The Left, the Student Unions, and the NUS: We Were Warned But It's Not Too Late

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Jack J Matthews (President-Elect, University) is reading for a DPhil in Earth Sciences, and has been recently elected NUS Delegate for the Oxford University Student Union

Some things are just accepted as a given. The United Kingdom won’t do well in the Eurovision Song Contest. The NUS and Student Unions are mainly controlled by students who are politically left of centre. The Pope is a Catholic. However, just because it is so now, doesnt mean it always has to be so.

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Victory in 2015 will be decided on the battlefields of the North

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 James Heywood (Secretary, Magdalen) is an undergraduate reading History.

In next year’s local elections, I will be standing as the Conservative candidate for Stretford in Trafford, Greater Manchester. As recently as 1996 the ward had a Conservative councillor, and they had won the seat with 53 per cent of the vote. Today, the Tory vote has hemorrhaged so dramatically that I can nominate safe in the knowledge that I will not need to worry about explaining to the Magdalen porters why my mail is now addressed with ‘Cllr’ before my name.

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New website and blog

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Dear all,

I'm delighted to unveil the new OUCA blog. This is the first part of our new web presence, which will make it easier to access information about the Association, our events, and the contribution we make in Oxford and beyond.

The blog currently features several articles from the recent commemorative edition of Blueprint , which was dedicated to our late patron, Baroness Thatcher (Ex-President, Somerville). It is a suitable place for members who wish to opine on current affairs, comment on public policy, or review some of the Association's events; please don't feel any hesitation in submitting something to the Publications Editor, Louie Brockbank, no matter how brief.

If you have any suggestions or comments, please get in touch. 

Many thanks,

Robert Greig (President, Magdalen)

 

Margaret Roberts: The OUCA Years

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 Jack Matthews (Ex-Returning Officer, University) is reading for a DPhil in Earth Sciences.

Earlier this term we paid our respects to Baroness Thatcher; a truly great woman who rendered memorable service to her country, and the cause of freedom worldwide. Many will know her within our Association as the ex-President, Somerville and our Patron, but her time with OUCA is much richer and has potential to cast light on her political choices later in life.

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Thatcher and Somerville

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Harry Challands (Treasurer-Elect, Somerville) is an undergraduate reading Law. He would  like to extend his greatest appreciation to Somerville College Library for their help with research and accessing materials.

When young Margaret Roberts first arrived in Oxford, she could not have foretold the classic love story that was to develop between her and one whose beauty she aptly referred to as 'unpretentious'. This relationship would go on to have all the signs of a romantic chick-flick. The initial fear and heart pounding of the introduction, the good times followed by the big test of the relationship (which of course both parties pulled through) ending on an endorphin inducing high.  I am of course not talking of the love she had for her lifelong partner and lover Dennis Thatcher. I am talking of a love far more important in shaping both the fundamentals of her character and her life: the love between Margaret Thatcher and her college.

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The Mother Of Modern Britain. Thatcher: An Obituary

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James Heywood (Communications Director, Magdalen) is an undergraduate reading History.

“Your postscript,” wrote the young Margaret Roberts in response to an invitation to join Oxford University Socialist Club, “presses me to buy The Oxford Socialist at fourpence a copy. Unfortunately we still live under a competitive system, and my party’s newspaper only costs me threepence.” Even in her university days at OUCA, our esteemed Ex-President had already grasped the common sense ideas which she would one day use to transform the lives of millions of us.

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The Original Inception: Margaret Thatcher and the USSR

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 Maxim Stolyarov is an undergraduate reading PPE at New College.

It is generally well-known that it was a Soviet journalist who first called Margaret Thatcher ‘the Iron Lady’. What is not very well known is the exact role Lady Thatcher played in bringing down the Soviet Union. One reads very often that her role was ‘central’, and yet her only widely recognised contribution is opening Gorbachev to the West with one phrase: ‘We could do business together’. That is it. That is as much as most know of Margaret Thatcher’s involvement. Even after hours of research, I still know surprisingly little about what exactly it is that Baroness Thatcher had done, although every author seems to be convinced that her figure was central to the fall of Communism. So I neither can, nor want to write a historic account of the involvement of Margaret Thatcher with the Soviet leadership. I shall only try to humbly present my own account of what Lady Thatcher’s role seems to have been.

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Lord Hurd Visits OUCA

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Richard Black is an undergraduate reading History at Lincoln College, Oxford.

On Thursday 16th May, we were fortunate enough to witness a talk by Douglas Hurd, Baron of Westwell, at Corpus Christi College. Lord Hurd spoke at length about his political life under three Conservative Prime Ministers – Edward Heath, Margaret Thatcher and John Major. Being a patrician of the old guard of Tory politicians, his thoughtful insights were welcomed by us all.

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Global Britain

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Daniel Hannan, Ex-President (Oriel), is Conservative MEP for South East England and blogs at hannan.co.uk

There is usually a time lag in politics. Pundits carry on citing obsolete statistics for years. Even when they catch up with the facts, they are slow to adjust their world-view to them.

How often, for example, do you hear politicians and journalists claiming that ‘half our exports’ – or even ‘the majority of our exports’ – go to the EU?

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15 years ago...

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 Harry Burt

The first months of 1987 were dominated by election fever: no-one knew when the General Election was going to be, but it was certain

ly coming. The selection of the date by Margaret Thatcher's government was going to be no easy task; virtually every poll held in 1986 had suggested that the Conservatives would need to pull one out of the hat if they were to win a majority.

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