Oxford university

‘Whatever you do, don’t call them snowflakes,’ Caroline said the last time I spoke to Oxford students. ‘That’s not a grown-up way of conducting a political debate. It’s like calling you a gammon.’ She’s right, of course, but by God they make it hard. This week we learned that the Oxford University students’ union is planning to elect a ‘consultancy’ of ‘sensitivity readers’ to scrutinise articles in student newspapers before publication to make sure they won’t offend anyone. If the union has its way, the editor of Cherwell, one of Oxford’s oldest student publications, won’t have final say over what’s published in the weekly paper. Once he’s signed off on

My inbox is crowded with messages from Old Etonians attacking Simon Henderson, the headmaster of Eton. They are furious that he sacked a master, Will Knowland, for putting on YouTube his talk to boys about masculinity, and then refusing to take it down. As one complainant puts it: ‘Eton and Woke are both four-letter words, but they should have nothing in common beyond that.’ I agree, but the case is more complicated. In disciplinary questions, one must ask: ‘What else could the boss have done?’ Suppose I, when a newspaper editor, had told a staff journalist that he could not publish an article he had submitted, yet he went ahead

It’s three for three as far as positive outcomes from Covid vaccine trials are concerned. But the announcement from AstraZeneca and Oxford University, at a first glance, may not seem to be as exciting as those from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. The figures are a bit of a head-scratcher, so let’s look at them in more detail. Monday’s results from AstraZeneca and Oxford University state that the combined Phase 3 interim analysis from their COV002 and COV003 studies (based in the UK and Brazil respectively) included 131 Covid-19 cases and that the vaccine was found to be 70.4 per cent effective overall — but that vaccine efficacy in two dosing subgroups was

Was the Oxford vaccine trial paused? Mine wasn’t. I signed up for it last week, in the 55 to 69-year-old category, and I was told on Friday that I should continue posting my swabs and attending follow-up appointments.  My friends were keen to tell me I was ‘utterly mad’ to join a trial. But I believe in vaccines. So do most anti-vaxxers, incidentally. It would be a rare adult who hadn’t benefited from childhood inoculations against polio, diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough. My parents, who were raised in the 1930s, didn’t just believe in vaccines they rejoiced in them. When they were little it was all too common for a family to

‘What! No one told me,’ my husband shouted when I explained that the Hebdomadal Council at Oxford no longer existed (nor had since 2000). I don’t know why anyone should have told him, but I too regret its demise. Its title was high-sounding but meant no more than ‘a weekly meeting’. Indeed until an Act of Parliament in 1854, it was simply the Hebdomadal Meeting of heads of houses. We’d got on to that because my husband wanted the vice-chancellor of Oxford to jail some dons for writing a rude letter about her in the Daily Telegraph. He thought the proctors’ men could imprison them, in the Divinity Schools or

One of the paradoxes of the coronavirus crisis is that the need for public scrutiny of government policy has never been greater, but there’s less tolerance for dissent than usual. I’m thinking in particular of the work of Professor Neil Ferguson and his team at Imperial College London, which has done so much to inform the government’s decision-making. Remember, it was Professor Ferguson’s prediction last month that an extra 250,000 would die if the government didn’t impose extreme social distancing measures that led to the lockdown last week. Anyone questioning Professor Ferguson’s analysis is likely to be met with a tsunami of opposition. Witness the furious reaction provoked by Professor

Three weeks ago Amber Rudd travelled to Christ Church, Oxford, to speak to students about her experiences of being a female politician. She was there at the invitation of the UNWomen Oxford UK society, which had organised a number of events in the run-up to International Women’s Day on 8 March. But half an hour before she was due to appear, Rudd was told the event had been cancelled. Nothing to do with coronavirus, which had not yet swept the country. Rather, it was because a number of students had protested about the ex-Conservative MP being allowed to speak. Rudd had been no-platformed. The society published an apology on its

Britain is now locked down for at least three weeks, but could the government’s original policy of relying on herd immunity have been right all along? That is the inference of a team of epidemiologists from Oxford university, whose modelling produces remarkably different results from that of Professor Neil Ferguson and his team at Imperial College. It was the Imperial College model which, on Monday 16 March which led to the dramatic U-turn, and the government’s adoption of a complete suppression policy for Covid-19. Like everything being published about coronavirus at the moment, the Oxford study comes with a health warning.  An Italian study published yesterday suggests that between 50

The cellar room is almost silent save for the sound of slurping and spitting and the odd gentle sigh. One woman has her head buried in a bucket, while a chap lays his on the desk before raising a hand and asking for a refill. It has the air of a rather polite orgy, only everyone is fully dressed. Welcome to the 67th blind wine-tasting Varsity match. The 14 men and women in the basement of Berry Bros & Rudd in St James’s have the most educated palates in Oxbridge. They know their D’Arsac from their Albariño. Unlike in the Boat Race, there are no blues on offer, just reds,

The Free Speech Union has submitted a letter of complaint to the Rector of Exeter College after the Oxford history professor Selina Todd was barred from addressing a conference at the college on Saturday. Todd was stopped from speaking about the women’s liberation movement at an event that she had helped organise after trans activists complained about some of her views.  The Rector, Professor Sir Rick Trainor, has acknowledged the letter and said the matter will be investigated under the College’s complaints procedure.