pledged to end Westminster’s culture of privilege and start paying Lib Dem interns. However at the moment MPs and Liberal Democrat Head Office are still advertising for unpaid interns.

Protesters holding banners and placards spelling out ‘NO CONFIDENCE’ lined up outside the Sheldonian Theatre on Tuesday afternoon to greet exiting academics with whoops and cheers upon news of the vote.

Some had been there since 2pm, when the dons first entered Congregation, and despite the occassional rain shower were in just as positive a mood three hours later as they were when they turned up.

Chants ran along the lines of “No ifs, no buts, no education cuts!” and “Education for the masses, not for the ruling classes!”

Students from Wadham, St Catz and Teddy Hall, who knew each other from Oxford University Campaign meetings, expressed confidence that the motion would pass, calling themselves “quite confident in no confidence”. Instead, the question on their minds was how big a majority it would be.

Hearing of the 283-5 result the protesters were “ecstatic”, seeing it as a confirmation of the strength of feeling against the government’s higher education policies.

Owen Hubbard, a student at St John’s, said, “This sends out a really powerful message that academics, as well as students, are overwhelmingly fed up with Willetts’ incompetent and out-of-touch approach.”

Another protester added, referring to the dons, “these are the people that taught the government in the first place”.

Upbeat music accompanied cheers, claps and whistles as tutors left Congregation, some of whom gave a thumbs up in response. 

As one student summarised it, “Today we’re here to try and express support for our tutors. This is a happy and peaceful protest which aims to give the resolution wider media attention, and raise the issue into national debate.”

Not all the protesters were students however. Some were present simply to express “solidarity”. A passer-by, a Balliol alumnus who came up in 1961, commented, “All over the world universities have become very passive – now, thank God, this is changing.”

He drew links to the worldwide student protests of 1968, which had humble beginnings in movements similar to the gathering outside the Sheldonian. “Protests like these make all the difference,” he said. “They add up.”

Cherwell can reveal that nearly one in six Oxbridge applicants register for the services of Oxbridge Applications, an independent profit driven company which sells university admission advice.

On average, between 5,000 and 6,000 students contact Oxbridge Applications each year, while the overall number applying to Oxbridge is around 34,000 and growing each year.

Founded in 1999, Oxbridge Applications is fast growing. The profits of the parent company, Application Research Limited, have increased by over 150% in the last year, from £67, 115 in 2010 to £110, 552 in 2011.

The company offer Admissions Tests Seminars for £185, Private Consultations for £240, Interview Preparation Days from £220, and an Interview & Admissions Test Weekend for £1500.

Oxbridge Applications claim that an average of 53% of those accepted for the Premier Service, which costs up to several thousand pounds, gain offers to Oxford or Cambridge, compared with an average of just 21% for Oxbridge applicants overall.

Oxford University was quick to distance itself from the company. A University spokesperson said, “We do not endorse any commercial operations or publications offering advice or training on our admissions process.”

Academic staff were also sceptical. Dr Peter Bull, Tutor for Admissions at Hertford, said, “Colleges will be happy to give advice free of charge. Why be charged by a consultant when you can ask the person who selects the candidates, at no cost?”

Rachel Spedding, Executive Director of Oxbridge Applications and a former student at Worcester College, told Cherwell that the company work with current and former students.

Dr Lucinda Rumsey, Admissions Tutor at Mansfield, said, “Students are not necessarily clearly informed about what tutors are looking for in the interview and other parts of the process. I am really disappointed that students get involved in this.”

Alex Bulfin, OUSU VP for Access and Academic Affairs, said, “This sends a message to prospective students that there is a ‘secret’ to winning a place here and that if you haven’t been coached in ‘the right way’ then you won’t stand a chance.”

However, not all students were as damning of the company. Thomas O’Brien, a first-year PPE student who attended an Oxbridge Applications preparation day said, “It would probably have been useful to people who, unlike me, didn’t get much help from their schools.”

A third year History student who used the company’s Access Scheme said, “My school did not have a history of sending people to Oxbridge, so it was really good to meet people who’d been through the admissions process and could tell me what it was like.”

Spedding highlighted the access schemes which the company runs. She said, “We are not helping people get in ‘through the back door’. It’s people’s choice if they want to use our services.”

The University urged that, “The best advice is to work hard, and make full use of the many free and authoritative sources of guidance and information the University itself provides.”

A 19-year-old woman was sexually assaulted in the early hours of Sunday morning on Westbury Crescent in the Cowley area of the city.

The victim was punched several times in the head, pushed to the ground and sexually assaulted before she managed to escape and run off in the direction of Rose Hill Road.

The incident was Oxford’s fifth sexual assault in 8 days with four previous attacks on young female students from both Oxford University and Oxford Brookes.

Two women aged 21 and 24 were attacked between Southfield Road and Cowley Road in the early hours of Sunday 29th May and two more women, 19 and 20, were assaulted in a similar area in the early hours of last Thursday.

Police originally thought the five incidents may all be connected however, in the latest Thames Valley Police report, Detective Inspector Simon Morton said, “certain details have come to light that has led us to believe that the attacker in this incident is different from the man who carried out the previous attacks.”

The police have now released two e-fits of the men they would like to question in relation to these attacks.

The attacker who is believed to have carried out the first four assaults is described as “oriental or Asian, in his twenties, about 5ft 8ins to 5ft 10ins, of a slim to medium build with short black hair, possibly in tight curls”.

The latest attacker is believed to be in his late 20s, possibly Albanian, about 5ft 6in, clean shaven, of medium build, with dark hair and olive skin and is believed to have a bite-mark on his hand resulting from one of the attacks.
 

Many students have received emails from their colleges warning young women to avoid walking alone at night especially in the Cowley area.

A moth infestation in St Peter’s third year annexe on Thomas Street has caused havoc in the run up to finalists’ exams.

The college Bursar confirmed that the college would be taking action against Kingerlee, the company responsible for filling the roof cavity of the building and utility cupboards with inadequately treated wool, which attracted moths to rooms on the top floor of the building.

A spokesperson from St Peter’s said, “We noticed the problem early in the year and have done our best to treat the symptoms in order to minimise disruption to students. We have offered alternative accommodation but the students have opted to stay.”

One student living in the annex commented, “Some days I have killed literally hundreds of moths. My room is covered in splats, as is the corridor. It affects work as they fly around the desk lamp. Cooking utensils often have to be cleaned before use. Moths have flown into food and drink.”

The moths were first sighted in early January, and spread to lower floors in the building. Students contacted College officials in February and an extermination company sprayed the entire top floor in April.

Although this reduced the moth numbers for a few weeks, it failed to kill the root of the infestation and moths continue to irritate students taking finals.

The Bursar said, “The only solution is to remove the walls and ceiling and replace the insulation. We cannot do this until after Finals but the problem should be resolved before next term. The College will be pursuing a claim against the builder.”

JCR President Robert Collier said, “College staff have been extremely cooperative in helping the students through these unfortunate circumstances, and were very fair and reasonable during our discussion overcompensation.

“The college has immediate plans to remedy this situation before the beginning of Michaelmas.”

The JCR has negotiated an agreement on compensation for those students affected.

Kingerlee declined to comment.

Concern over the morality of Oxford University’s investment in arms has this week resurfaced following an article published by the Oxford Anti-War Action Movement in journal The Lancet.

The article condemned University investments in “BAE systems, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and other arms manufacturers” that totalled an average of £4.5 million a year from 2008 to 2010.

The investment in Lockheed Martin in particular was singled out. In April 2010 the University held £1.4 million worth of shares in the US-based company which manufactures cluster munitions, which are illegal in the UK.

“Saying you have a socially responsible investment policy while investing in cluster bombs and depleted uranium is like telling the world you’re tee-total while embarking on a binge”, said Ashley Inglis on behalf of the Anti-War Movement.

But Inglis says that their protests are having the desired effect. She explained, “There has been an instant response to our comment in The Lancet: it has been picked up by various journals worldwide.

“We predicted that the University’s image, already tarnished by its investments in the arms trade, would suffer further deterioration if the Council chose last June to ignore its ethical responsibilities and refuse to divest from arms manufacturers. This is now happening.

“The word has gone out far and wide that Oxford University has no ethical standards whatsoever.”

The University has however stressed that it regulates its investments carefully.

A spokesperson stated, “The Socially Responsible Investment Review Committee is responsible for looking at these issues. The University invests in funds, not individual companies.

“In June 2010, the Council of the University of Oxford set a restriction on the Fund regarding the direct ownership of companies whose activities contravene the Landmines Act 1998 and the Cluster Munitions (Prohibitions) Act 2010. OUEM Ltd reports compliance with this restriction regularly to the Investment Committee.”

However, the decision by the Council in June 2010 concluded that they would only monitor investments where they were “pooled” rather than “direct”.

Inglis argued that the social responsibility procedure is “not a policy but a procedure – a procedure for taking ethical concerns and passing them through a discussion process totally devoid of intellectual and moral rigour”, and highlighted the prominent role of companies such as BAE in selling arms to regimes such as Colonel Gaddaffi’s in Libya.

She added, “It’s time Oxford University showed some of the intelligence it’s supposed to be famous for, engaged seriously with this issue and divested from the arms trade.

“We will be writing to members of Council to draw their attention to our comment in The Lancet. Thereafter we are going to take this to Congregation, which represents the entire University, and which can force the Council to reconsider this deplorable situation”.

Student opinion seemed divided. Politics student Lauren Potter commented, “On the one hand arms investment can be beneficial to the security of our country and the protection of democracy and humanity.

“But when it is revealed that the University’s investments are supporting those such as Gaddaffi’s, a line has to be drawn. I don‘t want my money, even indirectly, to support such an immoral debacle.”