By Jack Farchy
Oxford is divided as a petition is being drawn up to silence a nuisance bagpipe busker.
Heath Richardson, a bagpiper who has been busking in Oxford for 14 years, is the one of the targets of a petition to Oxford City Council from aggrieved shopkeepers, office workers, and university students, who want him and other irritating buskers to stop causing so much noise.
Oxford City Council has published a code of practice for buskers, which states that “busking must not be intrusive or a nuisance in nearby premises”, and that buskers must move on after one hour’s busking.
 
However, the code is currently voluntary, and its critics want the council to bring in laws to restrict buskers who cause irritation. Jo Reid, verger at St Michael at the North Gate Church, says that buskers are not adhering to the code. “Noise levels affect people’s working environment. Bagpipes and other loud instruments do carry. People who have shops on Cornmarket often can’t hear the customer they are serving. All we are asking for is a few hours when we can get some work done and make some phone calls,” she said.
She recalls one incident in particular involving a concert given by group of German schoolchildren from Bonn, during which Mr Richardson started playing outside. “I went out and said, ‘Would you mind taking a break for half and hour and having a cup of coffee, or perhaps moving a hundred yards down the street?’
He told me, ‘This is my fucking job. Fuck off.’ And he went on playing throughout the children’s concert.”
Mr Richardson usually plays on the corner of Cornmarket and Ship Street, near Jesus College student accommodation. One Jesus student, who had a room on Ship Street last year, said, “I could hear him all day – it was impossible to work. The bagpipes are such an annoying instrument. I would definitely support the petition against him.”
But the bagpipes are not as unpopular with everyone. The petition against Mr Richardson has prompted the creation of a Facebook group entitled ‘Oxford bagpipe man LOVER group’. One contributor wrote, “He is better than those rubbish pan pipe people who always hang around near the Westgate. And he makes a nice change from bloody animal rights protestors!”
Jean Fooks, Lib Dem councillor for Summertown, investigated the allegations against Mr Richardson. She said, “Mr Richardson is conforming to the city council’s voluntary Code for Busking. This is clearly one of those situations where we need to find a compromise between those who enjoy the bagpipes and those who find them irritating. I do think that busking of various kinds adds life to the city centre and that a certain amount of noise is to be expected there.”

Colleagues and former students have paid tribute to the life and work of Andrew Glyn, a radical and influential economics Fellow at Corpus Christi College, who died from a brain tumour on 22nd December 2007, aged 64.Born on June 30th 1943, the son of John Glyn, the 6th Baron Wolverton and a wealthy banker, he attended Eton and New College, Oxford. Despite a privileged family and educational background, Glyn remained a life-long political radical and was regarded as the foremost Marxist economist of his generation.Before he was chosen as the first ever tutorial Fellow in Economics at Corpus in 1969, Glyn worked from 1964-66 as an economic advisor to Harold Wilson’s Labour government.In the eighties, he collaborated closely with the National Union of Mineworkers throughout the 1984-5 strike, producing a series of incisive critiques of the economic foundations for the Thatcherite policy on pit closures.His last book, Capitalism Unleashed (2006), acknowledged the resilience of Western capitalism but continued to warn of its socially destabilising consequences. Writing in the Guardian, Cabinet Office Minister and former student Ed Miliband remembered his strong views and his “deep commitment to a fairer and more just society.” He said, “While Andrew was an analyst, he did not want simply to understand the world, he wanted it to change.”Glyn was also known as a great jazz enthusiast, reportedly telling one student, “The three greatest men who ever lived were Lenin, Trotsky and Charlie Parker. Not necessarily in that order.” He is survived by his wife Wendy Carlin and four children from his two marriages.His funeral took place in the College hall on 4th January, attended by family and friends, fellow economists, colleagues at Corpus, as well as current and former students. Amongst them were David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, and his brother, Ed. Reflecting on Mr. Glyn’s contribution to the University, Corpus President Tim Lankester told some 300 mourners that Andrew Glyn “represented the very best amongst Oxford tutors.”He said, “He was loved and revered by those he taught. He gave his students the tools, from a variety of economic traditions, with which to question and analyse. He didn’t try to impose his own views, even in the early days when his economic ideas were, shall we say, less rounded. No-one used the tutorial more effectively in encouraging students to think clearly and critically.”by James Stafford

By Mike Sweeney Thames Valley Police and the Oxford Union have both denied making security mistakes during the Free Speech forum last term at the Union, during which a group anti-fascist protesters seriously disrupted the event. Despite making what both sides have described as extensive security plans, the Free Speech forum on 26th November was delayed by over an hour when more than thirty anti-fascists protester broke in to the main debating room and staged a sit-down protest. Superintendent Brendan O’Dowda, local Police Commander for Oxford, rejected suggestions that the police should have prevented such disturbances. He said, “The police engaged in a considerable amount of planning and preparation prior to this event. There was a memorandum [with theOxford Union] as to what the roles and responsibilities were. One thing that the police were not responsible for was checking and quality assurance of those that were entering the debate.” He added, “Not a single person was arrested and no criminal offences have taken place. In policing terms, the event passed in line with our strategic objectives.” The Oxford Union also refused to accept that their security had been at fault, alleging that the disruption had occurred as a result of a “deliberately planned challenge by protesters.” In a joint statement Luke Tryl and Emily Partington, the current president of the Union, said protesters had exploited a safety measure by security officers to prevent people being crushed.“Our qualified security team allowed in several protesters at the gate who were being crushed in order to avoid any harm coming to them, but whilst they were undertaking to ensure the safety of all at the gate several protesters scaled the Union walls at their own risk,’ they said. “There were people sitting on top of the railings next to the gate and right up against the gate when for some reason it opened for about half a minute and around thirty people managed to force their way through.” “The security guards tried to grab us but there were too many and we managed to get into the debating chamber.” Students who had acquired tickets to attend the debate failed to get into the Union because the crowd was blocking the entrance and jeering at those who tried to enter. Some ticket holders resorted to climbing over the Union walls themselves. Ruby Thompson, a history and politics student at Brasenose college, was able to enter through a side entrance. “The crowd was shouting verbal abuse at those who tried to get in. Some people gave up,” she said. “I suppose the police could have made it safer to get in, but it was reckless of the Union to hold the debate and they really should have taken more responsibility.” “I think it’s unfair to impose such a burden on the police for what was essentially a publicity stunt,” sheadded. Asked if they would apologise to their members for the level of disruption at the debate, Luke Tryl and Emily Partington said, “The Union is, of course, sorry that members may have felt intimidated as they tried to attend the forum, but we feel that the blame for that intimidation must lie with the protesters themselves". Facsists try to name student protesters on Redwatch Photographs of students involved in protests against the Free Speech forum last term have been posted on a far right website which encourages its viewers to post the names and addresses of the protesters. ‘Redwatch’ claims to have been set up in retaliation against the activities of anti-fascist groups who it says have published the details of British Nationalist campaigners. A statement on the website says, “Fight back- send us details of your local red scumbags- we want their names, addresses, phone numbers, photographs, work details- anything and everything about them to publish here.” Duncan Money, a second year at Balliol, whose details appear on the site, is an anti-fascist campaigner who has received threats from far right groups. However, he said that those who had appeared on the site had no reason to worry. “A couple of attacks have been connected to Redwatch, a teachers car got torched in Leeds and a trade unionist was stabbed in the face in Liverpool, but it’s important to stress these are isolated incidents. There are literally thousands of people shown on the website.” “The protesters have only their faces on the site and it is far, far more likely they will be run over by a car then experience fascist violence.”

There has been a significant increase in the number of applications and acceptances from ethnic minority students, according to recently published figures by the University. In the most competitive year in the University’s history, applications from black ethnic minorities for undergraduate entry in 2007 rose by 19% with acceptances increasing by 21%. Both educational charities and parliamentary figures welcomed the news. A spokesman for the Sutton Trust, which campaigns to get brighter students from non-traditional backgrounds into top universities, said, “We are delighted that the latest figures show an increase in students going to Oxford University from ethnic minority backgrounds. We would like to congratulate the University.” A motion tabled for Parliament by Dr. Evan Harris, MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, also acknowledged the work the University had done to raise the achievement and aspirations among black boys. The motion stated, “This House welcomes the University of Oxford Black Boys Can Programme which is run in conjunction with the National Black Boys Can Association, wishes the 26 students in this year’s programme every success, and encourages more higher education institutions in the UK to participate in such schemes.” The joint venture involves residential programmes in Oxford as well as follow up training days and talks for parents on how best to support their boy’s aspirations. Mike Nicholson, Director of Undergraduate Admissions, said, “Competition for a place to study at Oxford University has been fiercer than ever last year. It is good to see that specifically targeted outreach activities, such as our work with black ethnic minorities, is beginning to bear fruit. We are grateful for Evan Harris MP’s interest and support for our work with the National Black Boys Can Association.” However, there have been reservations concerning the relevance of the latest statistics. A spokesman for the NBBCA said, “We need to look behind the figures.” He argued that a closer look at the data revealed an increase in students from “dualheritage backgrounds” and not necessarily those from African and Afr can- Caribbean backgrounds. He went on to say that more still needed to be done to widen participation at the Red Brick universities. “One of the things they could try is to go into inner city black communities and conduct some sessions in schools so that brighter students from those areas do not feel intimidated, but think ‘I can be there as well’.” The call for more action coincides with increased efforts by the university to widen access. In November a visit by the US Civil Rights Leader, Rev Jesse Jackson, launched the ASPIRE initiative aimed at encouraging more black students to apply to the University through mentoring schemes. At the event hosted by Regent’s Park College, Rev Jackson called for the University to reflect the diversity of society. Meanwhile a University spokesperson explained how the University would increase its work on widening access through a “new Student Funding and Access Office which brings together functions which were previously distributed across the administration.” James Lamming, Vice-President of OUSU, added, “OUSU, the Oxford Access Scheme and the University have all been investing in encouraging applications from all backgrounds, through open days, school visits, residentials and guides such as the OUSU Alternative Prospectus. OUSU hopes to see the University continue investing in the schemes, like the Summer Schools, that have proven to be most successful, and targeting support to help talented students from all backgrounds who have so far not enjoyed the greatest educational opportunities.” Yet Oxford continues to attract criticism after the latest admission statistics revealed that the number of state school pupils who were admitted had not risen. Of those who gained a place to study for 2007 entry, 46.8% were from the Maintained sector, a slight decrease on the percentage for the previous year. This follows a Sutton Trust report which claimed that a small number of top independent schools provided one third of all admissions to Oxbridge. A spokesman for the Sutton Trust said that they “hope the number of youngsters going to Oxford from state schools and poorer homes will also increase, as students from these backgrounds remain under-represented.” Last year there were 13,639 applications in total, an increase of 8.1%, which is the largest number ever recorded. From these there were 3,160 acceptances. This equates to an overall success rate of 23.2%, nearly 2% down on the previous year’s figure of 25.4%. by Katherine Hall

Sean Faye considers why we can’t get enough of the world’s most famous princess.  The “Glums”. “Squidgygate”. The “War of the Wales’”. Perhaps, dear reader, you are staring at the page, wondering whether I am simply quoting some Oxford lingo about Proctors’ meetings you haven’t heard of or, perhaps, the new street slang for the come-down after taking ket. If this is the case, it is clear that you are not and probably do not consider yourself a fan of the late Princess Diana. Attempting to visualise what such a ‘fan’ may look like, you may imagine regiments of seventy year-old women with their collection of commemorative jubilee plates and mugs – the type that insist on watching the Queen’s speech every Christmas. Such a quaint and remote image of harmless old dears might be one I would myself laugh at with my contemporaries – gently dismissing their outmoded deference before a quick nod to, like, ‘our generation’s totally post-modern apathy in an age of moral relativism.’ But the joke is on me. The minute anyone my own age leaves the room the pretentious bullshit is gone and Diana’s 1996 Panorama interview is already at hand, downloaded an hour ago on Youtube. Knowing every utterance from the Princess before it comes and being able to work myself up into a frenzy time after time over the shocking revelations about the Windsors, I should really face up to it: I have long been a Di-hard fan (see what I did there?) my enthusiasm and devotion to each detail of her life bordering on pathetic. That was, however, until the past year. 2007 was supposed to be Di-tastic – the ten year anniversary of her death, and the public inquest that would uncover the sensational plot behind the supposedly accidental car-crash. What the public actually got was hours of wasted screen time on the BBC whilst the increasingly- repugnant Joss Stone ‘rocked out’ to the memory of Lady Di and Princes William and Harry had yet another try at proving how down wit’ da kids they are in an interview with the toxic Fearne Cotton. Whilst it’s clear that this was an expensive televisual absurdity, it is not as ludicrous as the ongoing publicly- funded inquest, which has so far re-told the same old details about Diana’s romances in a more costly and less interesting format than recent documentary ‘Di’s Guys.’ With all this, even I was questioning the increasingly indefensible presentation of Diana’s life and death as relevant current affairs. My occult passion aside, I was forced to ask: does Diana really warrant column inches, news coverage, memorial concerts and public inquests a decade on from her death? Why is Diana still a winner for journalists, television channels and pop stars alike?. When I came to write this article even I, who will not hear a word spoken against Diana in conversation, have found many problems with the ongoing response after her death and its expense for the taxpayer, (the inquest still drags on). However, the one thing I believe is the reason for Diana’s endurance is something that I think people who groan about her may not fully appreciate. The Seventies were not a particularly good time for Britain. Increasing unemployment, the Winter of Discontent and economic recession certainly caused a downer for the media. When Lady Diana Spencer married Prince Charles and became HRH The Princess Charles (‘Princess Diana’ was never her proper title but a media-given one) it was a massive TV event, the most watched event in history, in fact. When Diana showed herself to be much more open and natural with the public she generated a furore around her both inside and outside the somewhat shabby, musty royal family. Her popularity in the Commonwealth and USA meant that she was a global celebrity and the fact that she was royal meant that this celebrity had a glamour that no music artist or film star could ever quite manage to emanate. Her different media incarnations ‘fairy tale princess’ ‘betrayed wife’ ‘femme fatale’ and, at the time of her death, ‘saint’ allowed her to be re-invented and freshened-up in a way even Madonna could not aspire to. Yes, the 20th Century had other great stars with equally shocking deaths: Marilyn Monroe, John Lennon and Elvis, but Diana was the first to live through the development of the global, 24- hour media and was perhaps the first who was able to consciously use the media to serve her agenda, at once both charitable to those in need and vindictive to the family she felt had rejected her. On her final holiday with the Fayeds in the Mediterranean “invasive” shots were taken of Diana kissing Dodi. Media insiders have indicated that the paparazzi were conveniently there at the right time, having been called personally by the princess herself on certain occasions. This media-aware celebrity is a worn-out image to us in 2008, wearied by Jordan and Peter’s infinite ‘look we’re fascinating’ shows, Jodie Marsh and her search for a husband etc. However, they are the limp, flagging end of a trend set by Diana which she managed to pull off with infinitely more finesse. Put simply: Diana changed what celebrity meant, she was the first monopolising force in the British tabloid press. Her death left an enormous vacuum into which ‘Spicemania’ slotted neatly and later was refined to the more manageable ‘Beckhamania.’ It’s hard to believe that the ‘celebrity for celebrity’s sake’ has not been around for ever but it, all of it, the weeklies like heat, the celebrity circuit around London, the constant exposing of private lives in the press, began with Diana. In addition to her historical importance as a pop culture revolutionary, she caused or at least coincided with a dynamic change in the emotional life of British society. Apart from the usual pseudo- sociological comment about how Diana’s death and the communal grief that ensued caused a more ‘touch-feely’ culture, there are actual significant points to be made about how Diana’s popularity for her charity work, despite betraying the British ideal of emotional restraint, juxtaposed with the rise of New Labour. Tony Blair’s celebrity politics, calls for reform and dispensing with formalities of government was an ideal bedfellow for the Diana-era. Now, I’m not saying New Labour is a child of the Diana phenomenon but it certainly lent itself to and seized upon the cultural shift caused by Diana and her death. Masses of people crying in public, a general appetite for sentimentality and a need to discuss ‘my feelings’ are all part of the change Diana helped to engender and this, along with her historical importance in the chronology of the British media are what should still be discussed in history books and biographies, not repeated stories in the press that give the illusion we are talking about a person who belongs in our world today. So should we still be writing and reading about Diana? On the one hand, my answer to this has to be, at least partly, yes, because I am writing about her now, and to write about how she shouldn’t be written about is just stupid. There are plenty of criticisms that can be fairly levelled at Princess Diana – she was a privileged aristocrat who achieved her fame and status by marrying, nothing more. If you are a monarchist, her unseemly display of her marriage’s breakdown and her own adultery was probably quite unpleasant for her sons and did untold damage to the moral sheen the Royal Family had enjoyed throughout the 20th Century. If you despise the monarchy, it could be that the media’s portrayal of Diana as a tormented saint who was driven to bulimia by an archaic and uncaring family life is a hard pill to swallow given the amount of women who suffer actual domestic violence and eating disorders in private without the option of a separate palace and a lucrative divorce settlement. Yes, Diana did work for charity – but should this be regarded as a bonus for a Royal who gained a significant amount of material advantages by historical accident. Of course, you may not care at all. Indeed, perhaps what should be remembered, above all, is that this moral evaluation is not even of a living person, but a woman ten years dead. Apart from forming her memory amongst her immediate family, these questions are no longer relevant. To the common dichotomy often used about Diana: saint? Or media whore? A third question ‘who cares?’ is easily added. Most readers of this article will have been under ten when the Princess of Wales died. How could she be even remotely relevant to people our age, who don’t even have a sentimental attachment to the living Diana? Even my enthusiasm about her is quasi- historical, like others’ love of Tudor Queens or Napoleon biographies. Yet clearly there are others who would disagree with me. Even if Diana’s life character and media persona belong to the realm of popular history books and biographies awaiting purchase by the annual exodus of sun-worshippers in Heathrow, the rather limp suggestion of a political scandal behind her death is used as means to keep her in the current media. Like the editors of the Daily Express, jokingly referred to in Fleet Street as the Di-ly Express, who run endless headlines about the alcohol consumption of Diana’s driver Henri Paul and photo-fits of her and Dodi’s ‘secret baby.’ It is clear from this that to some people, somewhere, Diana is good money for old journalistic rope and she still gets magazines and papers off shelves across the world. The people who complain that they shouldn’t be forced to keep on reading about Diana or enter into some communal grief over her death are usually like those bores that go on and on about Big Brother being trash but continue to read about the new romances of ‘Chiggy’ for months after the series has ended. Even the incredibly dull memorial service of last summer, which looked like a pale imitation of Diana’s chic, star-studded funeral, drew millions of viewers. The Diana-brand goes on into perpetuity because there is still outstanding public demand for it. Simple as. And what about that the intrigue surrounding her death? Perhaps Diana only remains famous because the circumstances of her death have provided media moguls and have-a-go conspiricists to run with the greatest story of political assassination since John F Kennedy. I don’t believe Diana was murdered. Some of the conspiracies are rather amusing for their sheer absurdity, however. The idea that Prince Phillip, a man in his mid-seventies at the time, heard Diana was pregnant by Dodi Fayed and thought a) Oh no. A Muslim baby! and then b) We’ll simply have to get MI6 to run her off the road in Paris, is hard to swallow. Switched blood samples, a delayed ambulance, a white Fiat Uno and a secret wedding ring all complete the (absolutely fictional) picture. It all has the makings of a good detective novel – but this novel has now been serialised over a decade. The conspiracies are wearing thin. I am a Diana fan who recognizes she is longsince dead, its time for the judiciary and the media to follow suit.

…I'd move Oxford up north. For a centre of worldwide academic eminence, Oxford’s founders were surprisingly stupid when deciding where to put it. If I were establishing a community of scholars and the only two spaces left on Earth were in Hell and the Thames Valley, I’d have to toss a coin. The unfortunate proximity of South-East England to the Continent ensures winters are ludicrously cold, while building a city between two rivers doesn’t seem like such a bright idea now that global warming means constant rain on North Parade (which is, typically of Oxford, actually south of South Parade). Starry-eyed Southerners will champion Oxford’s proximity to London nightlife as a selling point, but all I’m saying is that I’d never heard the phrase ‘I’ve been mugged again’ until I met a Londoner. Although possibly they’re just referring to paying £20 to get into a club.No – as we approach Oxford’s second millennium of academic excellence, it’s clear that drastic reform is needed. We simply must move Oxford up North.This might seem like the kind of radical governance that’d have Congregation forcing me out of the job by half-past nine in the morning (‘You’re going to do what to me? Write a strongly-worded letter to the Telegraph? Oh, please, Professor, anything but that!’), but a move up North would alleviate many of the university’s problems. Few colleges have the space to accommodate students on site for the duration of their course. Some build annexes, but space is at such a premium in central Oxford that many are closer to Coventry than Carfax. If Oxford were up North, living out would become affordable. Rooms in student houses cost about £60 per week in my home city of Liverpool, while at Edinburgh University, for £75 a week, I could live in the grand district of Morningside. Colleges would find acquiring land for annexes no problem, as derelict mills in Lancashire go for about a tenner, and are a damn sight more beautiful than the kind of sixties monstrosity erected by most Oxford colleges.The quality of food in Hall often evokes consternation, the catch being that colleges are either accomplished but too expensive (such as my own, with delicious formals that, at £8, cost about as much as a deposit on a house in Newcastle) or cheap but uninspiring (such as a certain rather academic college, where the fact that this is the JCR food rep’s third successive year in office can only mean that the students are too busy revising to eat in Hall ever.) Yet kitchen facilities in many colleges are poor or non-existent, and eating out in Oxford is prohibitively expensive for those on tight budgets. Up North, however, eating out is gloriously cheap.
According to a national newspaper’s study of various UK locations, Oxford has the unhealthiest air, more polluted even than in London, and breathing it is apparently the equivalent of smoking 60 fags a day – but minus the steadying effect on the nerves. In my first term at university, I developed a chronic asthmatic wheeze which disappears whenever I return to Liverpool, and recurs every time I come back to Oxford. Similarly, as a fresher I acquired a nasty rash on my arms and legs until I was informed that it was probably the drinking water, the River Thames being the most polluted in the country. I stopped, and the rash disappeared. If for no other reason then, as Vice-Chancellor my main concern would be the health of students, something which would be far easier to maintain just a little further from its unfortunate location.by Heather Ryan

Smoking causes cancer. ‘Really?’ I hear you say, ‘Thanks ever so much for that original and enlightening gem of information; from now on I will refrain from such a potentially lethal habit.’ Or perhaps not. We have been saturated with messages like this ever since primary school, to the point that they lose their impact on their bored listeners, and so it is easy to forget that those living in a pre-Richard Doll existence were ignorant to such findings. ‘Who is this miraculous man?’ you wonder breathlessly (although admittedly that’s not in amazement but due to the fact that you’ve just smoked a box of Lambert and Butlers.)Richard Doll was heavily involved in research into the relationship between smoking and cancer, a connection he and his colleagues discovered through a study of lung cancer patients. The original hypothesis of these observations theorised that the individuals in question were perhaps affected by the then-new material of tarmac, or perhaps car fumes, until it was discovered that the only connection between them was their tobacco habit (although the suggestion that Richard noticed this trend when joined by the fifty-or-so participants for a quick ciggie on the fire escape is fabricated by, well, me actually).Doll’s place in history was thus established, and while some say that all roads lead to some dusty old place called Rome, it was perhaps inevitable that Richard would end up in Oxford. And so he did, taking up the post of Regius Professor of Medicine in 1969, beginning a new chapter in his very busy career as he almost single-handedly changed public perceptions of epidemiology and became the first warden of Green College.Doll was actually a bit of a multi-tasker. While his work at Oxford is significant in its own right, his findings elsewhere transformed public perceptions of what was once seen as a harmless habit (the children of the Russian royal family couldn’t get enough of the stuff), and brought home its true implications. The fact that we poor students don’t get a tenner every time we give blood (à la USA) is kind of his fault though, as he was key in avoiding such an idea through his work with the National Blood Service. Oh well. You win some, you lose some.by Gareth Peters

Rhian Harris investigates the GM revolution Like many students at Oxford, I make a basic effort as a consumer to choose products that are environmentally-friendly, and where risks to producers’ health have been minimised. I try to choose the ‘organic’ or ‘fair trade’ option where available at Sainsbury’s Local, buy an organic lunch from Green’s café and opt for fair-trade flowers. Until recently, if you’d asked me whether I would buy genetically modified foods, I’d have said no, citing possible environmental hazards, the risk to human health and ‘unnaturalness’ as my reasons. It was in the mid-1990s that the first GM foods became available in Britain and the controversy surrounding them really began. Under the influence of tabloid hysteria and the label ‘Frankenfoods’, many people opposed GM foods – despite knowing little of the actual facts – and supported the move by supermarkets to remove all related ingredients from their own brand products. “In response to overwhelming customer concern and demand for non-GM foods, Sainsbury’s was the first major supermarket to eliminate GM ingredients from all its own brand products”, says one of the nation’s biggest stores. Yet those who cover genetic modification as part of degree subjects such as biology will know the benefits of such a concept, and perhaps realise that it has the potential to improve the food security of many of the starving in the developing world, radically improve human health and save threatened ecosystems. Genetic modification is typically defined as the insertion, deletion or modification of a single gene in the genome of a target organism. A gene inserted can be from any other organism and can be achieved through use of the bacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens. This normally infects plants through wounds and transfers part of its own DNA into the host plant genome, causing the plant to produce substances necessary for the bacterium’s survival. In genetic engineering, this DNA can be removed and replaced with a desired gene, then inserted into the host plant genome. In alternative methods, particles of tungsten or gold can be coated with DNA containing the gene of interest and fired into the nucleus of the cell, where the DNA then recombines into the genome. Genetic modification is just a very precise method of crop improvement: just one gene is altered, the sequence and function of which is well known. In traditional crop breeding between related variants meanwhile, many genes are transferred, not just those for the desired character, leading to potential unexpected side effects.
GM technology has potential to enable farmers to produce higher crop yields on the same area of land, without resorting to using expensive and environmentally damaging chemicals. The world’s population is expected to grow 2.5 billion by 2050, with the majority of this increase in developing countries. To support this growth in countries such as China and India (1 kg meat requires around 3-10 kg grain), cereal crop yields will need to double in this time. However, virtually all land available for agriculture is already being used – the only other suitable land is currently tropical rainforest. Destruction of the wealth of biodiversity supported by such areas (more than one-third of all the world’s species are found in the Amazon rainforest) is damaging the environment much more than any potential negative environmental impacts it has been claimed GM crops may have. While GM foods are considered unnatural by many, most don’t consider that ‘natural’ crop plants grown today are dramatically different from those they were derived from in the wild due to traditional selective breeding. Additionally, the little-known use of X-ray irradiation to induce mutations in plants, a far more haphazard process than that of genetic modification, fragments and changes much of the genome. That’s certainly not natural, and yet the public trust in the sensationalism of the media, unaware of the alternatives.GM opponents such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth are impeding a technology which could have major benefits for those in the Third World. Farmers in places such as Africa have seen their crops fail as a result of environmental stresses including drought, and if GM technology could engineer plants better able to resist these stresses it could go some way to reducing the global figure of 30,000 dying every day from starvation. Additionally, populations in developing countries often survive on just one or two staple crops, such as rice. These crops often lack enough macronutrients such as protein and many micronutrients such as vitamins and minerals, and this can lead to serious deficiency diseases, such as blindness resulting from a lack of Vitamin A affecting 250,000 children each year. GM technology offers the opportunity to improve the nutritional content of food, and with the correct technology, which can be used to create more beneficial versions of food (Golden Rice for example contains higher levels of beta-carotene) it is important that the knowledge and necessary materials are made available to those in developing countries.Another potential benefit of genetic modification for those in the developing world is in the production of oral vaccines. There, vaccinations by injection are not always carried out under sterile conditions, risking infection. There are also problems with keeping the vaccines cold during storage and transportation. With GM technology, plants have been engineered to produce antigens, which can be delivered orally and invoke the antibody response in human trials, with the potential to produce resistance against diseases such as hepatitis and dysentery.A survey of Britons in 2003 found that only 2% would be happy to eat GM foods, and this is understandable: for a start, the media has hardly let up in its scare-mongering about GM. Consumers have not really seen many clear benefits yet because the traits that have been introduced have mainly been for the benefit of the producer. They also currently have little faith in scientists or regulatory organisations following debacles such as the recent foot and mouth virus escape from a Surrey laboratory. In 1996, a clearly labelled tomato paste made from genetically-modified tomatoes was sold in supermarkets across Britain. This test showed that, in 1996, the public were willing to accept GM foods: the paste was cheaper than its non-GM counterpart, reportedly tasted better, and sold well. However, the attitude of the public to GM food changed and three years later the paste was removed from sale. Today, GM ingredients are sometimes used in food products, and these products have to pass far more stringent safety assessment by the European Food Safety Authority than conventional new foods, despite the fact that, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, “in those countries where transgenic crops have been grown, there have been no verifiable reports of…health or environmental harm.”The only GM crops that have ever been grown in Britain were those in the government Field-Scale Evaluations; used to test the ecological impact and safety of GM crops, but which were often ruined by extremist environmental groups. However, GM crops (mostly maize, soyabean and cotton) which have been modified to be herbicide and insecticide resistant have been grown in other countries since 1996 and are currently grown on 250 million acres in 22 countries across the world, by around 9 million farmers – so Britain is very much unusual in its anti-GM attitude. GM expert and Oxford University Sibthorpian Professor of Plant Sciences Dr Chris Leaver opines that “GM crops are not a silver bullet which will feed the starving millions or reverse the impact of man-made climate change. However, if we are to satisfy the real and legitimate environmental concerns associated with modern high input agriculture and the threat of global warming, and still feed the increasing world population in a sustainable and environmentally friendly manner, we must assume responsibility for fully evaluating the potential of GM. Doing nothing is not an option.” So next time you’re at the supermarket and tempted to pay that little bit extra for the organic crisps, or mulling over the ingredients of your lunch in hall, ignore the hype around these so-called Frankenfoods and tuck in.

Cherwell24Editor: Selena Wisnom
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CherwellEditors: Laura Pitel and Tom Seymour
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Bild (sensationalist red-top) columnist Franz Josef Wagner always writes a letter to a person or  group as his regular newspaper piece. His latest one is one to cut out and keep, or at least to laugh at:

Dear Hillary Clinton,

You are like a bird that rises rejuvenated from the ashes. For the ancient Greeks, the phoenix was the symbol of second chance.

All the TV pundits, the pollsters, CNN, Spiegel Online, the BBC, BILD, me, even Bob Woodward, the legendary Watergate reporter for the Washington Post, were wrong in their analyses.

Hillary Clinton was a casserole fowl [eh?], shattered by everything. And suddenly Hillary Clinton cries in a coffee shop in New Hampshire.

The world media’s failure was not to view the tears as genuine. When a woman cries, no biological secret comes out of her eyes [‘scuse me?]. A woman who cries should be hugged and patted on the back.

Hillary Clinton achieved it with tears.

Warmest regards,

F. J. Wagner

I can’t be bothered to translate any more, so German speakers can check out Wagner’s previous letter, in which he describes Hillary’s marriage to Bill as

a flower pressed inside a poetry anthology.

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